Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if he will hold discussions with the music industry on a voluntary video rating and classification code for music videos.

The British Board of Film, the music industry and digital service providers are currently piloting voluntary video ratings for online music videos. To date 123 videos have been classified under this voluntary pilot and some 3000 members of the public are taking part in an evaluation of its impact. We look forward to seeing the results of the evaluation and will work with the industry to ensure that in future all online music videos that are inappropriate for younger children are age labelled.

In the offline world, last year we brought into force new legislation which requires music videos on DVD to be classified by the BBFC if they are unsuitable for children below the age of 12 and to carry the relevant BBFC age rating symbol on their packaging. It is a criminal offence to supply a music DVD rated BBFC 12, 16, 18 or R18 to anyone not meeting the age requirement.