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

Far too many of my colleagues signed it. I shall not go as far down the road to iconoclasm as the hon. Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford trod so elegantly. In one speech, he not only destroyed the principle of early-day motions, saying that in many cases constituents pressed a button and the Member responded, but he dissed the Daily Mail. During my 10 years in the House I have heard many things that have amazed and delighted me, but I do not think that I have heard anything so shocking as a Member of Her Majesty's official Opposition speaking against the paper that is virtually the house magazine of the official Opposition. I congratulate him on his courage and iconoclasm, and hope that he receives a favourable press in the future. The hon. Member for Canterbury is simply trying to bring into a system a body that, as the Government say, is not publicly funded and to which there is no obvious link—usually, the fiscal link directs such bodies—so that the voice of the people can be heard. By doing that through a series of steps—there are at least three in the Bill—he is proposing something that is sound, sane, sensible and workable. I have one problem with the principle of the appeal; there may be a difficulty with that. The Government will quite rightly ask what the distributor will do if there is an inbuilt appeal mechanism. Will the distributor have a period of purdah in which the object—the DVD, film or game—is placed in a sealed vault, probably accessible only to the hon. Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford, until the classification is made? I do not know the answer to that. As an accountable Parliament, which is the sounding board of the nation and reflects the individual views and concerns of our constituents, we must have some input into the process. The hon. Member for Canterbury suggests that that should happen in two ways. He suggests, first, that Parliament should have a say in the appointments. I could only be impressed by the names of the distinguished figures whom the hon. Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford mentioned were present members of the board. I would certainly not denigrate Biddy Baxter in any way. For God's sake, she educated my children—and me, for a large part of my life. However, why should there not be a link? Why should there be no coupling between what our constituents feel and the appointment of those who make the decisions? The Government will rightly say—because they are always right, particularly my right hon. Friend the Minister, who is inevitably and invariably right—that the BCCF is not about censorship—