British Board of Film Classification (Accountability to Parliament and Appeals) Bill

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier). There is absolutely no doubt that the Bill addresses a matter of public concern, and my hon. Friend is doing us a public service by allowing us to debate it. Normally, he and I agree about almost all matters, so it is with some sadness that I say I do not agree with all his remarks this morning. Everybody accepts that there must be a degree of control. I should not think that anybody would argue that there should be no restrictions whatever and that one should be able to buy any kind of video game or other content. The question is where to draw the line. I think that everybody would accept that certain types of content are beyond that line and are unacceptable in society, such as child pornography, videos depicting forcible rape scenes and snuff movies, where it is apparently the case that the people being tortured or killed are actually suffering that fate in reality. Those are clearly unacceptable. Age ratings are just as important. I agree with the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) that the protection of children is perhaps our highest priority. That does not just mean protecting children from scenes of sex or violence through an 18 classification; it means going below 18 to say that some material is suitable for 15 or 12-year-olds but not for younger children. A lot of debate in the British Board of Film Classification is not about whether something should have an 18 classification but about the correct age rating below that. There is a lot of argument about it. My hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury suggested that society was somehow becoming more tolerant of violence and that films were now being released that would not have been released some time ago. That is the case, and there are certainly examples of that, but I should not like him to suggest that there has not always been huge controversy over films. I remember the controversy over Oliver Stone's ““Natural Born Killers””, which was said to push violence to a new extreme. I actually think that it is quite a good film. It is not very easy to watch, but it is well-made and it has a serious point. I also remember the controversy about David Cronenberg's ““Crash””, in which the main character enjoys having sex with the victims of car crashes. I went to see that film as part of the London film festival. It was not particularly good. I did not think that it had great merit, although I recognise that Cronenberg is a good director. Nevertheless, I accepted that some people would take a different view. Nothing in it was so unacceptable that I should prevent other people from going to see it. There are many other examples that I could give. My hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury has not mentioned the issue of faith, but that, too, generates huge controversy. Many people found Martin Scorsese's ““The Last Temptation of Christ”” deeply objectionable, and a number of them thought that it should be banned. Actually, it was made by somebody who has some religious belief, and who argued that it was a deeply religious film. Again, I think that it is a film with some merit. Then there are films that were banned but that have now been released. My hon. Friend referred to some of the so-called video nasties of the early 1980s. I well remember the furore about ““The Driller Killer”” and ““I Spit on your Grave””. I saw ““I Spit on your Grave”” on sale in WH Smith a few months ago; it has now been passed for release. There is no doubt that society has changed its attitude. The Hammer horror films were originally rated 18. Vincent Price baring his fangs was thought to be so horrifying that nobody under 18 could watch it. Nobody today would seriously argue that the Hammer horror films should be rated 18. Similarly, ““Straw Dogs””, a hugely controversial film, was banned for many years, mainly because of the rape scene in it involving Susan George. Not only is it now available on release on DVD, but it has been shown on television, as have a number of the films that I have mentioned. Of course, if people believe that the BBFC was wrong to allow the release of a film, as soon as it is shown on television they have a method of protesting against that—they can make a complaint to Ofcom, as Ofcom has powers to rule against harmful or offensive content being shown on television, but as far as I am aware, it has not done so. My hon. Friend talked about ““SS Experiment Camp””. He kindly lent me a copy, and I spent 90 minutes—not the most enjoyable 90 minutes of my life—watching it. It is a truly dreadful film. It is what is called Italian schlock, and many people will find it offensive because of the subject matter—because it involves Nazis and extermination camps. It is pretty tasteless and pretty offensive, but I have to say that there is not a single scene in that film that I could argue should be banned. The scenes of so-called torture and sex are mild compared with anything that a person could see today in the Odeon down the road. I know that that will cause my hon. Friend concern, and he is right to have concern about some of the material—graphic scenes of torture and violence—that is now regarded as mainstream Hollywood entertainment. We are not talking about Italian schlock; we are talking about big-budget, multi-million pound films. My hon. Friend needs to be open about the fact that it is those scenes that he is trying to address.