Broadcasting (Radio Multiplex Services) Bill

Andrew Bingham Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 13th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

Indeed, and I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. As we have seen in the past, as things have become easier and industries have grown and developed, the costs have fallen. I am convinced that we would see the costs fall significantly in this area if there was more ability to do it. The fact that small-scale multiplexes would exist would reduce the straight broadcasting costs—that would be a key benefit of this Bill; people would no longer have to pay for coverage over a very large area that they did not really need. All the evidence about technology and broadcasting has shown that as time goes on, things get cheaper. As people are able to innovate and use their creative speciality, things get cheaper. We can look back to 50 years ago to see that when we were overly tough in our regulatory system of broadcasting onshore, we ended up with people in radio stations operating from ships just outside our territorial waters to flagrantly get around a licensing system that had become out of date and irrelevant, with its basis in another era. If we are not creating opportunities for this sort of industry to flourish, all we do is push people on to the internet, thereby restricting choice and people’s ability to listen to new and interesting services that may well be able to be provided at much lower cost than has been possible in the past.

[Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)]

I declare an interest as the chairman of the all-party group on commercial radio. My hon. Friend is talking about setting up small-scale multiplexes on a non-commercial basis, but would such multiplexes be open to small commercial stations? For example, would High Peak Radio in my constituency be able to access one of the multiplexes, even though it is a commercial station?

[Kevin Foster]

My understanding is that yes, it would, although I have to be clear that the Bill will only set a framework; the exact details of a small-scale licence would be a matter for consultation with the industry and for Ofcom in considering individual licence applications. My understanding is that, yes it would be possible for very small-scale commercial operations to take advantage, but there would be processes in place to ensure that the rights of existing multiplexes were not affected unduly.

One consideration would be whether someone had an interest in another multiplex. For example, the Bill includes provisions to enable Ofcom to create rules to disbar someone from applying to set up a small-scale multiplex if they already have an interest in a local or national multiplex. Yes, the Bill could create opportunities, but it is very much about setting a legislative framework, with the detail to follow. Individual licence applications would be considered by Ofcom in the normal way.

There should be an element of flexibility in the framework because, as has been touched on, there will be unique individual circumstances. Some areas are covered by the national digital radio multiplexes but not by a local one. In such circumstances we may wish to look at having some flexibility to allow the provision of digital radio. The Bill is about creating a framework and giving an opportunity. It puts some limits on the framework so that it does not undermine the existing regulatory system, but it is very much a deregulatory Bill that will provide an opportunity to small-scale radio stations that serve particular communities and cannot realistically take on the cost of a local-area multiplex that covers a very wide area.

We know that the technology works, but there is a legislative gap that needs to be fixed to allow that technology to flourish throughout the UK. However, as I just touched on in response to that intervention, is there actually a demand for this type of system? There is little point passing a law for theoretical benefit, or to make the argument that this structure should exist; it must have a practical effect to justify the parliamentary time.

Around 400 community radio stations are already in existence. There is a huge range of diversity in their output, and they are positioned throughout these isles. There are university radio stations, including UCA Radio in Ayr. Interestingly, quite a large number of British forces broadcasting stations operate as community-licensed radio stations, such as the ones at Brize Norton and Shorncliffe. There is also Aldershot Army Radio, and I think there is another one on Salisbury plain. They operate using community FM licences, so would potentially benefit from the framework in the Bill. There are community stations that reflect the community they are in, such as Hillz FM in Coventry—on which I was once interviewed—and Riviera FM in Torbay. A lot of these stations end up broadcasting via the internet as their sole digital output, but if they can broadcast over the internet, they could quickly convert to using a small-scale digital multiplex, which is why I am keen for the structure in the Bill to be created.

As I touched on earlier, hospital radio stations give people more than just something to listen to while they are staying on a ward; they can be a real part of the local community. Several already operate as community FM stations, and I would like to see them have the opportunity, if they wish, to become community DAB stations via a small-scale multiplex. They would cover approximately county-sized areas; they are clearly not going to look to compete with a national digital radio multiplex—that is flagrantly not what they are going to want to do. They should at least have the practical opportunity to go on to digital radio if that is what they see as the natural progression for their services.

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[Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)]

We have heard a lot today about local community radio, and I want to endorse a lot of that and to talk a little about the future and about DAB radio. I should declare an interest as the chairman of the all-party group on commercial radio. I have made a note of all the Members present today, and I fully expect them to join the all-party group within the next week.

