Local Media

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2010 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

What a great pleasure it is to open this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Benton. I thank hon. Members and hon. Friends for their early support for my remarks, which may have been heard as “noises off”.

[Mr Don Foster (Bath) (LD)]

On a point of order, Mr Benton. I apologise for interrupting the Minister. Would it be in order for hon. Members to take off their jackets?

[Mr Joe Benton (in the Chair)]

I see nothing wrong with that, as long as they have a decent shirt on.

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[Mr Vaizey]

As the hon. Gentleman is fully aware, I have answered a parliamentary question on that point, and I refer him back to the answer I gave him some days ago.

[Mr Foster]

As some of us have not had the opportunity of seeing the answer, would my hon. Friend the Minister be kind enough to tell all hon. Members what that answer was?

[Mr Vaizey]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, I am against Government waste, and it seems pointless to repeat that answer here when it has already been printed in Hansard. I will write him a letter explaining what my definition of super-fast broadband is, but it certainly does not involve the word “megabit.”

We have always been clear that the previous Government’s plans for independently funded news consortia were the wrong way to go, and we opposed those plans from the beginning. We understood why the previous Government wanted to put the measures in place: it was their answer to the challenge of sustaining regional news. There is a legacy from the process that they started, in that it kindled innovative ideas among local media companies. Indeed, my understanding is that many of the consortia that formed as a result of that policy will continue to work together to look at ways of taking their ideas forward. We hope that by, for example, relaxing the cross-media ownership rules, they can follow a deregulatory path, rather than the subsidy path, to bring their ideas to fruition.

We always felt strongly that the issue of subsidy focused consortia on the best way to get access to the subsidy, as opposed to the best way to engage with viewers. That is why we opposed subsidies, and why we took an early decision not to go ahead with the pilots. The savings made from not going ahead with them will go into providing super-fast broadband, a definition of which is available in Hansard.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I agree with much of what my hon. Friend has said, but does he accept that in places such as Yorkshire, ITV regional news—the news programme there is called “Calendar”—is incredibly popular, and that there is great demand for it? Will he think again about the obvious solution that would help organisations such as ITV carry on with programmes such as “Calendar”? That solution is to top-slice the BBC licence fee. The BBC gets more and more money every year—so much money that in most years, it does not know how to spend it. That money could be given to an organisation such as ITV to do something worth while, such as providing real competition within regional news, which is much enjoyed in places such as Yorkshire.

[Mr Foster]

No.

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[Mr Don Foster (Bath) (LD)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson) and to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Benton. The debate gives me the opportunity formally to welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey), to his post on the Front Bench.

We are discussing a really important issue. The Minister rightly recognised that we all had an opportunity to namecheck our excellent local newspapers. He did so with the Wantage and Grove Herald, and I certainly want to do the same for my own paper, The Bath Chronicle, which is now, sadly, a weekly rather than a daily. The Bath Chronicle, the Wantage and Grove Herald and all other local newspapers are important in ensuring the accountability of our local councils and other public bodies, and they are a focal point for the community. Sometimes they do interesting things; the Minister gave us the example of the coverage of his expenses. About eight years ago, when The Bath Chronicle was a daily, the letters page included a letter complaining that there were too many photographs of Don Foster in the paper. I was delighted that the paper chose to illustrate the letter with a quarter-page photograph of me, with a banner underneath saying, “Too many photographs?”

Local newspapers and the local media—radio and so on—also act as good vehicles for important local campaigns. Let me just say on a serious note, and with a degree of personal interest, that the front page of today’s edition of The Bath Chronicle includes an article about my part-time secretary in my constituency office. This lady has had breast cancer and bone cancer, and she now has liver cancer. She is quite seriously ill and she was, most recently, taking Herceptin, until her consultants discovered that it was causing heart failure. The only drug now available to her is relatively new. It was recommended by her consultants, but it has not, unfortunately, gone through the final stages of approval by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, so she is being denied access to this life-saving drug. I am delighted that my local newspaper is running a campaign to gain support for her and that my secretary’s local MP, the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), is supporting her.

Local newspapers, local radio and local media overall are clearly important, and they provide all the things that I have described. They also provide a training ground where many people can develop their media skills before moving to more regional or national newspapers. Given the emphasis that the coalition Government place on localism, it is critical that we find ways of supporting and defending local media so that they can carry out important checks on what happens locally.

