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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

I resisted the temptation to intervene in your Lordships’ personal grief over these amendments. In my experience, there is always a rhythm with regard to important Bills in which for the first hour and 20 minutes on Amendment 1, whatever the amendment may say, a number of noble Lords will wish to get off their chests the thing that most concerns them about the Bill. Had I been trying to do that, I would not have picked this clause as the one to which to devote this amount of time. Of course, at the end of the day, we have to realise that it comes down to electoral politics. The noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, aided and abetted by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, have tabled a series of amendments that would simply delete all the powers given to Ofcom under Clause 1, culminating with their intention to oppose the Question that Clause 1 stand part of the Bill. We have been going through the amendments one by one but that is really what they feel. I wondered why that was when I saw the amendments, but then I read what the Leader of the Tory Party said the other day about what he feels should happen to quangos should he get into power. Ofcom is on the list of quangos to be reviewed in the event of a Tory Government coming to power. Underlying the debate is an attack on the role of Ofcom in the regulation of broadcasting and other services. The noble Lord, Lord Maxton, asked the $64 million question, that if Ofcom is not going to do this, who will, and he got a noble admission from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, that in his view the ministry should do it. That is fine if that is what he thinks, but I am also reminded of an interview with Mr Cameron the other day in which he said that all Whitehall departments must accept a very serious haircut if the Tories get into power. There is a bit of a mismatch with what is being proposed in the amendments. Ofcom should lose these powers, which should be handed over to Whitehall, which in turn will be subject to a serious haircut. Whether that would extend to the powers that the noble Lords, Lord Lucas and Lord Howard of Rising, would wish the Government to have, who knows? Noble Lords who follow the Bill’s progress will bear in mind, I am sure, that this amendment, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, is beloved of BSkyB, which has a serious concern about it and has lobbied everybody extremely hard. There are some fundamental misconceptions in both the approach of BSkyB and the noble Lord’s argument. The concern is obviously that Clause 1 would have the effect of skewing Ofcom’s decision-making so that it will favour the promotion of investment in public service broadcasters’ content at the expense of investment in other content. The amendment is intended to stop that perceived fear. However, there are two misplaced assumptions here. First—and the Minister may say this—the definition of public service media content makes it clear that such content means material included in media services generally, not just the services of the public service broadcasters. Secondly, for the content to qualify as public service media content it needs to meet one or more of the criteria set out in Section 264(6)(b) to 264(6)(j) of the Act, as amended by the Bill. When we look at that list, we see that it is very inclusive. It is not just cultural and educational content, but programming such as sports, feature films and news. There is not even a condition that it has to be on a free rather than a paid basis. In fact, a number of concerns that have been expressed, which reflect the BSkyB concerns, are to no avail and are not needed. On the final point made by the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, regarding a concern over Ofcom’s decision being challenged, I suspect that there would be an even greater risk of challenge if his amendment were carried. If, as he suggests, this should apply to media content generally, Ofcom could be challenged, for example, on why it was not ensuring investment in pornographic, teleshopping or gambling content. That would provide a much wider opportunity for challenge, so I fear that we on these Benches cannot support the amendment .