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

As I said, I would disagree with a view that would approve anything like that. The question is whether it is for us in Parliament or for someone else to make that decision and be held to account for it—in this case, by the Secretary of State. Perhaps the Minister will let us know what representations the Government have made to the BBFC about that particular game. If they have not made any such representations, why they not done so? It would be interesting to hear the response. That comes back to the fact that ultimately somebody must make a decision and say where the line is drawn. I agree with the hon. Member for Canterbury that that video game was beyond the pale. I would not dispute that, but we must decide who is the appropriate person to make such decisions. Is it us lay people, doing the best we can, or is it people who have more experience of this issue because they view these things day in, day out in order to have an idea of where to draw the line to reflect public opinion? The latter group use their own opinion polling and surveying and their experience of what is being produced by the industry. We must reflect on the fact that the BBFC is an independent, non-governmental body that, in one form or another, has been doing this job since 1912. The object is to bring a degree of uniformity to the classification of films nationally. As I have said, the statutory powers ultimately rest with the local councils, which can overrule the decisions, but a degree of consistency and uniformity in the process is important. The hon. Gentleman said that the appointments process could be done through Parliament. I fully accept that the BBFC is an industry body, but it is responsible for ensuring fair and effective regulation of the industry. That is appropriate because the industry needs to know where it stands. The BBFC is a private company limited by guarantee, but it also has statutory duties, via the 1984 Act, that go beyond those simple industry body responsibilities. Everybody should accept that it is important to preserve the BBFC's independence. The Government are consulted from time to time about the BBFC's statutory role in relation to videos. That fact emerged from a parliamentary answer that was referred to in the House of Commons Library briefing. So we have a reasonable balance. My main concern about the Bill's proposals is the scrutiny of appointments by a Select Committee, whether it is the Home Affairs Committee, as the Bill states, or the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, which is chaired by the hon. Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford, who is no longer in his place. As I said in an intervention on my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East, the Government have asked Select Committees, via the Liaison Committee, to consider the scrutiny of outside appointments. The Government produced a consultation paper, with a list of jobs on which they think Parliament should be consulted. Parliament would not have the right of approval, but it would have the right to be consulted. Ultimately, the decision would be made by the Government—probably by the Secretary of State concerned. That consultation exercise has been going on for several weeks. Each Chairman of a Select Committee was asked to show his Committee the list of jobs and whether we wanted to add NGO or other appointments that we thought appropriate. For example, my Committee suggested that we should add the chair of the new Equality and Human Rights Commission, which was not on the Government's list. I say that by way of diversion to show the matters that we discussed. The objective of the consultation was to examine senior appointments, not those all the way down the food chain, which could mean Select Committees becoming bogged down. Indeed, discussions seem to suggest that some Select Committees may have bitten off more than they can chew in the number of appointments that they want to scrutinise. Appointments will be made by the Government, not necessarily on the recommendation of the relevant Select Committee, but taking its views into account. Not one Select Committee proposed that any of the people referred to in the Bill should be part of that scrutiny process. Bearing in mind that my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East, who has left his place, is a sponsor of the Bill, I would have thought that if he felt so strongly about it he would have asked his Committee to consider suggesting those posts for inclusion, and proposed them to the Liaison Committee for approval at our meeting yesterday. I am surprised that he did not. Perhaps he suggested it in private discussions and the Committee was not enamoured of the idea. Similarly, the hon. Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford, who chairs the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, could have suggested those appointments for inclusion. His Committee suggested the appointments that it thought it ought to approve, and the heads of the BBFC were not on the list. From his remarks earlier, it seems that he does not think that they should be. That calls into question the extent to which the Bill's sponsors have consulted those who would be given the additional responsibilities proposed. The inference must be that those people were not asked about it at all, particularly bearing in mind the exercise that has been undertaken by the Liaison Committee at the Government's request. We need to spend a little time on the appeal mechanism. The current appeals process is geared towards appeals by those who present films for classification. They may object to the classification that they are given, perhaps because cuts have been made or because they believe it has been put in the wrong age bracket. Ultimately, the video appeals committee's decisions are subject to judicial review if the film maker requests it. The problem is that there is no mechanism to allow members of the public to ask for a decision to be reconsidered by the VAC. We need to consider whether we ought to allow a review if a significant number of members of the public ask for it. If there is an outcry about a TV broadcast and a lot of people write in, the regulator examines the decisions made by the broadcaster, which is appropriate. If the regulator thinks that the broadcaster's decision was wrong, the broadcaster is rapped over the knuckles or can be fined. Perhaps we need to try to find a similar mechanism to allow a regulator to review those decisions. Obviously, that regulator could not be the BBFC, because it makes the decision. Perhaps we could arrange somehow for the video appeals committee to receive the complaints directly and to have a trigger mechanism whereby a decision made by the BBFC should be reconsidered when a certain number of representations were made. I fully accept that all the problems of retrospectivity would apply. Once such things are out in the public domain, it becomes difficult to recall them. One could stop further examples from being sold; I suppose that one could not stop them from being pirated. It is not the same as in the cinema, where a film can no longer be shown, or in TV, where broadcasters can be told not to put the broadcast out again. We ought to see whether it is possible to work out some appeal mechanism that would allow the public to express their views. As I said earlier, I am extremely concerned about the proposed system of using an early-day motion to trigger an appeal, not because I think that it would ultimately bring Parliament into even more disrepute with the public, but because it would be a recipe for all sorts of mischief that