John Whittingdale MP: speeches

Speeches

• 30 Jan 2025 · Business Confidence · Hansard source

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  But the Minister will be aware that in the last few weeks the CBI, the Institute of Directors and the London chamber of commerce have all said that business confidence is plummeting. Given the tsunami of national insurance contribution increases, business rates increases and employment cost rises, is it not hardly surprising that confidence is being destroyed? Are the Government, rather than promoting growth, not actually destroying it?

• 30 Jan 2025 · Business Confidence · Hansard source

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  9. What steps he is taking to help increase business confidence.

• 27 Jan 2025 · Creative Industries · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to take part in this debate and indeed to echo what has been said by many Members on both sides of the House. I think this debate will produce pretty much unanimity on the importance of our creative industries. It is a particular pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage)—my successor but three, I believe, as Chairman of the Select Committee—and I am going to concentrate on one or two of the things she said. It is happily now recognised how important the creative industries are to the UK’s economy. There has been a growing awareness of this over a long period, ever since a separate Department was founded in the form of the Department of National Heritage, which became the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The creative industries are something that the UK is extraordinarily good at. It is still the case that the best-selling music artists of all time, the Beatles, are British, as is the best-selling author of all time, Agatha Christie. And now, today, when we go to a Hollywood movie, the chances are that it will have been made in Pinewood, even though that is not immediately obvious from what we see on the screen. Advertisements also originate in this country, as does publishing, as the Minister and many other Members have highlighted. As the Minister said, there is an ecosystem whereby our most successful commercial creative enterprises rely on the subsidised sector, and vice versa. Let us take David Tennant as an example. He started life in “Hamlet” with the Royal Shakespeare Company, went on to “Doctor Who” and ended up in “Rivals”. I have seen all three, and they were all highly enjoyable. The subsidised sector has also benefited over the years from a Conservative invention, the national lottery. It has produced an enormous amount of money, which the taxpayer probably could not have afforded to invest, and many enterprises have benefited from that. I echo what has been said about the importance of education and the need to ensure that arts are at the core of our curriculum, and also about the importance of grassroots music venues. I went to a Music Venue Trust reception last week, as a number of Members did. I was really interested to hear the remarks of the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr Kohler). I did not quite get to the Roxy, but I did go regularly to the Marquee club in Wardour Street, with its sweaty atmosphere, where I heard people such as Buzzcocks and the Clash, and great bands such as Iron Maiden, who started off life in those small venues. It is a shame that the Marquee club is no longer with us and that so many venues still struggle, but I must say that had it not been for the culture recovery fund, which my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport oversaw as Minister in the Department during the covid pandemic, there would be virtually no small venues, or indeed large venues, left in this country. The culture recovery fund kept venues from the Hot Box in Chelmsford all the way up to the Royal Albert Hall going. They were looking over the precipice until the Government stepped in. The creative industries also bring enormous benefits to this country internationally. I, too, welcome the Government’s creation of the Soft Power Council. Having served as Chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, I now sit on the Foreign Affairs Committee, and we continue to collaborate between Committees in looking at the importance of soft power. About two weeks ago, we heard from the British Council, which was mentioned earlier in the debate. The British Council does an extremely important job, and it is ridiculous that it has to go to the Government every year and ask to have the loan rolled over, and that it is staring at insolvency until an agreement is reached. I hope that is something that the Government will now address. The British Council does many worthy things, but I have a soft spot for one thing in particular that it administers—I hope that both Ministers on the Front Bench share this—and that is the cultural protection fund. That is another initiative from this country in which we use our world-beating expertise from places such as the British Museum to help to ensure that some of the world’s greatest heritage is preserved, particularly when it is at risk from conflict. We need to recognise that there is an increasingly competitive environment across the creative industries. British music is still extraordinarily successful, but 2023 was the first year when there was no British artist among the top 10 best-selling artists across the world. Four of the best-selling artists in the world in 2023 were Korean. That shows where the markets are developing. They are developing in south America, too. It is important that we continue to support creative industries such as the music industry through, for instance, the music export growth scheme, which was set up by the last Government and which I know this Government are continuing. I welcome that and hope that it will be maintained. I also want to say a word about copyright, as almost every other speaker in this debate has done. I chair the all-party parliamentary group on intellectual property, and we recently had a meeting with the chairs of all the APPGs representing music, publishing, the visual arts and the media, who came together to listen to representatives of those creative industries express their deep concern about the Government’s suggestion that they might introduce an exception to the copyright protection, which would benefit AI. There are good things about AI. It is not a threat to be beaten off; it can be of real value to the creative industries. Companies such as Universal Music are using AI, and it is a new technology that consumers and those industries will benefit from. At the same time, protection is needed to ensure that intellectual property rights are not abused. The Minister says that there is legal uncertainty, but the fact that intellectual property rights owners are defending their rights by going to court does not mean that the law is wrong. They are using the law, but that does not necessarily mean that the law is not perfectly clear. We welcome elements of the Government’s proposals, and transparency is vital. If rights owners are to be able to protect their property, they first need to know where their property is being used. Transparency is the first essential requirement for that to happen, so I very much welcome the Government’s proposal to ensure transparency where AI large language models use content from across the internet to generate their own content. The consultation highlights the alarm about a text and data mining exception. On one hand, the Government say they are consulting on that, but on the other hand, when the Secretary of State made his statement in the House just a couple of weeks ago, he said that the Government were accepting all of Matt Clifford’s recommendations. One of those recommendations is to introduce a text and data mining exception, so I hope the Minister can say something about that.

