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Video Recordings Bill

My Lords, the Video Recordings Bill is a short Bill with a single, but important, purpose. It is designed solely to repeal and revive the provisions of the Video Recordings Act 1984, including the offences under the Act. The 1984 Act established a system of age classification for video works, administered by the British Board of Film Classification together with a regime of criminal offences and penalties. As I explained in my business statement to this House last week, this Bill is the first to be introduced with the intention of fast-tracking it since the Constitution Committee published its report on Fast-track Legislation: Constitutional Implications and Safeguards. Also in my statement, I gave a full explanation of our reasons for seeking to use the fast-track process, which are set out more fully in the Explanatory Notes. However, I know that many in the House are concerned by the constitutional implications of fast-track legislation. To help to allay those concerns, and for the benefit of those noble Lords who were not able to be present last week, it would be helpful for me to briefly restate our reasons for taking this approach. Unfortunately, the offences under the 1984 Act were made unenforceable because of a failure to notify the offences and other provisions of the 1984 Act in draft to the European Commission in accordance with the technical standards directive. This failure to notify was discovered only in August last year in the course of preparing the draft Digital Economy Bill, to which we will be returning in Committee later today. Until the provisions of the 1984 Act are made enforceable, no new prosecutions can be made under the Act. This means that publishers of video games and DVDs can distribute their goods free of classification requirements, and retailers can sell or supply classified and unclassified material, including explicit pornography, to any person regardless of age, with limited statutory powers to stop or prosecute them. This is not a theoretical concern. While many suppliers, to their great credit, are continuing to act responsibly, some are not. A briefing paper on the Bill produced jointly by the British Board of Film Classification and the Local Authorities Co-ordinators of Regulatory Services, which I am sure many members of this House will have seen, lists a series of infringements of the VRA’s provisions taking place across the whole country. I will not repeat them here, but suffice it to say that this is a real problem and unscrupulous suppliers across the whole country are taking advantage of the unenforceability of the Act. The Government are therefore seeking to fast-track the Video Recordings Bill in order to restore the protection afforded to the public under the 1984 Video Recordings Act as soon as possible. The Bill consists of only two clauses and one schedule. Clause 1 repeals the provisions of the 1984 Act and immediately revives them. Clause 2 relates only to the Short Title, commencement and extent of the Bill. The Schedule to the Bill sets out transitional provisions to ensure that the repeal and revival of the provisions of the 1984 Act do not change their effect. The Bill does not introduce any new provisions or offences into the 1984 Act; the 1984 Act is simply revived without any substantive changes. On the issue of repealing and reviving the Act, I know that there is a great deal of interest in the question of whether past convictions under the 1984 Act will stand. I am pleased to reassure noble Lords that, as I understand it, these convictions continue to stand unless and until they are formally set aside by the court. The normal time limit for making an appeal is 21 days from the magistrates’ court and 28 days from the Crown Court. Where the normal time for appeal has expired, the Crown Prosecution Service has advised prosecutors to oppose applications for extensions of time and permission to appeal against conviction. My understanding is that the court is likely to give permission to appeal out of time in these cases only in exceptional circumstances, as it will look beyond technicalities and consider whether there has been any substantial injustice. As such, the court would be unlikely to grant permission to appeal out of time where the conviction was obtained following a full court process. I am also aware that the fact that the 1984 Act is currently unenforceable due to a failure to notify in draft under the technical standards directive has caused concern that other legislation might be affected in a similar manner. Once again, I am pleased to reassure the House that the Government are not aware of any other UK legislation that is currently unenforceable because of a failure to notify its provisions in draft under the technical standards directive. Furthermore, to make absolutely sure, the Permanent Secretaries of the Cabinet Office and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills have written jointly to colleagues in other departments to bring this matter to their attention. They have stressed the need to check current compliance with the directive and have provided help and guidance on how to do that. The House may also ask whether the Video Recordings Act is still relevant in an age when films and video recordings can be downloaded from the internet at the click of a button and are available to view in the home, with no censorship or control over inappropriate content. The internet, of course, raises important questions about