Baroness Thornton:

Moved by Baroness Thornton

12: After Clause 7, insert the following new Clause— “Review of children’s access to public service broadcast contentWithin six months of the passage of this Act, the Secretary of State must prepare and publish a report on how to ensure that children have access to public service broadcast content.”Member’s explanatory statementThis new Clause would require a review of how to ensure children have access to public service content.

My Lords, I also enthusiastically support Amendment 34 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin.

These are important matters. If the Bill is to look to the future, we must address the issue of what is happening to our children. On Second Reading in the Commons, my honourable friend Thangam Debbonaire, the shadow Secretary of State, said that the Bill is welcome but misses the opportunity to consider how we can secure the future of UK public service media for school-aged children. She echoed the Children’s Media Foundation’s concern that legislators are failing to recognise the realities of young people’s viewing and how this will impact on public service loyalty in the future.

We should thank the Children’s Media Foundation because it has done a huge amount of work on understanding the patterns of media consumption by children and how those patterns might impact on their chances of viewing public service media. If we all agree that public service content is important for adults, we can probably agree that it is equally important, if not more, for our children. Certainly, the high-quality public service content that our public service broadcasters can provide for children has powerful potential. For the last 75 years, it has been the envy of the world. It can promote well-being, give children an understanding of where they live, teach them British values of tolerance, provide entertaining forms of education to supplement their learning at school, and show a diverse range of role models. Ultimately, public service media can encourage children to value culture, crave knowledge and value characteristics of the citizens they have to become in due course.

However, due to several connecting factors, this sort of content is under threat. As technology has rapidly evolved, the children’s content landscape has fundamentally changed for ever. Children as young as toddlers have access to new devices and platforms. They can navigate apps on tablets and choose content they would like to watch. It gives them access not only to video on demand services, such as Netflix and Disney+, but to platforms such as YouTube and TikTok. The popularity of these forms of content are such that Ofcom estimates that less than half of three to 17 year-olds now watch live television. Similarly, of potentially 9 million school-aged viewers for the top-rated programmes on CBBC, there will be as few as 50,000 viewers in any one week. Similar numbers will request that programme on iPlayer. That number is a fraction of what we would hope it to be, given the importance of children’s public service content.

As well as declining viewership, there has arguably also been a decline in the amount of children’s content produced that could genuinely be considered to be public service. It is not that the industry is unaware of the problems surrounding children’s public service content. In 2022, when the Government brought the young audiences content fund to an end, more than 750 creatives and executives from the UK’s children’s content industry signed an open letter and campaigned to extend the fund for another three years. The likes of Channel 5 and Paramount are also working hard to keep their “Milkshake!” offering. They are increasing their year-on-year spend on children’s programming just to keep provision at the same level but, where there is a met need for commercial demand, valuable children’s content will inevitably continue to suffer.

There is almost nothing in the Bill to show that this combination of concerning trends and declining viewership, alongside declining content quality, has been identified. There are no meaningful measures to stop the problem escalating. Children’s content is included in the new, simplified remit in the first clause, but it does little to increase accountability or individual channels’ contribution to creating children’s public service content, or to recognise the changing trends in how children consume their media.

For all those reasons, the Children’s Media Foundation argued that we must urgently accept that children’s public service media are under threat and rethink how we can best protect them as part of the passage of this Bill. As a result, we propose that the Government conduct a review to better understand how we can secure children’s content long into the future. Such a review would be an opportunity to ask bigger questions than the Bill currently allows. For example, do we need to go where children are and broaden our concept of public service media for children, encouraging and promoting such content on the likes of Netflix, YouTube and TikTok? Do we need to learn lessons from the ambitions of the Online Safety Act 2023, and consider how algorithms serve content to young people—perhaps adjusting them to ensure that they promote diversity of thought rather than simply more of the same? Should we target PSBs to hit a number of hours consumed rather than a number of hours produced when it comes to public service media for children?

We do not claim to have the answers to these sorts of questions, but I believe they need to be explored. The UK must address the reality of the matter and accept that a new approach will be needed if we are to ensure that valuable content reaches the eyes and ears of young people across the country. I hope the Minister can acknowledge this, and I look forward to his response. I beg to move.

My Lords, I fully support Amendment 12 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, to which I have added my name, but I rise to speak to my Amendment 34, which says:

“Within 12 months of the passing of this Act, the Secretary of State must prepare and publish a report on how to ensure that children have access to culturally relevant and age-appropriate original UK … content, and”— importantly—

“how such content might be funded”.

