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

I heard my hon. Friend make that point in his speech, and I am sure that the BBFC will want to respond to it. I look forward to hearing its response. I merely say to him that one should not necessarily be dictated to by pubic opinion. We need to do more research on public opinion on the subject. The issue affects not just the BBFC; I remember the extensive public research done by the Broadcasting Standards Council when it had responsibility for the regulation of broadcast media content. That, too, showed that there was undoubtedly a change in attitude. A lot of the material that was felt to be unacceptable 30 years ago is now regarded as perfectly acceptable; no one would pretend otherwise. The use of offensive language is another key criterion in determining classification. The use of the F-word used to mean that a film would automatically be rated 18, but that is no longer the case. I suspect that most people would accept that attitudes in that area have changed. I do not say that the BBFC does not ban films; it does, but rarely. Some might say that it is a happy coincidence—perhaps it is not a coincidence—that yesterday the BBFC announced, for the first time this year, that it was banning a film. It is called ““Murder-Set-Pieces””. Last year, it banned a film called ““Struggle in Bondage””, which covered a lot of the ground that my hon. Friend talked about. It showed women being tied up and subjected to abuse, with no indication that they had consented to that. The BBFC felt that it was unacceptable and it rightly banned it.