The future is digital radio. In my area of High Peak, we have a lot of signal issues with FM. We have talked about the multiplexes we have, and we do get some of the national multiplexes in High Peak, but even that coverage is not great. However, digital is the future of radio, and there will come a day when we switch from analogue to digital. The sooner that day comes, the better, but we need to remember areas such as High Peak, because those of us there are usually the last to get anything in terms of these technologies.

If digital is going to be the future, we need to use it to secure the future of our local radio stations. Others have spoken eloquently about small local radio stations. This has been a great opportunity for us all to wax lyrical about our local radio stations, and I intend to be no different. I will talk about the aptly named High Peak Radio, which covers the whole of my constituency. It is a big constituency, at over 200 square miles, and the name—“High” and “Peak”—tells you all you need to know: we have lots of hills, and signals are a problem. However, because of where we are, we do not really identify with the Radio Manchesters, the Radio Sheffields or the Radio Derbys of this world. So High Peak Radio provides us with a tailor-made station for our area.

The future of radio is digital, and I am sure that that is the way High Peak Radio will want to go one day. However, the way things are at the moment, it is beyond the finances of small, independent, community, commercial local radio stations to go into digital—it is too expensive and too difficult.

The Bill is an excellent piece of legislation, and the sooner we get it through, the better. As my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) laid out, it would put in place a framework whereby the likes of High Peak Radio can get on to digital—they can move into the digital zone.

Somebody here once talked about being an analogue person in a digital age.

[Seema Kennedy]

I think that was me.

[Andrew Bingham]

Actually, I was referring to the former Member for Sedgefield and the former Member for Witney, but it still works. The former Member for Witney did actually come to High Peak Radio, but more of that later.

We need to allow the likes of High Peak Radio to move into the digital age, and the Bill puts down the framework that will allow it to do that without the huge expense it would currently face. The benefits for local radio are huge, and many of them have been highlighted today.

I look at what High Peak Radio has done for High Peak in the years it has been broadcasting, and I see that it brings so many benefits. We talk about community and community charities. We have things such as Blythe House hospice in Chapel-en-le-Frith; High Peak Radio is a great supporter of that great charity, as well as many others.

I have done events in High Peak: I have walked round High Peak and golfed round High Peak—I have done everything round High Peak for charity—and High Peak Radio has been a fantastic supporter. It is not that it has enabled me to do those things—I have to do the walking or whatever it might be—but it gets the word out.

On one of the first charity walks I did, I walked round the boundary of the constituency. I was walking out of Buxton when a car pulled up. The driver opened his window and said, “There’s a tenner, Andrew.” I said, “What’s that for?” He said, “I’ve just heard on High Peak Radio that you’re walking the boundary of the constituency for charity. There’s your 10 quid.” That 10 quid went to the charity.

That is just an isolated instance of how High Peak Radio helps support so many people doing so much good work for so many charities. People cannot afford to have an advert on the big commercial radio stations, let alone the television, but High Peak Radio provides them with a vehicle and a conduit to get the word out and to encourage support. That, in turn, promotes community cohesion. We talk a lot about community cohesion in this place, and that is a great way of promoting it.

Somebody talked earlier about isolation, which affects a lot of people. We all think that, nowadays, with satellite television and all these channels, people do not listen to the radio any more. Well, in High Peak, they do. I know lots of people who have High Peak Radio on because, yes, there is music, but they also get the local news and it makes them feel part of their local communities. They are sometimes elderly people who cannot get out as often as they would like, and it makes them part of the town or village they live in. Whether it be Chapel-en-le-Frith, Charlesworth, Dove Holes or New Mills, they know what is going on in their town and area. They know, for instance, that on Christmas day an organisation did a Christmas lunch for people. It is a great way of promoting community cohesion and dealing with the social isolation that we in this place try to find many ways of dealing with.

As we sit in here, I do not know what the weather is doing, but it is probably pretty snowy in High Peak. Buxton is one of the highest towns in England, and we have the highest football ground and the highest pub in England, all of which will be covered in snow. With High Peak Radio, people can put their local radio station on. If they put a national radio station on, they would probably hear of Buxton only two or three times a year when we are snowed in. They hear about the Cat and Fiddle and the Woodhead pass, because those roads are often blocked with traffic.