would not advance the cause that the Bill tries to address. We would be bogged down with all sorts of complaints about trivial matters and the more serious problems would get lost in the herd. We would not have the opportunity to consider what should be done about these evil, violent videos, because we would be getting the requests all the time and signing them away without even thinking about what we were doing, to avoid pressure from the public. I am concerned, too, about the mechanism of the people's jury. First, the jury will be drawn from a panel of volunteers. If we are working on the basis of volunteering, how will that jury reflect society as a whole? One can imagine that the people who will volunteer will be those with an axe to grind, not just against the sort of evils that we seek to prevent with the Bill but more generally against such things as the video version of ““Jerry Springer—The Opera”” or even ““Life of Brian””, which is banned in Glasgow, as we heard earlier. There is a real risk that the jury will be drawn from a self-selected volunteer panel. Secondly, if the jury genuinely reflects our society and we get over the problem of the self-selection of volunteers, we will end up with the problem of a hung jury. That would be a likely consequence, bearing in mind the research work that the BBFC has done that shows how divided our society is on the issues of violence in film and video. If we end up with a jury, we will presumably have to have provision for unanimity, or if not for unanimity for a majority verdict. What will happen if a jury decides 6:6 or 7:5? That is hardly a ringing endorsement of the decision one way or the other. Would it ultimately be binding? We then get into the argument about chair's casting votes and so forth. That is not a sensible way to go. I would certainly be happy to have a method whereby certain numbers of members of the public could trigger a complaint and a review of a decision, but that review should be carried out by the video appeals committee. This is a complicated issue under the procedures set out in the Bill that could be made a lot simpler and easier to administer. The Bill also talks about the internet. The whole question of the regulation of the internet is very complicated. I have grappled with it in relation to problems arising out use of the internet by Muslim fundamentalism trying to create the climate of violence from Islamic terrorism from which we know we suffer in our country. I have grappled with the question on behalf of constituents in relation to anti-Semitism and, of course, racism. The problem is always that the roots of those websites go far away into different countries. Trying to regulate the internet has been complicated, and Governments will continue to grapple with how to deal with it. That is why I think that it is very important that the Prime Minister has asked Dr. Tanya Byron to lead a review to consider, among other things, how best to deal with that problem. I look forward to her review and its recommendations in March. The real problem is that the available academic research does not actually establish the link that we all think exists between watching such videos and violence. We have already heard about the case of Stefan Pakeerah. Everybody thinks there was a link in that case and there may indeed have been one, but so far academic research does not support it, which is why Dr. Byron's review is important. Let us hope that she will produce an answer that allows us to decide about the link one way or the other. However, it is important to recognise that in the Pakeerah case neither the police nor the prosecution supported the claim that there was a link between the video and the appalling murder, although I am pleased that afterwards retailers rightly withdrew the game from sale. The Bill raises important issues, which is why it was crucial that the review was commissioned, because it will look at the evidence of harm and at the measures needed to protect children from inappropriate content. The Bill is based on the premise that exposure to violent behaviour in films or computer games leads to violent behaviour in real life, but the evidence so far does not really suggest much correlation, except in relation to violent pornography and sexual offences, which are of course already illegal, as I mentioned earlier. The objectives of the Byron review are set out in the Library briefing paper:"““To undertake a review of the evidence on risks to children's safety and wellbeing of exposure to harmful or inappropriate material on the internet and in video games…To assess the effectiveness and adequacy of existing measures to help prevent children from being exposed to such material and help parents understand and manage the risks of access to inappropriate content, and to make recommendations for improvements or additional action.””" That seems a much more sensible way forward. Today, based on our view of what is going on in society, we have identified an ill that needs to be addressed. The Government need to respond to the very real fear and concern expressed in the House today, but it is not appropriate for Parliament to be involved in censorship. There is a risk that we would end up interfering with entirely private rights. There is also a risk of rule by the mob or the Mary Whitehouse tendency and a real risk of unbalance in our approach. We need to consider how we can enhance the role of the regulator so that it takes a little more account of public opinion and where we want society to be rather than the direction in which it may be heading, as heralded by some videos. We need to look at human rights provisions. My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Stephen Pound) referred to article 10 of the European convention on human rights, which makes it clear that everyone has the right to freedom of expression. The right applies to all of us, but it does not prevent states from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprise, which is the regime we follow. The right to freedom of expression is not unfettered. Exercise of that freedom carries with it duties and responsibilities, which allow the law to make provision for the prevention of disorder and violent crime or the protection of health and morals and so on. It is important that we bear in mind the fact that an overwhelming number of people believe in freedom of expression—the right to say and do what we want—but within the constraints of the responsibilities and duties we owe each other. We need to ensure that we exercise our right to freedom of expression in a way that does not affect the health and morals of our society or create the risk of disorder or crime. Those provisions are in the European convention on human rights and that is the direction we need to take. However, we must provide certainty. The biggest enemy in the law is uncertainty, so we need a process of classification and criteria for it that are absolutely clear. That is a fair reflection of the law and is encapsulated in the Library briefing. To conclude my remarks, I very much agree with the broad thrust of the speech made by the hon. Member for Canterbury when he introduced the Bill, and I agree with most of the other contributors about the need for us to take firm action to deal with appalling, dangerous and violent videos of extreme form. However, in doing so we should reflect on the fact that Parliament should not be involved in censorship. We should put in place appropriate mechanisms to allow independent people to make decisions on behalf of our society, in a way that reflects its morals and views, to stop those appalling productions falling into the hands of the general public.