Broadcasting (Radio Multiplex Services) Bill

Debate between David Morris and Kevin Foster

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

[Kevin Foster]

My hon. Friend makes the fantastic point that sometimes a community radio operation can take a broadcasting risk that a large-scale commercial operation, or even the BBC, with its requirement to satisfy licence-fee payers that their payments offer value for money, cannot take, and can develop a service and show that it works. Earlier this week we were talking about the Green Investment Bank, which was started to address a perceived market failure, but now private investors want to take it on and develop some of its actions into a profit-making venture because they believe the market has changed. As my hon. Friend points out, broadcasting is the same.

A service that may not be seen as inherently profitable, or as something that a broadcaster would want to launch fully commercially, could be allowed to build its name in a community setting. Indeed, an individual can build their abilities and talents with a community service, allowing them to move on in broadcasting more generally. Community services would effectively act as an incubator for what might become successful and popular services. However, if people cannot make that jump, we are in essence restricting the options to those who are tech-savvy and can go online to access such content. People will then find that there are no community services out there when they tune in on their DAB radio, or they will have to rely on FM technology, which clearly puts them at a disadvantage because of the quality of the output they will be able to produce.

The Bill would fix the issue with the scale of digital broadcasting by allowing the creation and licensing of smaller-scale multiplexes that can operate in a local area, giving a new opportunity to create the infrastructure to deliver digital radio. I make it clear that the technology has moved on hugely since the House last considered these issues.

[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

I declare an interest, because I wrote songs in the 1980s. I do not know whether that has anything to do with this debate, but I am just covering myself.

On a serious note, if I remember rightly the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), when he was Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, announced that he wanted the old analogue system to go digital sooner rather than later. At that time, the public expected that that would occur quickly. Will my hon. Friend clarify the situation?

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[Kevin Foster]

The infrastructure currently is not in place, and we are dealing here with creating the licensing for small-scale multiplexes to allow its creation. On the costs, we know that the existing multiplexes work reasonably well for larger-scale operators; as I have mentioned, those with a turnover of more than £1 million might find this an option for them, although some would debate whether there is, in effect, a monopoly in some areas. I am not looking to affect that situation; I seek to create an opportunity for small-scale operations. The feedback from the industry is strongly that the opportunity is there and the technology is there in an affordable way, particularly with the potential use of tall buildings, rather than having to build separate broadcast masts, but the opportunity of licensing is not in place legally.

As I have said, this is not about forcing anyone to do anything: the Bill does not compel the Minister to provide a service by subsidy; and it does not compel the BBC to spend licence fee money in setting something up—it gives people an opportunity to set something up. My strong belief is that there is genuine demand to take this step, for reasons that I will set out in a moment, but if we do not do it, we are merely blocking it out in legislative terms. We have seen the impact of the trial, with new services coming along. We have seen those develop and flourish, but if we do not want to create that opportunity, we have to ask why not.

[David Morris]

rose—

[Kevin Foster]

I will briefly give way, but I should start to make some more progress.

[David Morris]

I thank my hon. Friend for being so generous in giving way, and I just want to clarify something. If the demand is there—as he said, people could be utilising this technology on laptops—would that not eventually drive the cost down?

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Morris]

I agree with my hon. Friend and thank her for that helpful intervention, which leads me to what happened with The Bay radio. It was flooded and ran the whole operation off a laptop from the first floor of a building. My hon. Friend the Member for Torbay said in his speech that laptops come in very handy for that kind of broadcasting, but one problem is that costs can be prohibitive, which was highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall). It is costly to get licences, but with demand, costs are driven down.

I hope the Minister looks on the proposal favourably. We must go forward and progress—if we do not, it will cost us. The radio industry has had certain problems over the years, not least having such a measure to help out in the first place. If The Bay had had DAB, people in the areas to which it broadcasts would have been better informed about what was going on within their localities. Not just my constituency was affected; Lancaster and constituencies further up towards Carlisle were also affected. During the floods, I met the then Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart). Not many people knew that he was running around the vicinity trying to sort out the problems and that he was working very hard, purely and simply because communications broke down in the area. The power cut in my vicinity lasted nearly two days.