As we have heard from the Minister, there are many problems. The local media industry has been contracting for the past five years. Thousands of jobs have been lost in regional and local newspapers, and 25% of jobs are being cut in local papers. Sixty titles were cut last year alone, and more jobs and titles will potentially be lost. Reference has also been made to ITV, where some 1,000 jobs have already gone in the regional news service. More than half of local commercial radio stations are now loss-making, and the industry’s total revenue has gone down dramatically—by nearly a quarter—in the past few years. Its audience share has also declined.

The Minister has given us some of the reasons for what has happened. Of course, it is largely to do with the recession and, therefore, the fall in advertising revenue. However, there has also been a move to new platforms, not least on the internet—an issue to which I will return shortly. If we believe that something needs to be done, the real question is what we are going to do about these issues. I am delighted that the coalition agreement makes clear reference to the coalition Government’s desire to

“enable partnerships between local newspapers, radio and television stations to promote a strong and diverse local media industry.”

The question is how we do that. I want to make a number of suggestions to the Minister and to pick up on some of the points that he and others have made.

Let me start by saying that it is critical that we understand the important role that the BBC plays, and that we make it clear that we would do great damage to local, regional and national media if we followed the advice of the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) and top-sliced the BBC’s licence fee. That would undermine the BBC’s independence—something that I am delighted the Secretary of State, in his recent speech on these issues, made clear the coalition Government are not prepared to do. The minute we allow top-slicing at the BBC, the corporation will be constantly looking over its shoulder to make sure that it is not offending the Government of the day, and its independence from the Government will be lost. I have to tell the hon. Gentleman that I strongly oppose top-slicing and I hope that that will be the view of the coalition Government.

[Philip Davies]

If that is the case, and top-slicing undermines the BBC’s independence, is the hon. Gentleman saying that the BBC’s independence suddenly disappears in the months and years before the charter and the licence fee agreement come up for renegotiation, because the BBC is looking over its shoulder and thinking about what the Government might do?

[Mr Foster]

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point, but two wrongs do not make a right for a start. He should look carefully at the BBC’s current role, because there are ways of involving the BBC—I will come to this in more detail in a minute—in developing things that we need to support local and regional media. The BBC’s sixth purpose, for example, includes responsibility for helping to develop platforms on which BBC programmes will appear. The most obvious example currently is the roll-out of high-speed broadband, the definition of which we will receive shortly when we get our letters from the Minister. That is an important example. Under its existing charter obligations, the BBC could be expected to provide even more support through such activities.

The hon. Gentleman is also well aware that the BBC has recently developed an even more vigorous approach to the concept of partnership. It is working with others in all parts of the media to provide forms of mutual support. That work benefits the BBC, but it also supports others. That is another area that we need to do more about in future.

Recently the biggest area of support, collaboration and partnership has been in developing a key part of the solution to our current problems: Project Canvas. I am sure that all hon. Members present are aware that while we debate the BBC Trust is making a final decision about whether to allow the BBC to go ahead with it. I hope the trust will allow it, because it will be a key driver in solving many of the problems that we have described.

[Mr Bradshaw]

Before the hon. Gentleman moves away from the question of the BBC and top-slicing, have not the Government announced that they intend to do exactly what he so decries, in that they have said they will fund super-fast broadband, whatever that means—one assumes it must be more than 2 megabits post-2014—from the licence fee? That can only mean a continuation of top-slicing post-2014.

[Mr Foster]

The right hon. Gentleman should know better than to ask me of all people that question, because he knows only too well that the previous Government identified the underspend from the digital switchover money, which was provided for the targeted help scheme. That was ring-fenced and was not going to be used for any other BBC activities. I was highly critical of it; it should never have been there. That is a very different proposition from taking money from the BBC’s operating funding. It was a separate fund. The previous Government were going to use it for one set of purposes, and the coalition Government are going to use it for other purposes. On a judgment call as to who is right, I believe the coalition decision to use it for the roll-out of high-speed broadband is right. The right hon. Gentleman was going to use it in part for independently funded news consortia.

[Mr Bradshaw]

If we are only talking about the underspend from the digital switchover before 2014, how will the coalition fund super-fast broadband after 2014?