The Children’s Media Foundation has summed up the two problems with UK children’s content as being about finding and funding, and we need to solve both. This amendment is very important as it is imperative that the Bill looks to the future and reflects what young people are doing now in their viewing, not what they used to do.

I have spoken previously about the crisis we face with respect to children’s media. At a time when our children are struggling to make sense of the world around them, we have allowed public service media for children to wither on the vine. A lack of investment and a failure of regulation have led to the current situation in which children and young people are no longer accessing this sort of age-appropriate and culturally relevant media content that can help them to navigate the challenges of growing up.

As adults, we quite rightly expect to have access to media content that speaks uniquely to us—dramas, factual programming and entertainment that embody the culture, values and concerns of our society. Why is it, then, that we seem prepared to deny our children the same opportunities? How can our children develop and grow to become citizens of this country if we continue to allow a media environment that fails to support or promote similar public media for children?

I am sure the Minister will say that this point has been considered by the Government and that the Bill is designed to ensure that our public service broadcasters will be required to offer the children’s audience appropriate levels of audiovisual content. But I am afraid that misses the point. My amendment would require a review to determine how we can ensure that children can access culturally relevant and age-appropriate, original UK content wherever they are watching or listening. The wording of the proposed new clause deliberately makes no reference to television services or to public service broadcasting, because I am afraid that for children and young people the old PSB system is simply irrelevant. They have no loyalty to our traditional broadcasters and very little interest in their platforms, except for the purposes of family co-viewing, which remains important and valuable.

I am concerned that the Bill in its current form does not address the needs of the children’s audience. When it comes to children’s personal viewing, as reported in great detail by Ofcom, the vast majority of their media content is found on video-sharing platforms such as YouTube and TikTok. That is where we must turn our attention if we hope to create a new public service ecosystem that meets the needs of children.

If we allow the Bill to remain focused solely on the provision of content by public service broadcasters, it will have failed the children’s audience from the outset. We have to ensure that this does not happen. There is a crisis of childhood and this Bill has a part to play in addressing the roots of that crisis. The current media lives of children and young people have impacted on their mental well-being, their engagement with society and culture, and the formation of their values. Some of that is the result of harmful content, and the Online Safety Act will go some way to address this, but surely we must also find a way to provide constructive and life-enhancing content to counteract any negative content that may find a way through to our children.

Here in the UK, we have one of the most creative and child-centred media production sectors in the world. We need a review to consider how to create conditions that will facilitate growth in children’s media production. This new content will, in turn, help our children cope with the unique challenges they face in the 21st century media landscape. But without appropriate funding, there will not be anything to see so it is vital that we find ways of increasing the revenue available for original UK children’s content, now that the Young Audiences Content Fund has, sadly, ended.

My amendment seeks to set in motion a process that will determine how children can once again have access to the same range of culturally relevant, trusted and life-affirming content that was made available to previous generations, in a form and on platforms that reflect the way that children and young people live today. So what are the solutions to finding suitable content? Ofcom has identified a dramatic shift in viewing habits among young people, particularly children over the age of seven. Our young people are now consuming content in so many different ways and via a variety of devices. They are flocking to services such as YouTube and TikTok, and watching content designed for adults. We have to work out how children and young people will find culturally specific and original UK content on those platforms in future.

Regulation could be one solution. It is very difficult for regulated commercial PSB broadcasters to invest in kids’ TV content. They do not have the scale of kids’ audiences, or a fraction of the revenue from kids’ content, that they once had. The ban on HFSS advertising some years ago speeded up the decline. The PSBs have been replaced by services such as YouTube, which alone takes in around £50 million a year in advertising revenue around unregulated children’s content.

If the young audiences fund is not coming back— I think it should—perhaps we need to look for inspiration from other countries which have put levies on streamers. EU rules allow countries to impose investment obligations to support local content and language. In France alone, Netflix has agreed to invest at least €30 million a year, either directly or through contributing to local film funds. I am encouraged by how this type of intervention could be used to help fund original UK children’s content. Interestingly, Australia is currently consulting on a proposal that would require streamers to invest 10% to 30% of their Australian revenue in Australian drama and children’s content.

I also understand that, for the first time, it has been suggested that such an obligation could be imposed on video-sharing platforms such as YouTube. This idea has been floated by the Government in Belgium, which will shortly be taking over the presidency of the Council of the EU, and which may therefore influence future EU policies—hurrah.