• 27 Jan 2025 · Creative Industries · Hansard source

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  I am extremely grateful to the Minister, and it is of some reassurance that the Government’s mind is still open. I hope they will listen to the voices across the Chamber expressing concern. There is an objection in principle to option 3, which is the idea that rights holders have to opt out. It reverses what has long been the case—that people can rely on the protection of their rights unless they choose to give them up. They should not have to ask for their rights to be protected, and that is what an opt-out system entails. There would no longer be automatic protection under an opt-out system, and it would put a huge burden on many small rights holders. There is a suggestion that photographers might have to seek an opt-out for every picture they have ever taken. Now, I hope that is not the case, but a lot of uncertainty has been created. Each creative industry is different. As the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society told us last week, writers may want their works to be used for some purposes but not for others, but it appears that this will be a binary system in which they either opt in or opt out. This is also incredibly difficult to enforce. If somebody takes a picture of a painting on their phone and puts it on social media, how can the rights owner prevent it from being used by a large language model that goes out and absorbs all this content? As has already been said, there is no workable system in existence that allows for opting out. The EU has tried to introduce one and, as I am sure the Minister is fully aware, the robots.txt standard is supposed to identify—

• 27 Jan 2025 · Creative Industries · Hansard source

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  The Minister is entirely right—it is useless. The problem, therefore, is that there is no workable solution at the moment. The Minister and the Government have said that they will not introduce this option until there is a workable system in existence. That is reassuring, but how will the Minister decide whether a proposed system is indeed workable? If it is workable, how will it be enforced? Will individual rights holders have to go to court if they believe they have opted out but find that their works are still being used? There is a whole host of questions. I recognise the Minister’s commitment and wish to find a way to protect rights, but there are an awful lot of questions at the moment, and there do not appear to be any answers. I hope he can address some of those questions.

• 13 Jan 2025 · Artificial Intelligence Opportunities Action Plan · Hansard source

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  This morning the Prime Minister spoke about the Government’s wish to develop a clear and trusted copyright regime, which is, I believe, what many in the creative industries thought we already had. When the Secretary of State comes to consider Matt Clifford’s recommendation for reform of the text and data mining regime, will the consultation include consideration of potentially strengthening intellectual property protection rather than weakening it?