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[Mr Foster]

That is obviously a matter for subsequent announcements that the Minister will no doubt make. I do not want to second-guess him. I have already hinted that the Government would be wise to give careful consideration to the sixth purpose of the BBC. That could happen in combination with several other measures that would help to drive up demand, which I shall come to, and that would incentivise the commercial companies—Virgin, BT and others—to act, for their own benefit. There are ways forward.

The other television organisation that has been mentioned is ITV, which has been a catalyst for debate because of its decision to reduce regional television. Many people have been deeply concerned about that. There is a new management team, and ITV seems at least willing to consider maintaining present regional TV levels, rather than making further cuts. The decisions have not yet been made. However, certain things should be done to provide support to ITV. Ofcom is already looking at the airtime sales rules, and we shall have to wait for the outcome. It is considering—I would hope it would do it rather more urgently—the issue of minutage, particularly in peak time. However, there is a key area in which it is important for the coalition Government to find a solution: the problems currently caused by the contract rights renewal situation. That is a fetter on ITV’s opportunity to develop a rational approach to the sale of advertising. I fully appreciate the difficulties, although it is not appropriate to go into them here. I hope that the Minister will make some reference to the issue and give a commitment that the Government will do all they can to find a solution, perhaps working with colleagues in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

The Minister has mentioned something else that will be helpful for local and regional media—the reduction of regulation of cross-media ownership. The Secretary of State referred in his speech at the Hospital club to Ofcom’s recommendations, and an agreement to proceed with those, but he said he wanted to go further, and if possible to remove the rules altogether. Of course he rightly entered a caveat, saying that we must bear in mind monopoly situations, which would be a matter of concern to us all. I hope that the Minister will be willing to consider, in addition to monopolies, the other side of the coin: all our deliberations—on all mergers—should include a public interest test. On some occasions a public interest test would suggest going ahead with something even if it would lead to a monopoly. We should introduce such a test not just for cross-media ownership but for monopolies. That is a possible approach.

There is a problem for the coalition Government and we should make no bones about it. The two parties in the coalition started their approach to independently funded news consortia from different positions. The Conservative party was opposed to them and the Liberal Democrats wanted to go ahead with the three trials. The coalition agreement states that we shall not go ahead, and I support that because of the Minister’s clear acknowledgment that although they were not necessarily the right way forward, valuable lessons had been learned from the work that was done in setting up the potential trial areas. The question for the coalition Government is whether to grasp the opportunities of those lessons and find ways to take them forward.

I mentioned Project Canvas. With that, people will be able to sit in front of their televisions and see programmes that come from satellite, free-to-air or, effectively, their computer, via broadband. It would then be perfectly possible to develop a model of local television, which the Secretary of State and the Minister are interested in developing—I support them in that—through an internet protocol television route. That would be one potential model. We could then bring into partnership local and regional newspapers, local radio stations and other interested groups, and many others in the creative industries, in developing programmes. A model could be developed that could provide truly local television, which would support the other parts of the local and regional media industries. That would bring something of real interest to communities, and would be a sustainable model.

[Mr Watson]

The hon. Gentleman will not be able to answer this, because none of us has an answer, but although I follow the logic of his argument, is not the advertising revenue model from which organisations now work finite? What he suggests might load greater obligation and cost on to local news organisations without an increase in revenues to cover it.

[Mr Foster]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but all I am suggesting is that I hope the review will consider the model I describe. That model could also receive support from the BBC and ITV, to provide some programming through partnership arrangements with the BBC and Canvas and ITV and its regional news outlets. That could provide a new route forward. Interestingly, the Select Committee hinted at it as a possibility in its report, and it ties in with the precise wording of the coalition agreement, which mentions partnerships between all those bodies.

Of course, as the Secretary of State said, there would also be the possibility of having straightforward, free-to-air local TV stations, but in those circumstances it is almost certain that they would have to use the interleaved spectrum. As we know, there is pressure on that spectrum for other uses such as programme making and special events—PMSE—and so on, so there are problems to be overcome, but it would be interesting to look at both models.

My final point on this subject to the Minister, and through him to the Secretary of State, is that reference is often made to the situation in America. We are aware, of course, that many of the American stations that he referred to are actually cable television stations—that is, the equivalent of broadband today. The one advantage of developing that model as part of the package is that it would be a key driver for broadband take-up. Broadband roll-out is crucial, but it is equally important that there is high take-up of broadband as it is rolled out. If that occurs, there will be a greater incentive for commercial operators to do a greater proportion of the work than they might otherwise do, thereby reducing the requirement on the state to fill in the gaps for rural and hard-to-reach areas. The model that I am describing would have the advantage of driving up broadband take-up.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I apologise for coming late to the debate, Mr Benton, because of an earlier ministerial meeting. Otherwise, I would have intervened earlier.

