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

I am always unhappy about electronic equipment being used in the House, but that is the most valid use of it that I have yet heard. Dr. Tanya Byron is conducting a review. I am not saying that it was the prompting of the hon. Member for Canterbury that led to that; rather it was the result of the coming together of a widespread and general public concern, and that shows the importance of the Bill. There are some who do not like the idea of scrutinising the classification process, and there are some who feel there is something philosophically wrong about any group in society trying to impose standards on another group in society. There are some who take a purely libertarian view, and there are some who take the view that people should be allowed to do whatever they will to anyone, and let the market decide. Those days have genuinely passed. We have come to the point where we have looked into the abyss. We have seen things of such foul horror that we cannot stand back and do nothing. We cannot simply have a system that allows this foul production, be it Italian schmuck, sadism or snuff movies, to continue, and we must do something. We have at least two options. We have the Bill, which is not perfect in every aspect, but it is perfect in about 99 per cent. of it, and we have Dr. Tanya Byron's inquiry. I wish the Bill a fair following wind. I would like to see it succeed because I would like to see elected, democratic and accountable Select Committees of this House of Commons have a genuine and meaningful say in an issue that means an enormous amount to so many of our constituents. However, if owing to the travails of the parliamentary timetable and other calls on our time, it is not successful on the Floor of the House, it will be successful on the sounding board of the nation, because Dr. Tanya Byron's inquiry will be informed by the points that the hon. Gentleman and his supporters have made here today. I appeal to the House: let no one be in any doubt whatever on this issue. We can talk about structures and mechanisms; we can talk about the philosophical purity of allowing anyone to see anything, as against some sort of retrogressive censorship; we can talk about Mrs. Bowdler, or about attempting to hold back the tide and dam the flow. However, we have to do something. We have to recognise that there is a genuine concern out there that every one of us sees in our mailbags, in our e-mails and in our surgeries. For Parliament to say, ““Something must be done””, and then to do just anything is an abdication of our responsibility as parliamentarians. Simply to do something because something needs to be done is not what we were sent here for. We need to do something because it must be done, and to do anything other than that would be a double abdication of our responsibilities. We cannot simply say that the existing system is in place and we are happy with it, that it is not a censorship system but a classification system operated by the great and the good, and that there is no direct parliamentary accountability, as Parliament does not pay them any money and there can therefore be no link. There are many organisations that Parliament does not subsidise where Parliament has an overview. We have a locus in laws such as the Obscene Publications Acts. We pass legislation on the Floor of the House which has to be taken into account by the British Board of Film Classification. There is therefore a second-stage link at present. However, laws are passed over a fairly long period of time on a fairly wide scale. We cannot structure a law for a specific film, DVD or game. We can set the broad outlines and indicate what is acceptable and unacceptable, not in Parliament but in a civilised society. We need to do more than simply set the guidelines.