• 8 Jan 2025 · AI: Copyright in the Creative Industries · Hansard source

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  Does the Minister agree that transparency is crucial if creators are to understand where their works are being used by AI developers? Can he therefore assure me that the Government will legislate on transparency whatever the outcome of the consultation on copyright reform?

• 6 Jan 2025 · General Election · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. I, too, thank the Chair of the Petitions Committee, the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone), for introducing the debate, and, through him, Mr Michael Westwood, who has given us an opportunity to debate these matters. I am proud to speak on behalf of the constituents of Maldon, 8,057 of whom had signed the petition by the time this debate started—that figure has probably increased even further since. We are the second highest constituency, beaten only by the electors of my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), who I am sure would be here as well were he not serving on the Front Bench. I share the sentiments behind the petition in full, but, as has already been pointed out, clearly under our system the ability to have another general election does not exist, unless there is a remarkable change in the view of either the Prime Minister or of Parliament. Our system is designed to deliver a “strong and stable” Government, and most of the time it does that. I remain a supporter of the system of government, even though I understand the anger felt by the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage). It is the case that our system was built essentially for when there were two main parties, with perhaps a third minority. We now have not just a third, but a fourth, and even a fifth minority in some areas. That has produced this extraordinary result, whereby the present Government have a majority of 100 seats in Parliament, having achieved fewer votes than the Labour party achieved under its last leader, the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn). But that is the system that we have. The reason why this petition has attracted such support, and so quickly, is not just that people dislike what this Government are doing, but that they feel, as the petitioner sets out, that it is a direct breach of the promises made to the electorate at the time of the last general election. Even within a few weeks of the election, I was receiving angry emails from pensioners who had been misled. They had listened to claims by Labour spokesmen during the election that if they voted Conservative, a Conservative Government might abolish the winter fuel allowance. The implication of that was that a Labour Government would be safe and would protect the winter fuel allowance. Yet a few weeks later, it was announced that it would go. That was followed a few weeks later by the farmers. The farmers in my constituency had been to the National Farmers’ Union conference and had listened to the leader of the Labour party tell them, from the platform, that a Labour Government would have no intention of getting rid of agricultural property relief. Yet that was precisely what was announced in the Budget. The consequence is that families who have farmed in my area for generations, going back to their great grandparents, now say that they will have to sell up because they will not be able to afford the inheritance tax bill. I have also had letters from small businesses that understood that working people would not see a tax rise, but they—the people who employ those working people—now find that their entire profit has been wiped out by the increase in national insurance contributions, with the result that they will now have to either scrap pay rises this year or, in some cases, lay off staff. In my constituency in Essex—which, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) pointed out, was well represented in the petition—we were already faced with a massive amount of development taking place with no corollary in terms of infrastructure. The new housing targets that have been imposed in Maldon represent an increase of 100% on what was already required, while in Chelmsford they represent an increase of 60%—and yet there is no sign of the infrastructure investment. Those targets are being imposed on our local communities despite the Labour party saying that it would take into account the feelings of local communities. In all these areas, people listened to what they were told in the election and have found that the new Government have done precisely the reverse of what was promised.