May I point out to the hon. Gentleman our regret over the dropping of the IFNC plans? There is a sense of urgency within the industry, and as secretary of the National Union of Journalists group I have stood up time and again in virtually every debate we have had over the past 18 months on the matter to demonstrate that sense of urgency. I suppose that what I am trying to get across to him is that if he is offering an alternative model, it would behove him to put as much pressure as he possibly can on the coalition to bring his proposals forward rapidly, before we lose even more jobs in the industry.

[Mr Foster]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. In the most appropriate way that I can, given the rather strange circumstances that we all find ourselves in, I shall offer several suggestions in a friendly and supportive way to the Minister who has responsibility in this area. I hope that I have done exactly what the hon. Gentleman has asked of me.

I have two more quick points before I conclude. The first, which is about local radio, is a plea to the Minister. It will not fall on deaf ears, because I know that he shares my view on this: we must have a clear route map for digital radio switchover, as quickly as possible. It is vital so that the industry can understand where it is going. In doing that, can we please continue to make it clear to the public at large that digital switchover does not mean that FM will disappear? The continuation of FM provides a set of opportunities for exciting new things to happen, not least the development of true community radio, which is often run by volunteers and local groups. It would provide yet another form of local media which I believe would be very popular indeed. So please let us get on with digital radio switchover. We have passed the legislation to enable it, so let us now get on and implement it as quickly as possible. And, please, can we make it clear that there is no intention to switch off FM?

Finally, following on from where the hon. Member for West Bromwich East left off, of course we are all deeply concerned about the relatively small number of local councils that produce free sheets far too regularly, taking away advertising from their local newspapers, and action needs to be taken. I am sure that he, like me, has looked carefully at the statistics provided by the Local Government Association, which did some helpful work recently in looking at the number of councils that do that. It is staggering how few local councils, relatively speaking, are doing what he suggested—going way over the mark—but the fact is that several are, and it is critically important that action be taken by laying down clear guidelines on what will be allowed. In those areas where the council is going over the top—going overboard—we must provide protection to the local media.

I hope that the Minister will think that my remarks have been helpful in suggesting a way forward. I look forward to other colleagues joining the debate and to hearing what the Minister has to say.

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[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

I welcome the debate. At the beginning of it, the Minister made much of how the new Government want to take Parliament more seriously, but six weeks after taking office, the Secretary of State has made a speech at the Roundhouse about the arts and one in Weymouth about tourism and he has announced at least some media policy at the Hospital club—but he has yet to come to the House of Commons to make a statement. I therefore welcome the opportunity to have a proper debate about media policy this afternoon.

As hon. Members on both sides rightly said, strong, independent local and regional media are essential to the health of our democracy as well as to a sense of identity and place in communities and regions throughout the United Kingdom. However, these have, as hon. Members noted, come under severe pressure in recent years for the reasons already highlighted: the move from traditional to digital media, the reduction in advertising revenue and, for some local newspapers, unacceptable competition from local authority freesheets.

The threat to quality television news on ITV in the English regions and in Scotland, Wales and, to a lesser extent, Northern Ireland, has been particularly serious. ITV has already made drastic cuts to its regional news provision, affecting quality and local content and hampering those programmes’ ability to compete effectively with the BBC. However, in all surveys of opinion in this country, the public have said that high-quality local and regional news is the public service content that they value more than any other. Viewing figures substantiate that, with evening regional news programmes often being the most watched news programmes on the schedule in those regions.

That was the context of Labour’s policy for independently funded news consortia—a policy supported by both Commons and Lords Select Committees, both with Conservative Chairs. It was also supported by the hon. Member for Bath (Mr Foster), who used to speak on Department for Culture, Media and Sport matters for the Liberal Democrats, but who has been unceremoniously excluded, so far, from the governing coalition.

In fact, my first question for the Minister is, who does speak for his Liberal Democrat partners on DCMS matters in the present Government? Whoever it is, he or she cannot be too effective, because I have so far failed to identify a single Liberal Democrat DCMS policy that has survived the coalition negotiations. If that person is the hon. Member for Bath, or if it may well be in the future, I wish him better luck going forward.

