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Vol. 796 Thursday No. 281 28 March 2019 PARLIAMENTARYDEBATES (HANSARD) HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICIAL REPORT ORDEROFBUSINESS Questions Public Service Broadcasters ..........................................................................................1867 Economy: Productivity Measurement...........................................................................1869 Meat: Ritual Slaughter and Religious Freedom ...........................................................1871 Cyclone Idai .................................................................................................................1874 Liaison Committee Report Motion to Agree............................................................................................................1876 Forestry and Land Management (Scotland) Act 2018 (Consequential Provisions and Modifications) Order 2019 Motion to Approve ........................................................................................................1883 Households Below Average Incomes Statistics Statement......................................................................................................................1888 Employment Rights (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2019 Motion to Approve ........................................................................................................1899 Agency Workers (Amendment) Regulations 2019 Motion to Approve ........................................................................................................1912 Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses (Amendment) Regulations 2019 Motion to Approve ........................................................................................................1912 Commonwealth Motion to Take Note ....................................................................................................1913 Lords wishing to be supplied with these Daily Reports should give notice to this effect to the Printed Paper Office. No proofs of Daily Reports are provided. Corrections for the bound volume which Lords wish to suggest to the report of their speeches should be clearly indicated in a copy of the Daily Report, which, with the column numbers concerned shown on the front cover, should be sent to the Editor of Debates, House of Lords, within 14 days of the date of the Daily Report. This issue of the Official Report is also available on the Internet at https://hansard.parliament.uk/lords/2019-03-28 The first time a Member speaks to a new piece of parliamentary business, the following abbreviations are used to show their party affiliation: Abbreviation Party/Group CB Cross Bench Con Conservative DUP Democratic Unionist Party GP Green Party Ind Lab Independent Labour Ind LD Independent Liberal Democrat Ind SD Independent Social Democrat Ind UU Independent Ulster Unionist Lab Labour Lab Co-op Labour and Co-operative Party LD Liberal Democrat LD Ind Liberal Democrat Independent Non-afl Non-affiliated PC Plaid Cymru UKIP UK Independence Party UUP Ulster Unionist Party No party affiliation is given for Members serving the House in a formal capacity, the Lords spiritual, Members on leave of absence or Members who are otherwise disqualified from sitting in the House. © Parliamentary Copyright House of Lords 2019, this publication may be reproduced under the terms of the Open Parliament licence, which is published at www.parliament.uk/site-information/copyright/. 1867 Public Service Broadcasters [28 MARCH 2019] Public Service Broadcasters 1868 House of Lords I take the point he makes about being nimble and agile and moving with the times. The chief executive of Thursday 28 March 2019 Ofcom made that point exactly when she said that it needed to be, 11 am “a forward-looking regulator that supports the future success of UK TV, firmly rooted in the online world”. Prayers—read by the Lord Bishop of Newcastle. Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con): My Lords, Public Service Broadcasters collaboration obviously brings opportunities, but will Question my noble friend comment on the importance of ensuring, and indeed what is being done to ensure, that PSBs 11.06 am carry on making programmes that the UK viewer wants to watch—as opposed, perhaps, to what the Tabled by Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury American viewer wants to watch? Toask Her Majesty’sGovernment what assessment Lord Ashton of Hyde: My noble friend is absolutely they have made of the speech of the Chief Executive right. This is one problem with US subscription services. of Ofcom on 28 November 2018 in which she They spend a huge amount on content. Netflix spent encouraged public service broadcasters to collaborate £4.6 billion on content in 2017 and Amazon spent to compete with global giants such as Netflix and £3.4 billion, but only £150 million of that was UK-made Amazon in producing high-quality original content. TV, whereas the public service broadcasters spent £2.6 billion on UK content. Lord Foster of Bath (LD): My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lady Bonham-Carter and with her Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab): My Lords, I permission, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in welcome the Minister’s replies to questions thus far her name on the Order Paper. put, but in the speech that occasioned the Question the Ofcom commissioner talked about competition TheParliamentaryUnder-Secretaryof State,Department and collaboration between the public service broadcasters for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Ashton of and the great platforms that we are talking about—the Hyde) (Con): My Lords, the Government recognise FANGs.In other words, this is not just about competition many of the issues and new challenges facing our between public service broadcasters and these various public service broadcasters, highlighted by the Ofcom bodies; collaboration needs to happen between them. chief executive in her speech on 28 November last year. She points to certain instances such as “King Lear” The Government are committed to supporting the and “Dracula” that are evidence of such collaboration PSBs to ensure that they continue to meet audience already taking place. needs in future and remain at the heart of our world-class I must not outlast my welcome, but I have one tiny TV industry. This may mean PSBs collaborating to thing to finish. Apart from BritBox—this thing that is compete and forming new partnerships to achieve coming between ITV and the BBC—I have recently greater reach and impact. The BritBox proposal recently been made aware of other boxes that are the result of announced by the BBC and ITV is an example of this, piracy and people taking the market away from all the and we look forward to seeing more detail on this bodies that we have thus far discussed. What kind of service as it develops. eye are we keeping on such activities in this ever-emerging field? Lord Foster of Bath: I thank the Minister for his reply, but does he agree that in this fast-changing Lord Ashton of Hyde: The noble Lord is right that world—with US-based on-demand video streaming there has already been a lot of collaboration. Collaboration services such as Netflix, Amazon and now Apple exists between Netflix and other subscription video on increasingly penetrating the UK market—we need an demand services and the public service broadcasters. agile regulatory regime that does not act as a brake on That will continue and is being encouraged. Illegal UK innovation? Netflix updates its platform once a boxes are illegal. They will be prosecuted within the week, yet it could take up to eight months for Ofcom law because they take away the benefits that public to approve very modest changes to the BBC’s iPlayer. service broadcasting brings to ordinary citizens and Should we not find a quicker way to approve BBC consumers in this country. initiatives that benefit UK audiences and new proposals— Lord McNally (LD): My Lords, one protection for such as the joint venture proposed by ITV and the public service broadcasters in the 2003 Act was prominence BBC for BritBox—that could provide additional in the listings, yet now both the FANGs that have been investment for new British content? described and the manufacturers are calculatingly getting around the listings to shunt public service broadcasting Lord Ashton of Hyde: My Lords, I agree with the into the sidings. It will need from the Government and noble Lord that we should have nimble and agile PSBs the regulator more than passive observation. Active and therefore a regulatory system that is capable of dealing action will be needed if the PSBs are to be protected. with that. The analogy he draws is not quite correct. Netflix can change its platform overnight because it Lord Ashton of Hyde: I agree with that. That is why has to consider only Netflix, whereas Ofcom has to we promised to legislate when Ofcom gives us its consider the whole regulatory landscape. It is therefore recommendations for the online prominence regime. If important that it takes into account what effect it has it needs legislation, the Secretary of State says that we if the BBC changes something such as the iPlayer. will do that. 1869 Public Service Broadcasters[LORDS] Economy: Productivity Measurement 1870 Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op): My Lords, As they say, what gets measured gets done. Will the does the Minister recall that Ofcom found that RT had Government show some urgency and speed up, encourage, breached the regulations seven times? Is he concerned publicise and conclude the work of modernising these that the appeal by RT is taking