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

Of course not. Indeed, I hope to discuss the Human Rights Act and the European convention on human rights later and to make it clear why the right to freedom of expression should be properly balanced by the right to preserve arrangements for public morality, which is an important point in this debate. The BBFC has to take into account the Protection of Children Act 1978, too, under which"““It is an offence for a person…to take, or permit to be taken, any indecent photograph or””—" inserted by amendment—"““pseudo-photograph””—" whatever a pseudo-photograph is—"““of a child…to distribute or show such indecent photographs,””" to possess them or to distribute them. That has to be taken into account. The BBFC also has to take into account the Cinematograph Films (Animals) Act 1937, which deals with cruelty to animals in the making of films. As has featured in our debate this morning, public opinion has to be taken into account by the BBFC. It distils public opinion from extensive public consultation exercises. The last round of consultation was in 2004, but I believe that it was published in 2005. As mentioned in a helpful sedentary intervention from the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster), the review for this year has already started. The guidelines relate to what we as a society believe is suitable for each age group, so it is important that the widest possible consultation should allow proper consideration. When the guidelines were published in September 2000, the research that underpinned them was one of the most extensive exercises on public attitudes ever carried out by any media regulator. Some 11,000 people were consulted in 2004, which was 7,000 more than in the 2000 exercise. The findings of the research, as set out in the Library briefing, are quite interesting. They showed a great consensus about the need to protect young people from material with the potential to cause harm. There was less unanimity about the question of copycat behaviour, although the figures revealed that quite a large majority were concerned about that. Interestingly, when it came to the proposition that watching violence in films generally makes people more likely to be violent in real life, only 45 per cent. of the public agreed. The public as a whole may not be as convinced of that particular argument as our debate suggests we are. It is quite clear that people want proper parental control over videos, but 52 per cent. felt that there should be no limits on what could be shown in R18 videos as long as they do not contain sexual violence or break the law. The argument is then about what exactly that means. Furthermore, 60 per cent. disagreed with the proposition that there should be no limits. Presumably, that means that the 22 per cent. and 17 per cent. mentioned in the survey were neutral. There is disagreement over whether there should be limits. We thus need to bear it in mind that the public may not be entirely of the view expressed by hon. Members here today. That brings us back to the point I made earlier about the extent to which we are truly representative of the wider public at large. People in the survey were also asked to attach various degrees of importance to the range of issues that they were asked about. It is very interesting to note that what they thought most important were drugs and drug taking, which was identified at 75 per cent. Only after that was violence seen as an important issue, which came in at 65 per cent. Sexual activity gained 56 per cent.; strong language 49 per cent.; racial offence 46 per cent.; religious offence 34 per cent.; nudity 29 per cent. My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North will no doubt be interested to note that smoking came in at 25 per cent., and alcohol, in which he will be even more interested, at 22 per cent.