[Mr Foster]

As the right hon. Gentleman has asked a straight question, may I read to him from the coalition agreement? It states:

“We will maintain the independence of the BBC”—

a Liberal Democrat policy—

“and give the National Audit Office full access to the BBC’s accounts to ensure transparency.”

That was also a Liberal Democrat proposal. The agreement refers to the policy that we have already mentioned about partnerships between newspapers and radio. It refers to

“free entry to national museums”,

work to deliver the Olympic games,

“moving to a ‘gross profits tax’ system for the National Lottery”,

the use of dormant betting accounts and

“reform of football governance rules”.

It also states:

“We will cut red tape to encourage the performance of more live music.”

I think that the right hon. Gentleman will recognise each and every one of those as a Liberal Democrat policy, and if he looks in other parts of the coalition programme, he will also notice reference to, for example, minimum pricing for alcohol and other measures. I think that he can be confident that we have played our part.

[Mr Bradshaw]

Yes, but the hon. Gentleman has read out a rather long list of policies that were also Conservative party policies; none was a distinctive Liberal Democrat policy. However, despite what I have said about the hon. Gentleman’s previous support for IFNCs, one of the Government’s first acts was to scrap them, without having any clear idea of what to put in their place. When I asked the Secretary of State, during DCMS oral questions this week, whether he could point to any other European country in which his new preferred model of local TV works, he could not.

It would be very helpful to hon. Members here if the Minister did better in his summing up, or if he identified a single respected media industry commentator who believes that the figures on local TV stack up. No, this has been done for ideological reasons and has been cheered on, no doubt, by the Government’s friends in the Murdoch empire, who object to any intervention in the market or any obstacle to their aim to dominate it. I am afraid that it will mean the end of high-quality news on ITV in the regions and nations of the UK, and that will be the first bitter legacy of the present Government’s media policy.

The move has also been greeted with dismay by local media leaders—people involved in newspapers, magazines, radio and television. Sly Bailey of Trinity Mirror said:

“We believed that the IFNCs’ capacity to tap the talent and expertise of regional media companies to provide a viable alternative to the BBC’s local news made sense for everyone…we don’t see ‘City TV’ as a viable proposition. Our research suggests that the costs are too high and the revenues too low to support a sustainable business model.”

Tony Watson, managing director of the Press Association, said that

“we are sorry to see the scheme for independently funded news consortia scrapped”.

David Faulkner, managing director of NWN Media, said:

“The concept of the Independently Funded News Consortia offered a real way forward in boosting news provision on Channel 3”—

ITV—

“and multi-platform coverage across the whole of Wales…We are disappointed with today’s statement that the news pilots will not proceed.”

[Mr Foster]

I am sure that as we have a few minutes ahead of us, the former Secretary of State will not mind my intervening again. I have already made it clear that I think we would have carried on the trials were we not in coalition. The problem that we faced, and that he now has to answer, is this. Had the trials been successful, where would the money have come from? Is he saying that the Labour party is committed now, in opposition, to providing funding for the full roll-out across the country of the costs of IFNCs? If so, where is the money coming from?

[Mr Bradshaw]

We were absolutely clear about that, in our manifesto, in the “Digital Britain” White Paper and in all the discussions that we had on it—that our preferred model was to use a small fraction of the licence fee, equivalent to the fraction currently being used to fund digital switchover. However, we were also open to any other arguments in favour of sustainable, long-term and transparent funding models.

I shall come to the issue of funding now, because the Government appear also to have reversed their previous position and to have accepted what we have always said, which is that fast next-generation broadband cannot be supplied to the whole United Kingdom by the market. They have acknowledged, or at least said, that they will use the underspend from the digital switchover fund to help to pay for that, instead of for the IFNC pilots.

What I am not clear about—I do not think the Minister himself is—is how he defines super-fast broadband. I was sent a definition on my BlackBerry a couple of moments ago, but I have lost it. It did not come up with a figure, although I understand that the current Chancellor of the Exchequer used the figure of 200 megabits at some stage during the election campaign. The Minister’s language involved something about a speed that would deliver the best broadband in Europe.