• 6 Jan 2025 · General Election · Hansard source

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  I entirely sympathise with my right hon. Friend’s point. The winter fuel decision was a very direct breach of an undertaking given, but even with VAT on schools, which he correctly says was in the Labour party manifesto, it was said that the money it raised—if it does raise any money, which a number of us doubt—would be invested in employing teachers and go to schools. However, in the last few days, we have heard that there is no guarantee of that at all and the money will just go to the Treasury. The assurances given about how this will benefit state pupils have, again, proved worthless. There will not be an election unless something extraordinary happens; under our system, only the Prime Minister or Parliament can call an election early. I suspect the Father of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), is the only other person here who can remember when a Labour Government were brought down in a confidence vote in 1979. With a majority of 170, that is unlikely to happen to this Government. Prime Ministers who have called elections earlier than five years have found that it was not always a wise decision—as was certainly the case in 2017 and, arguably, in 2024—so the truth is we are likely to have this Government in power for the next five years, but I believe it is unlikely to be longer. We will use that time to regain trust. The new leader of the Conservative party is right that we have to work to do. We did not get everything right and, indeed, made some bad mistakes. We need to learn from that, just as the Conservative party did in 1974 and 1997, when we reflected on the reasons why we lost and worked hard to regain trust. However, in the meantime, we also have a job to do over the next five years in holding this Government to account. I echo the remarks of the Father of the House: even if this debate does not bring about a general election, I hope that Labour Members will listen to the voices expressed in terms of the 3 million signatures on the petition.

• 6 Jan 2025 · General Election · Hansard source

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  I want to give the hon. Gentleman a little more time. He is very keen to quote from the Labour manifesto. Will he comment on the third paragraph of the page introducing that manifesto, which states: “It contains a tax lock for working people—a pledge not to raise rates of income tax, national insurance or VAT.”?

• 19 Dec 2024 · Budget: Family Farms · Hansard source

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  Has the right hon. Gentleman seen the latest research, which shows that 75% of commercial farms will exceed the £1 million threshold and therefore will become liable for inheritance tax? Just to give him one example, a family in West Hanningfield in my constituency who have farmed for five generations say that they face a potential inheritance tax bill of £1.5 million. They say that it will put an end to all that has gone before and end the aspirations of their family. I plead with the Government to look at this again.

• 19 Dec 2024 · Budget: Family Farms · Hansard source

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  3. What assessment he has made of the impact of the autumn Budget 2024 on family farms.

• 19 Dec 2024 · Syria · Hansard source

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  The Minister will be aware of reports that up to £160 million is held in assets in the UK under the Syrian sanctions regime. Will she look at ways in which that money can be used in due course for the benefit of the people of Syria?

• 19 Dec 2024 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Minister’s confirmation of the Government’s support for Ukraine’s eventual membership of NATO. As a step along that road, will he look at the UK taking a lead in further integrating Ukraine into the joint expeditionary force?

