Video Recordings Bill (Allocation of Time)

It is a great honour and privilege to follow the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz), who serves with such distinction as the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee and has a clear, personal interest in one of the key issues being debated today—namely, video games. I was particularly delighted that he went out of his way to praise the video games industry. He is absolutely right in doing so: it is a vital part of this country's creative economy, which many people believe could be, with the relevant support, as important to the country's economy as the financial services industries have been. Many people have believed him to be interested only in condemning individual video games—he has gone on several crusades in that respect—so it was good to hear him praising the industry, as well as chastising it for some of the projects it has produced. I was also pleased that the right hon. Gentleman picked up on a point that I made in an intervention on the Minister. Like the right hon. Gentleman, I have done the calculations on the Digital Economy Bill, which makes amendments to the Video Recordings Act 1984, and given the recent announcement that the time allocation in another place will be longer than originally anticipated, it seems highly unlikely that we will be able to get through all the stages of that Bill in this place before the likely date of the general election. Given that there is cross-party support for much of Tanya Byron's excellent report, I hope that the Minister can find ways to ensure that areas on which there is such agreement can be brought forward and put on to the statute book before the election. I was also pleased to hear the right hon. Gentleman pick up on a point made by the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr. Vaizey), to whom I shall turn in a second, about the successful prosecutions of those who have been selling inappropriate videos to under-age people—to children. It is right and proper that we praise, for example, the many excellent trading standards officers in local authorities around the country who have brought those prosecutions so successfully—if only other cases of under-age sales, such as of alcohol, were prosecuted with such vigour! However, I am delighted that that is happening in this case. I am always delighted to be involved in debates in which the hon. Gentleman has participated. I confess that it came as a complete surprise to hear that this was his maiden Second Reading speech as a shadow Minister. He seems to have been in his place as a shadow Minister for so long; it demonstrates how scarce is the legislation on matters within the portfolio of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Were we to have been allowed, many of us would have liked to see legislation such as the Heritage Protection Bill, which would have given him an earlier outing on his party's Front Bench. The hon. Gentleman occupied the crease for 36 minutes, during which he did a great deal, rightly, to praise the British Board of Film Classification for its work. However, he failed to praise it also for its work in speech writing—I recognised quite a large chunk of his speech from the excellent briefing notes that the organisation provided to all hon. Members likely to be taking part in the debate. However, he raised some important points, and I do not wish to repeat many of them, given that he occupied the crease for so long. We know why we are here and we know what the problem is. As the right hon. Gentleman said, the Minister was generous in not seeking to make party political advantage on where the error occurred, whether in 1984, in 1993 when the first revisions took place, or in 1994 when the second revisions took place. One might have expected the concern now discovered—about the provisions not having been reported to the European Union—to have been discovered at that time. Nevertheless, let us praise the current civil servants in the Minister's Department for finding the problem and helping the Minister and his predecessor to find a way to deal with it swiftly. Swiftness is the essence of why we are here today. It is vital that we get back on to the statute book, as quickly as possible, legislation that provides protection against the sale of inappropriate material to children and counters the ability of people to sell pirate DVDs and so on. We have all made it clear that we are keen to support the Minister in his desire to fast-track the legislation back on to the statute book and then to make, if there is sufficient time—I am increasingly concerned about that—subsequent amendments to it in light of, for instance, the introduction of the PEGI system for video games. There is support for that on both sides of the House. Reference has been made to the case for amending the Video Recordings Act itself, something that we could have done today. It might have delayed proceedings, but it could have been an option. The hon. Member for Wantage made a point about some of his party's proposals for changes to the legislation. I would like an assurance that the issues raised will be dealt with in the Digital Economy Bill, so that there will not be a need to amend the Bill that is before us. I share the concern expressed by the current shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for South-West Surrey (Mr. Hunt), about DVDs and videos relating to sport, religion and music that do not carry ratings but which often contain material that many of us would think inappropriate, in particular for sale to young people. Such videos include self-mutilation, erotic dancing, sex toys, drug use and so on. The Minister's officials have made clear a point that was not picked up by the hon. Member for Wantage. They have said:""Music, sports or religious videos lose their exemption from classification if they depict sexual activity, mutilation, gross violence or other practices likely to cause offence,"" and that in those circumstances,""it is for the appropriate enforcement authorities to take action."" The implication is that there is no need for an amendment, because other bits of legislation could be used to prosecute people distributing such material. I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify that issue, because it is one that those in probably all parts of the House want to be resolved. My concern is to find out the means by which it is going to be resolved, or whether the Minister believes, as his officials appear to be saying, that there is no problem and that action can be taken under existing legislation. I will not dwell on my second point for any length of time because it has already been raised by the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), who is no longer in his place, despite the fact that the race meeting to which he was hoping to go today has been cancelled because of bad weather. The hon. Gentleman rightly raised the issue of the degree of complacency—I choose my words carefully—that the Minister appears to have about people who have already been prosecuted under the Video Recordings Act 1984, which we now understand was not correctly enforced. The Minister seemed to imply that the reason he had been advised that there would be no redress was that people would be too late to make an appeal. However, as the right hon. Gentleman made clear—I think that the hon. Member for Wantage made a similar point—if the legislation was never enforced correctly, we are not talking about an appeal; rather, I suspect that we are talking about a very different legal process. Others have asked for them, and I, too, would be grateful if the Minister could give us clearer assurances about why he and his officials are correct in this matter.