Broadcasting (Radio Multiplex Services) Bill

Maggie Throup Excerpts

Committee Debate: 1st Sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 31st January 2017 Public Bill Committees

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I thank the members of the Committee for agreeing to serve on it and for their attendance on what is a significant day for Parliament. It is worth saying that the Bill is significant in the impact it will have, and it is worth reminding the Committee that this is the first stage of a three-part process.

First, hopefully the Bill will become an Act and set out a legislative framework to enable small-scale digital radio multiplex services. The second stage—I am delighted to have the Minister on my right—would be a consultation on the orders necessary to create the detail of that legislative framework. Finally, on the basis of that, there would be individual licence applications to Ofcom to put individual multiplexes into operation.

The Bill comes at a timely moment, when we are seeing more and more commercial radio stations and literally hundreds of community stations. At the moment, they are virtually exclusively on analogue frequencies due to the problems they encounter in going on to DAB from the current licensing structure and system. That also means that, sadly, some areas do not have a local digital broadcasting service; they have only the national multiplexes. That is why I think the Bill is so important, and hopefully the Committee will agree to its making progress today, to give those stations an opportunity to go on to DAB.

Members of the Committee will be pleased to hear that I will not rehearse all the arguments we heard on Second Reading. I will be clear that no part of the clause requires anyone to go on to DAB and there is no requirement to provide for anyone to go on to DAB.

[Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)]

I am concerned about my local community radio station, Erewash Sound. Will my hon. Friend clarify whether the Bill applies just to community stations, or does it also include small commercial radio stations?

[Kevin Foster]

The Bill states that it

“may…require small-scale radio multiplex services to be provided on a non-commercial basis”.

We need to be clear that multiplex is the infrastructure of broadcast rather than the stations. It would therefore be possible where appropriate for small-scale commercial stations to broadcast via such a system—that would not be prohibited by the Bill—but the detail of that would come in the consultation and the orders issued by the Minister, and I believe that would have to come back to Parliament through the affirmative procedure to be agreed. The Bill is not restricted to community stations—small-scale commercial operators would be able to go on to this system—but its purpose and intention is mostly to target the community sector. In the consultation, some details have been considered about exactly how the orders will be framed so that it does not become a way for larger national operators to avoid their regulatory system.

The clause is mostly about sending a message, in particular in subsection (4) which says:

“An order under this section may in particular”.

There was some debate on this in the Chamber, and I know some letters have been sent to hon. Members on this Committee raising particular points. I make it very clear that it is a “may” in there, not a “must”. The clause is there to give a clear understanding of Parliament’s intention in passing the Bill, and some examples of the things that could be put into such an order and into individual licences. However, the list is not exhaustive and the clause allows the flexibility that will be needed in what could be hundreds of individual circumstances and individual applications for licences under any future order.

If we gave no indication of our intentions and the idea behind the Bill, that would leave it too wide. However, if we turned that “may” into “must”, we could end up with some bizarre outcomes in which we would all have wished an operational licence to go ahead, but we had drawn the legislation too tightly, not giving the Department and the Minster enough flexibility in the orders they wished to bring forward to Parliament for approval.

For me, it is ultimately about helping a sector of our economy grow and flourish. As I said on Second Reading, we also always have to consider the alternative. What if we say no, and decide that the Bill should not proceed? The reality of that would be no change to the current framework for the licensing and regulation of digital radio networks, which is nearly 20 years old and was designed to facilitate the development of the national and large local digital radio networks. We would effectively be looking at the successful trials and saying no, we did not wish them to go ahead. The hon. Member for Bristol South is in her place; we have seen the success of the trials in 10 locations, including Bristol, bringing new and diverse choices. In particular, stations that were internet only have been able to become broadcast stations. We would be saying no, we did not wish that to happen.

The trial licences are not an appropriate basis for long-term licensing of this new technology. Again, a point was picked up on Second Reading about what would happen. It is almost certain that the new radio stations that have been created—new listener choice—would have to be brought to an end. In short, it would be a huge opportunity missed. It is also worth noting that the complexity of running one of these types of stations has reduced quite significantly as the technology has developed. Again, the clause and the Bill are extremely timely.

I recognise that the Bill has a targeted power to modify primary legislation by statutory instrument but, as I said on Second Reading and mentioned again to the Committee today, this approach is incredibly similar to the way in which Parliament created tailored regulatory regimes in similar instances, for example through the Community Radio Order 2004 and the secondary legislation that was used in 2012 for local television. So there are clear precedents for including the power and, as touched on already, it would be exercisable only by affirmative order, requiring the scrutiny and approval of both Houses.

I do not intend to detain the Committee for too much longer. I hope that Members will find this clause acceptable and wish to support the Bill, so that it can progress and we can give a vibrant area of culture and business a real opportunity to go on to a digital broadcasting network.