• 18 Dec 2024 · BBC: Funding · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered the future funding of the BBC It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell, and to debate a subject that I seem to have spent a large part of my parliamentary career discussing, but which has become extremely appropriate to examine once again today. The Minister, who I have spent a lot of time debating over the last few years, last night replied to an Adjournment debate touching on the overall process under which the BBC charter will be renewed, but as she said last night—and she is completely right—the funding of the BBC is a central part of the charter renewal process, and what the BBC does will to some extent be affected by the money available to it and vice versa. I do think it is right that we look at the matter. I had responsibility less than 10 years ago for drawing up the charter under which the BBC currently operates. That was in 2015-16—only seven or eight years ago—but the changes that have taken place in the broadcasting landscape since are huge and continue to accelerate. At the time of the last charter, streaming did exist, but it was only a couple of years after Netflix had launched in this country, and there were still only one or two other streamers available. Since then, we have seen an explosion, with an enormous number of different streaming platforms that are investing heavily in extremely good content. Most people now enjoy streamed services as well as traditional broadcast, and subscribe, quite often, to several streamers. Despite the huge range of content that is now available, in my view—and I think the Government take the same view—public service broadcasting is still absolutely necessary, particularly in the core public service content areas of news and current affairs, which are not really provided by the streaming services. I continue to believe that there is a very important role for the BBC in this country’s broadcasting landscape, but my concern is that the traditional method by which the BBC is funded—through the licence fee—is going to become steadily harder to sustain. Even seven or eight years ago, we saw the beginning of the challenges. At that time, at the request of the BBC, we closed the iPlayer loophole, by which people were viewing BBC content on the iPlayer but not paying the licence fee. We said then, and it remains the case now, that if people watch live television in any form and if they use the iPlayer, they are required to have a TV licence. Other drivers have increased revenue for the BBC over the years, like the growth of single-parent households and immigration levels, meaning that more licences have been issued—but that trend has now reversed, despite the closing of the loophole; each year, fewer people are buying a television licence. In the course of the last year, the number of licences held has fallen by 500,000, and that movement is likely to continue. If we look at the public’s viewing behaviour, we find that less and less traditional broadcast television is being watched, particularly by young people. Most 16 to 24-year-olds now do not watch any live broadcasts each week—10 years ago, 80% did—and broadcast channels take up only 57% of all viewing, against TikTok, YouTube and all the other streaming services. People are genuinely saying, “We choose to subscribe and pay for Netflix, Amazon, Discovery, Apple and all the other streamers. We don’t see why, on top of that, we should have to pay for a TV licence when we don’t watch the BBC.” The TV licence does not just cover the BBC; it covers all live television viewing. Nevertheless, a lot of people can watch on catch-up the programmes that are available on the other public service channels. Genuinely, people are not required under the law to have a TV licence, and more and more are choosing not to have one. That will pose an increasing problem for the BBC. We have seen complaints from the BBC about the fact that the revenue available to it has been cut in recent years—like every other public service, it has been required to find efficiencies—but the director general has talked about the crisis that has been created by the lack of money and his inability to invest to compete. That situation is not likely to get any better if we continue with the licence fee; if anything, it will become steadily worse. I remember chairing a Select Committee—I think it was about 15 years ago—that looked at the funding of the BBC and the licence fee. At the time, we concluded that although the licence fee had many drawbacks, it was still probably the best available option. It is a regressive tax, it is criminally enforced and it is the case that among the people convicted of failing to pay, a large proportion are women. Those are all drawbacks of the licence fee, but at that time the alternatives did not seem possible. Certainly, advertising is not likely to be beneficial to the BBC or to the whole commercial television sector; there is not that much advertising revenue to go round, and if there were advertising on the BBC, it would result in a reduction for everybody else. There is an alternative option. A lot of people have said, “Why can’t the BBC charge a subscription, so people can choose whether or not to pay it?” The reason is simple. At the moment, most people still access the BBC and other traditional broadcasters through digital terrestrial television, or Freeview, and there is no mechanism for conditional access—in other words, the choice to receive a particular channel—with Freeview. At the launch of Freeview, the BBC was very keen that that should be the case, because it was worried about subscription, but it means that while a significant proportion of the population continue to rely on Freeview, we cannot move to subscription. But that will change. Both the last Government and this Government have said that Freeview will be maintained until 2034; it may well be that we need to maintain it for a bit longer. However, the transition to IPTV or internet protocol television—the provision of television over the internet—will steadily increase, and if people have smart TVs, which allow them to choose whether to subscribe to the streamers, it means they could also have the choice of whether to subscribe to the BBC. I think that that option is likely to become more attractive, although it will only really become viable when we reach the point where almost the entire population have IPTV, but for the reasons I have set out, it is important that we start to talk about it now. The last Government had future funding of the BBC panel, which this Government have not continued. On the other hand, I know that the Minister has set up a future of TV distribution panel, which does not look vastly different. Anyway, I am glad that the Government continue to look at the issue, which is why I think this is the right time to have this debate. There are certain things that will never be possible to have on a subscription basis, including BBC Radio—I do not think there is any way in which there can be conditional access on radio—and the World Service. I sit on the Foreign Affairs Committee and we are currently examining the World Service, which is of huge benefit to this country. It could not be provided on a subscription basis, as the people it is aimed at are certainly not in a position to pay. The World Service also makes a very valuable contribution to the reputation of the UK and to our soft power, and the BBC has said that it should be funded by the Foreign Office and not by the licence fee. That argument is quite attractive, although I recognise that it would be a big challenge for the Government to take on. The Minister gave evidence on the subject yesterday and it remains an issue that we will want to debate. With radio, it would be possible to extend advertising, but, as with any advertising on BBC TV, doing so would damage commercial radio. I am also slightly worried about the extent to which advertising is creeping in at the margin, with the BBC allowing advertising through podcast, which is increasingly the way in which people are accessing audio content.

