Lord Stevenson of Balmacara: My Lords, it is important that we unpick the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, which I think was touched on but not addressed by the Minister. If we rely on civil remedies, we are not really addressing the problem that there is, in effect, an opportunity, for those who wish to, to exercise criminality; this surely cannot be left to the civil courts.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara: My Lords, this is a wide-ranging group; there is good news hidden in the middle of it, and bad news—we will have to wait for the Minister to respond to get a full picture. Others have spoken in some depth and so I will not try to repeat what has been said. I certainly will not try to follow the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, whose expertise exceeds the combination of everybody’s in the...
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord. He is making a very important point, and we respect the way it has been expressed, but is it not also the case that the negotiations between the Government and the BBC are limited to those two participants, and therefore the role for Parliament is not clear? Could he perhaps explain what contribution we could make as Parliament?
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara: My Lords, I declare an interest as a former director of the British Film Institute, and that my younger daughter’s partner has recently joined a media company whose interests are engaged by the Bill. This Bill, the first media Bill for over 20 years, as many have commented, has been widely welcomed across the industry. However, it is worth bearing in mind that it comes at a time when we...
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara: My Lords, I hope whoever takes on this responsibility will bear in mind the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, that there may well be continuing problems deep inside the Post Office systems. I speak as an accountant, and I declare my interest. Basic double-entry accounting systems should never have allowed this system to have occurred. What guarantees can the noble Lord give us that...
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara: My Lords, I too thank the Minister for his swift and concise introduction, which very carefully covered the ground without raising any issues that we have to respond to directly. I am grateful for that as well. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, was his usual self. The only thing that I missed, of course, was the quotation that I was sure he was going to give from the pre-legislative...
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara: My Lords, may I follow up that point and ask a little more about the detail of who runs this strategy? In addition to the independent regulator, the CMA, there are, as I understand it, three government departments directly involved: the Cabinet Office, the Department for Business and Trade, and DSIT, as represented by the Minister. The focus of the third leg of the national strategy engages...
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his very kind words to everybody, particularly my Front Bench and me. I also wish him a speedy recovery from his recent illness, although I was less sympathetic when I discovered how much he has been “managing upwards”—in the words of my noble friend Lord Knight—and achieving for us in the last few days. He has obviously been recovering and...
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara: Before the Minister finishes, I posed the question about whether, given the debate and issues raised, he felt completely satisfied that we had arrived at the right solution, and whether there was a case for withdrawing the amendment at this stage and bringing it back at Third Reading, having had further discussions and debate where we could all agree. I take it his answer is “no”.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara: My Lords, this has been—since we first got sight of the Bill and right the way through—one of the most difficult issues to try to find balance and a solution. I know that people have ridiculed my attempt to try and get people to speak less in earlier amendments. Actually, in part it was so we could have a longer debate here—so the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, should not be so cross with me,...
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara: I am very grateful to everyone who has contributed to the debate, despite my injunction that no one was to speak other than those key persons—but it was nice to hear views around the House in support for this proposal, with caution. The noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, was right to be clear that we have to be focused on where we are going on this; there is quite a lot at stake here, and it is...
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara: My Lords, this amendment would require the Secretary of State, when seeking to exercise certain powers in the Bill, to provide the relevant Select Committees of both Houses with draft regulations and impact assessments, among other things. I should admit up front that this is a blatant attempt to secure an Online Safety Bill version of what I have called the “Grimstone rule”, established...
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara: My Lords, there is very little to add to that. These are important questions. I simply was struck by the thought that the amount of work, effort and thought that has gone into this should not be kept within this Bill. I wonder whether the noble Lord has thought of offering his services to His Majesty’s Treasury, which has difficulty in raising tax from these companies. It would be nice to...
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara: My Lords, I am grateful to hear what the Minister has just announced. The scheme that was originally prefigured in the pre-legislative scrutiny report has now got some chance of being delivered. I think the process and procedures are quite appropriate; it does need review and thought. There needs to be account taken of practice on the ground, how people have found the new system is working,...
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara: I accept the point made that the Counter Disinformation Unit sounds rather suspicious. The unit tracks narratives and trends using publicly available information. We all like a good story, so where can we find these narratives and trends. Are they published? Where is the unit established, and what is its budget and its staffing level?
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara: My Lords, this has been a good debate. It is very hard to see where one would want to take it. If it proves anything, it is that the decision to drop the legal but harmful provisions in the Bill was probably taken for the wrong reasons but was the right decision, since this is where we end up—in an impossible moral quandary which no amount of writing, legalistic or otherwise, will get us...
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara: My Lords—
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara: I would be grateful if the Minister could repeat that immediately afterwards, when I will listen much harder. Just to echo what the noble Baroness was saying, may we take it as an expectation that approaches that are signalled in legislation for broadcasting and communications should apply pari passu to the work of Ofcom in relation to the devolved Administrations?
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara: My Lords, I think that was a very good speech from the noble Baroness, partly because I signed her amendment and support it and also because I want to refer back to the points made earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, about research. I am speaking from the Back Benches here because some of what I say may not have been cleared fully with my colleagues, but I am hoping that they will...
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara: My Lords, as others have said, this has been a very interesting tour d’horizon of some of the points in the Bill that we still need to resolve. I will not go over too much of the detail that has been raised because those points need a response from the Minister when he responds. I will start with the use of “chairman” in several places throughout the Bill. We do not understand what is...