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

Yes. I would not go to see ““Jerry Springer—The Opera”” because I think I would find it very offensive, but it is one example of something—nothing to do with violence, which is the context of today's debate—that was offensive to Christian people. Every day, we would have a plethora of requests to sign early-day motions. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North, pressure may be put on us to sign motions that are based on third, fourth, fifth or sixth-hand hearsay. People write in not because they have seen the film but because something they read in the Daily Mail or the Daily Express has set them off. There is also the question of whether the reporter who wrote the story has actually seen the film or video, or whether he has simply read a press release from a pressure group, which, of course, may have just read a press release from the person putting out the video. If such a campaign comes to us, I am sure that the pairing Whips are not going to give us time off to watch all these things. When faced with such campaigns, we will just sign up to them to make people go away, as was said earlier. The net result of the process will be a huge burgeoning of early-day motions and an enormous increase in work load, as we ask the appeals body—whatever it is—to review lots of films that may be perfectly decent, but not seen as such by small sections of society. That is a recipe for a huge bureaucracy, a huge amount of work and huge uncertainty for the industry, and it does not advance one iota the hon. Gentleman's argument about dealing with the really evil, violent films.