• 18 Dec 2024 · BBC: Funding · Hansard source

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  I have sympathy with the hon. Gentleman. It is the case that the BBC provides more of the core public service content than the other PSBs—the others do, but not to the same extent. National and regional coverage of the type he has described is absolutely a core part of that. I think that needs to continue, and if the licence fee is not able to fund it, there is a case for it moving across to general taxation. There is a world in which the core PSB content is funded out of taxation, and then people could choose to subscribe to the content that is more entertainment based—a subscription model—but it is too early to say. These are the kinds of discussions that are fundamental to the next charter. I am delighted that the Government are now beginning to consider that. My purpose today is to flag up the extent to which the existing model cannot be sustained, and to begin having the debate.

• 18 Dec 2024 · BBC: Funding · Hansard source

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  I begin by thanking all hon. Members who have taken part in the debate. A number of criticisms of the BBC have been expressed, and I have my own criticisms; nevertheless, everybody recognises the value that the BBC brings to the UK and our society, and the importance of ensuring that it continues to play that important role. But there is a problem: the current model is looking harder and harder to sustain. I therefore suspect that we will continue to debate this issue over the coming weeks and years during the charter renewal process. I look forward to continuing my discussion with the Minister and others. I thank everybody for their contributions and join the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden and Solihull East (Saqib Bhatti), the Minister and all others in wishing all Members a very happy Christmas.

• 18 Dec 2024 · BBC: Funding · Hansard source

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  I agree. Yesterday, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee took evidence from the director general and the deputy director for news, Jonathan Munro, on this subject. He talked about the way the World Service provides its core language services and can also provide additional coverage quickly. Syria is a good example of where it is doing that. That is an extremely important role for the BBC, and one that I do not think could be funded in any way other than through public money. The BBC make a good case as to why the licence fee may no longer be appropriate, which we also need to consider. There are a large number of Members present in the Chamber, so I do not want to take up any more time. I hope that I have raised one or two questions that we will need to debate thoroughly over the course of the couple of years that lie ahead for the charter renewal.

• 18 Dec 2024 · BBC: Funding · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is completely right. She and I both had the pleasure of serving as Minister; I was delighted to stand in for her while she was on maternity leave, so we have both looked at the issue for some time. We have to look at the overall television landscape. If we allow advertising, or encourage the BBC to compete, it is likely to have an impact on the commercial sector, which completely depends on advertising revenue. Our traditional advertising-funded PSBs—ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5—are already finding it difficult competing in a world with well-resourced streamers, and this would make it worse.

• 18 Dec 2024 · BBC: Funding · Hansard source

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  I do not disagree with a lot of what the hon. Lady has said about the value of the BBC, but the problem is that more and more people are unwilling to pay the licence fee, and that has to be addressed. She wants to see a strongly financed and funded BBC, but she is going to have to come up with an answer to the fact that the revenue is going to go on declining under the present model.

