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Communications Act 2003 (Disclosure of Information) Order 2010

My Lords, I do hope that I will not speak for longer than the Minister, but I might speak for a minute or two. We on these Benches thank the Minister for introducing this statutory instrument, which implements the European Union’s audiovisual media services directive in the United Kingdom. The SI gives Ofcom the responsibility for ensuring that on-demand programme services meet the minimum standards and requirements, and allows Ofcom to designate other bodies to act as co-regulatory authorities for the services and to carry out some of the regulatory functions, as the Minister has said. This is a straightforward and logical arrangement. However, there are some small points that I would like to be clarified further. Given that this policy is due to be enacted this month, will the Minister tell the Committee who the co-regulators will be and what kind of operational arrangements Ofcom will have with its co-regulators? How it is envisaged that they will all keep each other informed, and what will happen if Ofcom and one of its co-regulators happen to make contradictory decisions on an issue at the same time? Will the Minister clarify the Government’s definition of video on demand? Will it include online services such as YouTube? What provisions are in place to manage watershed restrictions on video on demand to bring it into line with conventional television rules? What guidance or warnings will be made available to parents so that they can understand the workings of video on demand and best protect their children? Finally, I am interested to learn how video-on-demand services will be regulated in a converged and global communications world. The key point about the audiovisual media services directive is that a broadcaster regulator in the UK is free to broadcast throughout the EU. Although individual member states can request the UK Government to ask that broadcaster to comply with their broadcasting rules, which might differ from ours, they cannot compel, nor can the UK Government compel, the broadcaster so to do. This is an interesting loophole, which obviously becomes an enormous gap when one considers broadcasters outside the EU which communicate through the internet. How do the Government plan to tackle such a loophole?