how to control inappropriate content and the Government have some concerns in this area. That is why we followed Professor Tanya Byron’s recommendation and established the UK Council for Child Internet Safety. None the less, it is important to realise that the market for boxed videos and video games is still considerable and is likely to continue to be so for some time to come. When the Video Recordings Act was passed in 1984 there were 4 million video recorders in the United Kingdom. In 2008, according to the British Video Association, there were 55 million DVD players in the UK. The total market of DVDs, Blu-ray DVDs and videos sold in 2008 in the UK was worth £2.3 billion. That is a large industry and there continues to be a large market for buying a physical product containing video recordings and video games. Indeed, senior executives in three of the major electronics companies—Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft—have gone on record recently as saying that the technology is such that it will be some time yet before the digitally distributed product will overtake sales of the boxed product. Noble Lords may also ask whether it is necessary to repeal and revive the 1984 Act against such a tight timescale, given that there is other legislation which can be used to prosecute those supplying obscene material, particularly to young people. While there are some limited legal protections afforded by the Obscene Publications Act 1959, which can be applied to video recordings, the threshold for the commission of an offence under that Act is very high. As a consequence, there is a considerable gap between the protections provided by the classification regime under the 1984 Act and what might fall foul of the Obscene Publications Act. There is another important facet of the Video Recordings Act which is missed by focusing on legal sanctions. It is true that the Act stops the circulation of the worst kind of material by ensuring that it will not receive a classification and by making it an offence to supply unclassified video works. However, the vast majority of DVDs and videos on sale do not contain material which is unacceptable. A majority, of course, contain material which attracts an age classification. It is these age classifications which are used by consumers, particularly parents, to help them make purchasing choices about the suitability of the content of such products for their children. Independent research conducted on behalf of the British Board of Film Classification shows that 71 per cent of adults make use of the classification rating of films to guide their purchasing decisions at least some of the time. The briefing document on the Video Recordings Bill, which I referred to a moment ago and which is jointly produced by the BBFC and LACORS, contains the worrying information that submissions to the BBFC in November last year are down, year on year, by 38 per cent since the problem with the Video Recordings Act came to light. Thus, there is a compelling case for the Government to take action as quickly as possible to close this legal loophole. Indeed, all the key stakeholders representing those who manufacture and supply videos and DVDs, and those who enforce the regulations on video classification, have endorsed the need to close the legal loophole which currently exists by making the 1984 Act enforceable as soon as possible. In concluding, I will also touch on the issue of video games and how this Bill interacts with the Digital Economy Bill, which is currently before the House. In line with the recommendations made by Professor Tanya Byron in her report Safer Children in a Digital World, we plan to amend the Video Recordings Act 1984 as part of the Digital Economy Bill. Our amendments will introduce a new system of classification for video games using the Enhanced Pan-European Games Information system and will appoint a new statutory body, the Video Standards Council, to undertake the role of classifying games. We cannot bring these changes into force, however, until the Video Recordings Act has first been repealed and then revived by this Bill. I know that a number of noble Lords feel strongly about the need for an improved approach to classifying video games. In furtherance of that objective I urge all those who take this view to support the passage of this Bill to ensure that this can subsequently happen in the Digital Economy Bill. Thus, in summary, the Video Recordings Bill does not introduce any new provisions or offences into the 1984 Act. It simply restores a system of classification that has been in operation for the past 25 years and which has worked to stop the circulation of the worst kind of video material. It is a system that is well understood and liked by a clear majority of the public and the industry. Indeed, the latest survey carried out on behalf of the BBFC shows that those surveyed agreed 99 per cent of the time with the classifications set by the BBFC. The Bill is essential to ensure proper protection of the public from the inappropriate supply of violent and sexual video material by making the offences under the Video Recordings Act 1984 enforceable. As soon as the Bill has received Royal Assent, we will issue a press release announcing that fact and ensure that all the key stakeholder bodies are aware so that they are able to notify their members that the Act is enforceable once again. I am sure noble Lords will share the Government’s desire that these public protections be reinstated as soon as possible. Accordingly, I beg to move.