FILMS (Hansard, 4 August 1976)

§ Mr. Christopher Price (Lewisham, West)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to apply certain provisions of the Theatres Act 1968 to films; and for related purposes. As a result of court decisions this year, an extremely serious situation has arisen in the film industry. The system of voluntary censorship which has prevailed throughout screen history has been undermined by decisions in cases brought by Mr. Raymond Blackburn who is, I am sorry to say, a former Labour MP. These have shown that the whole basis on which film censorship has been conducted is unsound in law and that even where a film has been passed by the British Board of Film Censors or a local authorty its exhibitors are still liable to private prosecution brought at common law. This situation is in urgent need of remedy and ought not to continue for a moment longer than necessary.

The purpose of my Bill is to provide remedies in accord with the legislation governing obscenity in other areas such as books and theatres and in accord with the views of the Law Commission. Before describing the provisions of the Bill, I should like to explain the recent cases that have made it necessary.

In Reginav. the Greater London Council, the Court of Appeal rules on the conviction of the exhibitors of the film "More About the Language of Love" for the common law offence of showing an indecent exhibition in public. The Court of Appeal rejected the standard criterion of obscenity in both the Obscene Publications Act and the Theatres Act that for a film to be obscene it is necessary for it to tend to deprave and corrupt. In the judgment, Lord Justice Bridge said that the law was so full of anomalies and was operated so unfairly and unevenly that some rationalisation was urgently needed.

The second recent case, also brought by Mr. Raymond Blackburn, was Reginav. Classic Cinemas. That concerned a different film, "The Language of Love". It was another common law prosecution, but this time it failed and Judge McKinnon made some trenchant comments on the expense in public money involved 1742 and the situation in which private individuals could inflict heavy costs on film exhibitors to defend criminal proceedings which were ultimately unsuccessful.

Under Acts passed between 1959 and 1968 about books and theatres, the general tests of whether publication or performance of any matter is obscene is governed by whether it is likely to deprave and corrupt, with the defence that even where this is likely, it is still permissible if publication is for the public good. The sole exception is the exhibition of cinematograph films.

It is urgent and imperative that films are brought into line and the anomaly ended. My Bill would extend various aspects of the Theatres Act 1968 to the exhibition of films in public cinemas and private cinema clubs. Apart from putting right the general anomaly, the Bill would have more detailed consequences. Films, like books and plays, will have to be judged as a whole rather than in little snippets.

Secondly, no prosecution could be brought against a film for an offence at common law and it would no longer be possible for individuals such as Mr. Raymond Blackburn to go behind the law in order to frustrate the aim of Parliament to deal with the problem of obscenity in an orderly manner. Thirdly, the test of the public good could be applied to films as to theatres and other publications and expert evidence would be admissible in court cases. Fourthly, and particularly important in view of Mr. Raymond Blackburn's cases, the consent of the Attorney-General would be required before any prosecution could be brought. Local authorities would keep their essential powers to regulate the showing of such films to young people under the age of 18, but they would no longer have the invidious and inappropriate task of censoring films for adults.

It was by an accident at the beginning of this century that local authorities ever got involved in the censoring of films. It was only fire regulations and the possibility of celluloid catching fire that brought films into an area where they ought not to be.

Anyone who has served on a local authority and who knows the kind of 1743 councillors who immediately volunteer for the job of censoring films will know that removing this task from local authorities would act as a useful inhibition on some of our prurient and voyeuristic local representatives in pursuing a task that should not be theirs. Under the Bill, the British Board of Film Censors would continue its job as a voluntary authority, but we should finally move towards nationally agreed tests of obscenity applied across the board and prevent films from being singled out as they have been in recent court cases.

The Bill has the support of a number of national organisations and I have taken great care to ensure that it has balanced all-party support in the House. The present law on obscenity is an appalling muddle. The Bill would play a small and modest part—we have not finished yet—in disentangling it.