At this time of year, snow is always a problem on those and on many other roads. If someone is looking to get from Glossop to Buxton this morning, they will not get that information on BBC radio news but they will get it on High Peak Radio. One of my constituents, Jamie Douglas, cannot get to work today because of the snow. For anybody in High Peak who is watching this, I am very sorry but my constituency office is closed because my staff are snowed in in Glossop. How do people work that out? How do we know where we can go and where we cannot go in High Peak on a day like this when we get more snow than anybody else? People turn to High Peak Radio because the road and traffic news goes on all the time.

My hon. Friend—an old friend—the Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove) talked about sport. I was glad he mentioned that. In fact, I was not that glad because I wanted to mention it first, but hey ho—he beat me to it. We have lots of football, cricket and rugby teams in High Peak.

[Oliver Colvile]

rose—

[Andrew Bingham]

Ah—my friend with the hedgehog is back.

[Oliver Colvile]

My hon. Friend may recall that he organised a game of cricket up in Burton which I was delighted to play in. It was a great game.

[Andrew Bingham]

That is right, although I must correct my hon. Friend: it was actually in Buxton, which, by the way, saw the only case of a day’s cricket being lost due to snow in this country, in June 1975.

Yes, we organised a charity cricket game where the parliamentary cricket team played the “Emmerdale Farm” 11. My hon. Friend drove some 300 miles to play and acquitted himself exemplarily, as he always does—as he did in India, as he remarked earlier. High Peak Radio broadcast from the ground and interviewed the players. On that day we raised, I think, just over £10,000 for the air ambulance. We could not have done that with such success without the backing of our local radio station, because it introduced the coverage.

Among our local football teams, we have Buxton, where High Peak Radio often broadcasts the game live if it is a big match. Glossop North End has been in the FA Vase final twice in recent years. That is a huge event for High Peak, and it is encouraged by High Peak Radio, which sends someone down to Wembley to commentate live on the game. High Peak Radio has actually broadcast from within this building: when I was elected to this place in 2010, we managed to arrange for it to broadcast from Central Lobby. This is great because it makes people in High Peak feel connected with each other. Those who could not get to Wembley to watch Glossop North End in the final could tune into High Peak Radio and feel part of the day. You will find no greater supporter of local radio in this place than me, and that is why I take an active role in the all-party group.

Local radio stations also support local businesses. I ran a small business for many years, as have many colleagues here. We cannot afford to advertise on the television or, perhaps, Radio Manchester, but High Peak Radio provides an opportunity. Whether it be a small shop, a garage or a small trader such as a plumber, it gives them an opportunity to advertise in the local area—an area that they can serve efficiently, quickly, and, more often than not, at a lower cost than some of the national companies.

[Pauline Latham]

My hon. Friend is talking about the fact that people can advertise on these radio stations. Has he ever considered advertising his election on local radio?

[Andrew Bingham]

I have considered advertising in elections on many things. I have had my name on buses, for instance, although people just said, “You look like the back of a bus—now your picture’s on the back of a bus.” As my hon. Friend the Member for Corby said, local radio stations such as High Peak Radio are politically neutral. There is no politics with local radio. High Peak Radio will broadcast what I have to say, whether from my perspective as the Member of Parliament or when I was a Conservative candidate. Whether it is the Labour candidate, the Lib Dem candidate, or whoever, it is completely politically neutral. That is one of the advantages of local radio. As has been said, it is broadcast by local people for local people. It does not have a political edge. That is why I have not considered advertising politically on the station. I do not want to compromise it or to spoil the essence of local radio.

[Kevin Foster]

I am very much enjoying my hon. Friend’s remarks. He will be aware that the rules for political parties on broadcast advertising still apply to small-scale licensing, just as they do to large-scale licensing. That is certainly the intention.

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[Andrew Bingham]

Yes, and it must remain so.

If we can give local stations a low-cost option to move on to digital radio, that has to be welcomed and encouraged. The sooner we get it on the statute book, the better. We can encourage our local stations to continue. We all have our own stations and they all have their own programmes. My hon. Friend the Member for Corby has been on “Desert Island Discs”. My radio does not do that, but it does have “High Peak Insiders” and “High Peak Happenings”, on which events can be advertised.