Radio is a lifeline for communities. We should enhance the industry and not curtail it. The measure proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay is very welcome indeed. Larger broadcasters such as the BBC would welcome it because it would drive their costs down. I am not being more favourable to one radio station than to others. I have not mentioned them all, but I must plug Beyond Radio—I am sure it will use it in its jingles.

We must look at this in a sensible and grown-up manner. DAB is the way forward and the future. It was for the right and collegiate reasons that the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Leigh, wanted to push the project forward, but we have yet to see that.

[Kevin Foster]

My hon. Friend refers to what the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) suggested when he was the Cabinet Minister responsible. The Bill is not about that specifically, but does my hon. Friend agree that, if ever there is a move to digital, we need to ensure that all three layers of radio are represented—national, commercial and community—on the digital spectrum?

[David Morris]

I totally agree. I pay homage to my hon. Friend for his research on the Bill and for speaking for one hour, largely without notes. I was in the music industry once, and it shames me to say that I did not know half of what my hon. Friend told us. His Bill would be a big help to the industry as a whole and I am sure that it will welcome it.

Riot Compensation Bill

Debate between David Morris and Kevin Foster

Friday 4th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[David Morris]

What struck me when I was self-employed is the fact that rioting, terrorism and even political activity—that could cover what we do in this Chamber—are excluded in certain forms of insurance for commercial properties, especially for the self-employed. Does my hon. Friend agree that that should also be considered?

[Kevin Foster]

My hon. Friend makes a strong point. That partly reflects the change of era. There was terrorism in the 1880s, but its impact was very different from what a Semtex explosion would do today. The nature of terrorism has changed so greatly, as we saw in the recent attacks in Paris, with the use of automatic battlefield weaponry. In 1886, an automatic weapon was a Gatling gun, which needed a crew to operate it. Sadly, today’s automatic weapons can be carried quite easily. It is therefore absolutely right that we update the legislation. We should give the Bill a Second Reading and then in Committee look in detail at how we can make it suitable for the modern era. On political activity, for example, were the recent events at the Cereal Killer Cafe a disturbance or a riot? My hon. Friend sums up the issues perfectly. In Committee we will look in detail at where we should draw the lines, using modern language, not language that was suitable in the late 19th century.

It is also worth dwelling on the fact that the current legislation—it seems laughable to describe something from the 1880s as current—means that there is strict liability on the police. As has been mentioned, the areas that have been affected by rioting tend to be those areas that rely most on their local police force. If the local police force ends up picking up the bill for a very large amount of riot compensation, ultimately that is likely to be paid for either by putting additional taxes on communities that are least likely to be able to afford them, or by cutting police provision, and that would be in an area that had just suffered rioting and might therefore require more police provision. I respect the Government’s intervention after 2011 to prevent that from happening, but that is not guaranteed for the future. That is another reason why it is vital to update the legislation so that it is not just one community taking the risk.

As we heard in an earlier speech, some police forces could be bankrupted by a large-scale riot that affected particular commercial interests in their area. That is just not a sensible position to be in. That could also act as a disincentive to have economic activity in the local area. If we know that for some reason there might be a public order disturbance—even a once-in-100-years scenario —and that a particular economic interest could be damaged or destroyed, we would know that ultimately we might end up copping the whole bill for compensation. A review of that situation is long overdue.

Therefore, I also think that it is right to include the £1 million cap. Statistics from the House of Commons Library suggest that about 99% of claims made in 2011 would be covered under these proposals. To be clear, this will not be denying justice to thousands of interests; it is about having fairness between the large interests that are the most able to protect themselves and the smaller interests that find it the most difficult.