Video Recordings Bill (Allocation of Time)

I am grateful for this chance to support the Government in seeking to pass the Video Recordings Bill. As the Minister noted in his opening remarks, we are here for some very peculiar reasons. In theory, we are debating a Bill that was enacted as long ago as 1984. The then Video Recordings Bill was introduced by Graham Bright, the then Member for Luton, South, who rose to become an extremely successful Parliamentary Private Secretary to an extremely successful Prime Minister, John Major. He introduced the Bill on 11 November 1983. As is well known, the Bill was intended to address the problem of what were then known as "video nasties". Because videos were unclassified, it was perfectly legal to sell any kind of video without any restriction whatever. As the Minister noted, in the mid-80s, video recorders—and therefore videos—were becoming all-pervasive, so there was a need to act because videos showing all kinds of unmentionable acts were freely available. The approach adopted by Mr. Bright in dealing with this problem was ingenious. He introduced a system of classification, and what became illegal was not the selling of an obscene video but the selling of an unclassified video, or a classified video to an inappropriate audience. The test of whether somebody was guilty under the Act was extremely clear-cut. Before the Act was passed, the problem had been that the only available sanction to stop a video nasty was the Obscene Publications Act 1959. Almost by definition, that was a subjective and difficult test to pass. In fact, there were cases of juries clearing people who were accused of selling an obscene video because the jury clearly took the view that it was not obscene. Under the Video Recordings Act 1984 it was made clear that one could not sell an unclassified video. I shall go on to explain why the Act has been so successful—largely because the British Board of Film Classification, to which I pay tribute, has been extremely successful in implementing its provisions. If any hon. Member has the time over the weekend—or perhaps they will have had time over the Christmas break—it is worth revisiting the debates on the Video Recordings Bill in 1983 and 1984. I am extremely grateful to Mark Taylor from the Library, who pulled out the Committee stages for me to have a look at. The Minister and I were both doing our O-levels at the time, so we may not have been that focused on the debates then taking place. As the Minister said in his opening remarks, there is a salutary lesson here about how quickly technology changes and moves on. It almost quaint to read those debates, with people referring to the video recording industry as a "new and dynamic" industry; I suspect that most video recorders are now discarded or hidden away in attics. The Minister says that it will be a considerable time before film downloads overtake box sets, but I suspect that in a few years' time, DVD machines will be going the same way and we will be downloading films directly on to our televisions. I will come back to that problem in a few minutes. The debate on the Bill took place at a time when the technology revolution was just beginning. It is breathtaking to see the changes that have subsequently taken place in our lifetimes. It is worth reviewing some of the arguments for and against the Bill at the time. For example, there was a proposal to license video stores, which was rightly rejected as bureaucratic. There was also a debate about—[Interruption.] There are noises off, Mr. Speaker, which are distracting me from my carefully drafted speech. It is interesting to note—well, it is interesting to me, if not to the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster)—that there were also calls for self-regulation of the video recording industry and suggestions that it should be given time to come up with its own system of regulation. I view that as interesting, because there are echoes of our current debate as the Digital Economy Bill goes through the other place and we are debating whether it is appropriate for the Government to regulate on internet piracy or whether there should be self-regulation by the internet service providers. As the Minister knows, we support the Government in bringing in legislation to crack down on internet piracy. The debate was notable for other contributions, notably a maiden speech by a new Conservative Member for Norwich, which brings to mind the excellent maiden speech recently made by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North (Chloe Smith). The highlight of the Second Reading debate at the time was a fine and intelligent speech by one Matthew Parris, the then Member for West Derbyshire, who showed the flair and imagination that have been such a hallmark of his subsequently glittering career in journalism. I say all this in the full expectation that I will be written up in exceptionally glowing terms in his column in The Times this Saturday. While this House was sad to lose Mr. Parris, its sorrow was tempered by the election of his successor, who I may say has served the people of West Derbyshire, and this House, exceptionally ever since.