Either way, the Government have at long last recognised that the market will not deliver that, but I am still not clear about something. Our target was to reach 2 megabits by 2012 by using the underspend from the digital switchover, but after 2014, we were going to fund it—again, this was supported by the Liberal Democrats at the time— through a very modest levy on fixed telephone lines. That would have provided the super-fast broadband by 2018. I am not sure what the Minister’s funding mechanism will be post-2014. Although the hon. Member for Bath said that it would not mean the continuation of top-slicing of the BBC licence fee, I should be grateful if the Minister confirmed that that is so. If that is not to be the funding stream, what will be?

If, after 2014, the Government intend to continue using a portion of the licence fee to fund super-fast broadband, I suggest that, having criticised the Labour Government for planning to use part of the licence fee to fund regional news with important public-service broadcasting content, using part of the licence fee to fund infrastructure would show breathtaking double standards. I would appreciate some clarity on the point.

Will the Minister also give us a guarantee—we have not had one so far—that there will be no further deterioration in ITV regional news until he and his Liberal Democrat friends come up with—whatever model they intend to put in its place? Will he also assure us of something that the Prime Minister could not assure us of yesterday at Prime Minister’s Question Time—that there will be no relaxation in the rules governing impartiality for broadcasters?

We have talked about further deregulation in the local ownership market. The Minister has already acknowledged that Ofcom has recommended a relaxation of local media rules, with the exception of the same organisation owning all three media—newspapers, radio and television—in one area. Does the Secretary of State’s statement at the Hospital club that he wants to go even further than previously proposed mean that the Government would be happy to see a monopoly of media ownership across those three platforms in one area or region? I would be grateful for an assurance—and so, I suspect, would the hon. Member for Bath.

I turn to local newspapers. The downturn in advertising, structural changes in the advertising market and the significant generational shift in reading habits has, as we all acknowledge, hit local newspapers hard. A number of newspaper and other media organisations were part of the successful consortiums that bid for our IFNC pilots, and as I said earlier, they are dismayed by the Government’s decision to scrap them. However, the local newspaper industry is looking to the Government to act on the proliferation of local authority freesheets.

None of us thinks that there is anything wrong with local councils keeping in touch with their residents on an occasional basis, to ensure that the public are aware of local services and how to access them, and how to contact their councillors. However, as we have heard, in a small number of cases things have been getting out of hand. The hon. Member for Bath referred to the Local Government Association survey, which showed that about 15% of local authorities produce a newspaper or magazine at least once a month, and that 13% of newspapers give over more than a third of their pages to adverts, with one local authority reporting that half its freesheet comprises adverts. That deprives the local paid-for newspaper market of extremely valuable advertising revenue.

Before the election, the Labour Government were about to issue new guidance that would have put a stop to that. When can we expect action from the Government on that front? The Minister spoke of consultation, but we have already had consultation. We had a long and full consultation last year; we do not need more. The rules mean that he cannot look at documents or correspondence from the time before his arrival at the Department, but I understand that they allow me to get hold of that information; I would be happy to give him a copy of a letter that I wrote to my colleagues at the Department for Communities and Local Government, giving a simple solution. I urge the Minister to implement it forthwith, without having to go through another lengthy consultation. I know that local newspapers and the local newspaper industry are desperate for something to be done. They do not want more consultation; they want action.

I should be grateful if the Minister told us what the Government intend to do about news aggregating services. They have the enormous potential to suck up news for little cost. Indeed, Google is already doing so, but Google will never pay local journalists to cover court cases or to scrutinise the workings of a local authority.

The hon. Member for Bath touched on the importance of local radio and the digital switchover. When we were in government, we recognised the pressures facing the commercial radio industry. The Digital Economy Act 2010 relaxed the rules governing the local radio market. We also provided the industry with much needed certainty on digital switchover, setting a date and the conditions that needed to be met. As the hon. Gentleman said, the freeing up of the FM spectrum for local and community radio could be valuable for local and community radio. However, the industry needs certainty.

The Minister said on Monday that the Government were proceeding with digital switchover, but were

“taking all factors into account”——[Official Report, 21 June 2010; Vol. 512, c. 12.]

Will he explain exactly what that means? Are the Government still committed to switchover in 2015? Will they be setting out the criteria that have to be met before a final decision is taken? Will the Government also be deciding on a help scheme similar to that for digital switchover on television, to support people through that time?

Last but not least, will the Minister say when the DCMS website will be updated? I wanted to check what the Government’s policy was on media and broadcasting, but it was blank.