• 17 Dec 2024 · Draft Local Digital Television Programme Services (Amendment) Order 2024 · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I am, in general, a supporter of local TV. That used to be somewhat more controversial that it is today. Local TV was invented by my right hon. Friend the Member for Godalming and Ash (Jeremy Hunt) when he was the Secretary of State. His mantra at the time was, “Why should Birmingham, Alabama have a TV station and not Birmingham, England?” That point was widely recognised, but in the subsequent 10 years local TV has struggled. Local TV has the advantage of EPG prominence— the No. 5 slot in most parts of the country—and has survived mainly by combining local television news and content with cheap programming, from which it derives advertising revenue. That is a difficult balance to strike, and some stations have been more successful than others. I have to say that London Live has perhaps not been as successful as some others; if hon. Members happen to watch it, they will see an awful lot of ’60s comedy shows, if that is their taste, and not a huge amount of local content. As we come to the issue of the licence for the next 10 years, I ask the Minister to indicate to Ofcom the importance of local content. If local TV is to be of value, it needs to provide content that people want to see that is about their own community but is not available on regional TV stations. Coming from Essex, I can say that it is deeply frustrating that the local TV provided by ITV or BBC tells me what is happening in Cambridgeshire or Norwich, which is not of huge interest to my constituents. Local TV therefore has a real role to play. One of the consequences of local TV stations’ difficulties is that there has been a huge amount of consolidation over the past 10 years. To my mind, however, the most important thing is not ownership, but content, so Ofcom, which has the job of laying down the licence conditions, needs to make it clear that that is the priority and focus, particularly in the area of news. As both my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden and Solihull East and the hon. Member for Guildford said, the task of drawing up a business plan to cover 10 years is challenging, so I hope that Ofcom will give guidance on how it expects television stations to set out business plans for a decade ahead. That brings me to another important point, which the hon. Member for Guildford raised. The Minister and I recall—I am sure with great pleasure—our exchanges during the passage of the Media Act 2024 in the last Parliament. In relation to public service broadcasting, the prime purpose of the Act was to give prominence to public service broadcasting stations on digital platforms. They had the guarantee of the first few slots on the EPG, but as we moved to a world where people access television by various different means, there was real concern that they would no longer be guaranteed that prominence, which would result in a drop in viewers and so perhaps less advertising revenue for the commercial stations and less prominence for the BBC. The Government, with the support of the Opposition at the time, addressed that by giving prominence to the public service broadcasters. The Minister may remember that, slightly unusually, having first been the Minister responsible for the Bill, I then moved an amendment to it on Report that would have given prominence to local TV stations. Part of the problem is that, as I understand it, the Act does not allow Ofcom to come back and designate other stations outside the main PSBs as requiring prominence. If the transition to a digital world continues at its current pace, more and more people will access TV through the internet and no longer through Freeview, and there is not the guarantee of prominence for local TV. Local TV made it very clear that it needed prominence. Unfortunately, I was unable to persuade the Government to accept my amendment, and so it is not in the Media Act. I would be grateful if the Minister looked at that, because the answer at the time was, “Local TV does not have apps, so you cannot give it prominence.” It was a question of chicken and egg, because the providers of local TV said, “If you give us prominence, we will develop the app.” I believe that the app is under development. While I welcome the statutory instrument today to allow the extension of licences for a further 10 years, it needs to be combined with prominence. I hope that the Minister will address that.

• 12 Dec 2024 · Hospitality Businesses · Hansard source

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  UKHospitality has estimated that the Budget measures will increase the cost of employing one employee by £2,500. Shops, pubs and restaurants across my constituency have said that that will lead to higher prices or fewer jobs. Will the Minister at least consider delaying the implementation of the national insurance contribution increase to 2026-27, when the planned realignment of business rates is due to come in?

• 12 Dec 2024 · Hospitality Businesses · Hansard source

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  7. What steps he is taking to support the hospitality sector.

• 12 Dec 2024 · Building Homes · Hansard source

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  The Minister intends to impose thousands more houses on my constituency, when there are already not enough school places, not enough doctors and congested roads. Will he at least look at ways in which financial arrangements can be established that would mean that developers can be made to fund necessary infrastructure ahead of house building and sale, rather than waiting for months and possibly years after completion?

• 9 Dec 2024 · Syria · Hansard source

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  Does the Foreign Secretary agree that we should not be surprised that one war criminal, President Putin, is now sheltering another, Assad? He will be aware that substantial assets owned by Assad or those linked to him are frozen in this country. Will he consider, in due course, whether we might use those for the benefit of the people of Syria?