My Lords, I am grateful for the widespread support that has been expressed for the Bill from across your Lordships’ House, and the recognition of the important difference that it will make for our much-valued broadcasters and media organisations. I reassure noble Lords that I do indeed get it, and I share the warm appreciation that they have expressed for our public service broadcasters.
In fact, my very first paid employment, at the tender age of 14, was playing the part of a French ghost named Guillaume, in a children’s television programme which was broadcast on ITV on Halloween in 1997. As well as getting to film that in a château outside Dijon, I was paid £400, a princely sum for a 14 year- old, which I used to buy a television set of my own, for my room. That was the TV set on which, two years later, I watched the seminal Channel 4 drama “Queer as Folk”, the 25th anniversary of which we mark this year, and its ground-breaking importance is still keenly appreciated by so many people.
I share the strong sentiments that noble Lords have expressed about the importance of public service broadcasters, the programmes they produce and the
fulfilling jobs they support and sustain. I am grateful to noble Lords for their enthusiasm for the Bill and look forward to working with them in the many areas in which they have set out their interests.
A number of noble Lords, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Kidron and Lady Foster, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds, the noble Lord, Lord Hall of Birkenhead, focused on the changes to remit and the question of genres. I reassure noble Lords that the Government recognise the importance of a diverse media sector in the UK, where audiences can select from a wide range of programmes, according to their own tastes and interests, and indeed to have those tastes and interests expanded. Our public service broadcasters have an important and distinctive role to play in helping to achieve that. To ensure that the regulatory framework supports these outcomes, the Bill replaces the 14 overlapping purposes and objectives to which public service broadcasters must contribute with a new, modernised remit. It is intended to provide a much clearer sense of our public service broadcasters’ distinctive role in the sector.
At the same time, it has always been our intention that the revised public service broadcasting framework, including the new remit, should retain the requirement on our public service broadcasters to produce a wide range of programmes. The Government have listened to the views expressed by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee in another place; in particular, the committee’s concerns that the remit is not clear enough on this point. As a result, as the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, noted, we have added an explicit requirement that our public service broadcasters should, together, continue to make a range of genres available.
Ofcom will continue to collect and publish data on the prevalence of different genres; we have retained the current requirement under Section 358 of the Communications Act, which, among other things, requires Ofcom to report annually on the availability of principal genres on television and radio services. At present, Ofcom fulfils this duty in its annual communications and markets report, which last year reported on 15 key genres including religion and belief, arts and classical music, and educational content. We expect this reporting to be retained.
Moreover, should Ofcom identify a problem with the spread of genres, including in relation to religious programming—which a number of noble Lords mentioned —then the Bill allows for the remit to be updated, and indeed for the creation of additional quotas for underserved content areas. I am happy to reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, that the House does indeed have my ear on this, and I hope that she and others will recognise from the changes that we have already made to the Bill in this area that it also has the ears of my ministerial colleagues.
I agree that the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, made a powerful speech about the importance of children’s television, and I strongly agree on the importance of ensuring that our children continue to have access to the public service content, indeed as does my colleague Julia Lopez, the Minister in another place. She spoke passionately there about the profound and positive impact that high-quality, original British programming can have. As the noble Baroness noted, children now
have access to an endless library of global content at their fingertips. While there is some great programming out there for them to access, a lot of it can be generic and lack substance. That is why the Bill includes specific measures to ensure that original British children’s programming, which reflects the world around children here in the UK, remains front and centre of the public service remit.
A number of noble Lords rightly focused on the provisions and the benefits in the Bill for Scotland and the Scottish broadcasting sector and creative economy. The Government are clear about the incredibly valuable contribution that the Gaelic media service MG Alba makes across Scotland and the rest of the UK. Its partnership with the BBC is particularly significant for Gaelic language broadcasting. I assure noble Lords, including the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle, the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, and my noble friends Lord Dunlop and Lady Fraser of Craigmaddie, that the ongoing provision of Gaelic broadcasting and the future of MG Alba will be key considerations as we take forward the BBC funding review and the forthcoming charter review concluding in 2027. The right time to consider these issues is during the review of the royal charter, given the closeness of the link between the BBC and MG Alba. We will provide further details in due course on our timeline for that important review. The Government certainly—