It is this type of thinking that we will need if our children are going to see the best UK-originated culturally specific children’s content, as we all did when we were growing up. I ask the Minister: will the Government consider these common-sense interventions at the same time as my amendment and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton? The crisis is upon us and we need to act fast before we reach a point of no return. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Benjamin and Lady Thornton, for their important contributions on the value of public service media for children.

The noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, has also personally made huge contributions to this industry, not just through her time as a presenter—I count myself as one of her proud “Playschool” babies—but through her valuable championing of legislation in this space. This is a good opportunity for me to congratulate her on the wonderful news of the BAFTA Fellowship, the academy’s highest honour, which will be bestowed upon her this weekend. It is in recognition, as BAFTA has said, not just for her work on screen but her work in your Lordships’ House and outside it on the legislation that touches these important areas.

I will refer to both noble Baronesses’ amendments together. I strongly agree with them about the importance of ensuring that our children continue to have access to high-quality, original content which is relevant to their lives. The Government recognise that children’s television has a unique social and educational importance; it can be used to reflect and share our values and to support learning and development in a way that is fun and compelling for young people. My honourable friend Julia Lopez, the Minister for the Bill in another place, also feels passionately about this issue and has spoken about the significant impact that culturally relevant, original British programming can have on our children.

We are, however, aware of the challenges increasingly being faced by the children’s media industry, which the noble Baronesses alluded to. The way that our children are accessing content is changing rapidly, with shifts away from the traditional linear schedule and an almost endless digital library of global content easily accessible to them.

That is why we have included specific measures in the Bill to ensure that original British children’s programming, reflecting the lives of young people here in the UK, remains front and centre of the public service remit. I hope that sends a clear signal about the importance of high-value children’s programming being available to families across the UK on a free-to-air basis.

These updated remit requirements will complement Ofcom’s existing powers relating to children’s content. For example, the work that the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, did on the Digital Economy Act 2017 resulted in the introduction of a section to the Communications Act specifically on this topic, allowing Ofcom to publish criteria on the provision of children’s programmes if it sees fit. This is supported by several of Ofcom’s ongoing reporting duties. In this way, the legislation already provides for considered assessment of the provision of the types of valuable content we have debated in this group. As the independent regulator, Ofcom is well placed to consider the broader market and how children are accessing content in an increasingly digital world. Of course, it has the powers given to it through the Online Safety Act, during the passage of which we debated some similar topics. It already has a wealth of experience in this area.

Ofcom’s current duties and reporting will continue to give us an invaluable insight into the challenges faced by the children’s television industry. This will be key to helping both the Government and industry to consider in the round, and in more detail, whether further work is needed in this important area. We will of course do that. In addition to this, as the noble Baronesses mentioned, organisations such as the Children’s Media Foundation have been doing some fantastic work recently to convene industry partners to look to the future and consider these important questions in more detail.

Amendments 12 and 34 would require reviews into children’s access to culturally relevant and age-appropriate original content, and children’s access to public service broadcast content respectively. Given the specific reference to children’s content, which we already have in the Bill, and given the extensive powers that Ofcom has to report and act in this space, as I have mentioned, as well as the updates we have made to allow flexibility to the ways in which the public service broadcasters can fulfil their remits, I am not persuaded that we need the amendments that the noble Baronesses have put forward. I would, however, certainly join them in recognising the importance of high-quality children’s programming, and I am glad for their continued vigilance in this area. I would be very happy to keep talking to them as we continue our scrutiny of the Bill, but I hope I have been able to reassure them that we have tried to cover this already in the Bill as it stands.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, for her wonderful peroration and saying exactly the right things. I thank the Minister for his answer, but I confess to being disappointed, because if this Bill is about future-proofing, then it really does need to address what our children will be doing in the next few years in terms of what they are watching, what they are consuming and what they are hearing. I do not see anything in this Bill that is going to mandate Ofcom to do that kind of exercise of reviewing that. This is about the quality of what our children are viewing, and we certainly are not giving them any guidance on that. There is nothing in this Bill that does that. I do not think so: I have not seen that. That is what this amendment is about.

I am disappointed, and I hope we can continue to talk. Perhaps the conversation needs to be with Ofcom about what it thinks its remit is with regard to children. Perhaps that is the next conversation that we need to have. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 12 withdrawn.