I am a great supporter of High Peak Radio and local radio in general. We need to give it every chance and every encouragement to survive and flourish. Getting the Bill on the statute book will help them to move into the digital age without costing them a fortune. I am delighted to see the Bill before the House today. The sooner we can get it through Report stage and all the other processes, the better.

Before I sit down, on the wider subject of radio, I want to give a gentle nudge to my right hon. Friend the Minister—who is now looking somewhat startled—and ask him to please get on with the radio deregulation consultation, because it has been talked about for some time. [Interruption.] He is looking towards his officials, as am I, and everybody is nodding, so hopefully we have achieved something there.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay on bringing the Bill forward. I enthusiastically hope it will get on to the statute book as quickly as possible, and that that news can be broadcast on High Peak Radio very soon.

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[Matt Hancock]

I have no doubt that all 19 million were totally astonished. It just shows that if you put on what might be regarded as niche broadcasts—in this case, a cricket match between the UK and Indian Parliaments—sometimes many, many people will watch.

[Andrew Bingham]

Does the Minister recall that I was actually commentating for Indian television when my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) took the wicket?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, I remember that. On a slightly more serious note, I think there was a reason why 19 million people in India were watching that cricket match, and it was not due to the quality of the commentary, the bowling or the fielding. It was because there is very heavy regulation on the number of broadcast channels in India, so there was nothing else to watch. Putting ourselves in the eyes of the viewer or the ears of the listener, it is far better to have more stations, especially local ones, so that people can do something better than watching my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport and I play cricket.

My hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup) raised the issues of signal power strength and financial restrictions. Her point on financial restrictions is actually slightly out of date. Since 2014, we have slightly relaxed the financial restrictions on community stations precisely because of the argument that she made—that a community station still needs to raise the money to continue to run. Maybe I can write to her with the full details of the changes that we have made and she can tell me whether she thinks we have gone far enough.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) made the case that small-scale multiplexes should be able to run on a commercial basis as well and asked when all this will be in place. The answer is that, should the Bill proceed and, alongside it, we consult on the details of the orders, our goal will be to have the system in place by early 2018 before the trials finish at the end of March 2018. We are on the path to get that timing right, but we need to get the Bill through to make that happen.

My hon. Friends the Members for Charnwood (Edward Argar) and for Rochester and Strood (Kelly Tolhurst) professed not to be technological. In fact, towards the end of the debate, that crept into everything. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill)—the Suffolk Bury—made the same argument. Many people, and I count myself as one, are incredibly enthusiastic about and excited by technology, but technology is only any good if it caters for people because of what it does, not what it is. People who are not enthusiastic about technology can still use digital radio including, for instance, to listen to “Test Match Special.”

As long the gradual move to digital is handled correctly, it has the potential to free up spectrum that can be used in other ways. It has to be done carefully. I come back to a point made a lot at the start of the debate: this is about adding a capability, not turning off analogue. By coincidence, I met the Norwegian Minister on my way here this morning and she told me about the progress Norway has made in starting to turn off the analogue services. We are not there yet. We still hope to do it, but we must make sure that enough people are on digital first and that we support those who are still on analogue in the transition.[Official Report, 16 January 2017, Vol. 619, c. 4MC.] There have been some big changes in the past couple of years, including in the car market. Nearly 95% of new car radios are digital. The change is happening and it is a good thing, but we must do it sensibly and carefully, and the Bill has no impact on those plans.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds mentioned BBC Radio Suffolk and Radio West Suffolk, which I visited in the last Parliament. It is true that, as a student, I was on Oxygen 107.9 FM, a radio station in Oxford where I learned how to handle a radio mic. I had the same sort of experience as my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane and it taught me a huge amount. I was the minority sports correspondent and I had a lot of fun. In fact, I am sure that the radio show was more fun to make than to listen to.

I pay tribute to the work of those who are helping with the expansion of digital radio, and particularly to Ford Ennals, who has done an enormous amount of work outside this House to make sure people understand what digital radio is—indeed, he is often on the radio talking about why digital radio matters.

Currently, about 200 smaller commercial radio stations covering small markets and 244 commercial radio stations transmitting mainly on FM and medium wave are not broadcasting on digital radio. The details of the Bill have been well discussed and set out today, and the purpose of the Bill has been well set out. I am delighted the Bill has cross-party support and support from everybody who has spoken in the debate, and I hope it can make progress. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay for bringing it forward with such panache.