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

I disagree with my hon. Friend, who made a fantastically good contribution to today's debate. A good film that portrays torture well, as ““This is England”” did, has a far greater impact on our views and possibly on our behaviour than a bad film that portrays torture in a poor way. Several hon. Members spoke about the internet, which is the big challenge. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Canterbury covered only videos and films. The internet is of greatest concern because of the difficulty in controlling the source of information and therefore in being able to ensure that we censor where we have to censor while being able to classify. It was largely arising from that convergence over all the platforms that the Government, in responding to the legitimate concerns that the hon. Gentleman raised, asked Tanya Byron to examine the area to see whether we should have further regulation or changes in regulations to protect our children from material accessed by them, either through video games, the cinema, DVDs, or, most importantly, the net. As has been said, she is due to report in March. She has undertaken her work in a serious, comprehensive, sensitive and good way, she has talked to everybody and she has been assiduously independent of anybody. I have no doubt that we will debate her findings when they are published, and if she suggests that further action is needed in this new converged world, we will respond to that. When I was Minister with responsibility for children we started to look at the emerging problems of the net, particularly in relation to child pornography and pornographic images, and interestingly, what came out of that work was an understanding, which Tanya Byron may or may not reflect, that if we wish to protect our children from accessing inappropriate material, action must be taken on what is classified, which is action by the content producers. Action also needs to be taken by internet service providers. We touched on that issue in the strategy document on the creative industries that we produced last week. Action should also be taken in relation to parents, because they have a key responsibility for protecting their children from accessing inappropriate material. Work can also be done to educate the children themselves, and their peer groups, so that they can begin to understand the harm that they could experience by viewing the material. So this is not just about our taking action here by passing a bit of a law, even if it is the hon. Gentleman's Bill. That would not be effective on its own. We need to get all the stakeholders working together. That is the way forward.