Broadcasting (Radio Multiplex Services) Bill

Wendy Morton Excerpts

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

[Kevin Foster]

FM is an analogue transmission, and most community stations currently broadcast on FM. With DAB, people tune in using the name of the station. On a digital radio, we search not for a frequency but for a station name. You never know, with more opportunities for digital radio there could even be a station called Hedgehog DAB Community Sound— a local station dedicated to promoting the benefits of having the hedgehog as our national animal. I know that my hon. Friend takes that matter very seriously and that he has brought it to the House on several occasions.

Many of us probably already listen to digital radio and will wonder how this Bill fits in, what its purpose is and what small-scale multiplexes are. Three national digital radio multiplexes currently broadcast between 10 and 19 stations each. Those are the most popular stations—I will not give them any promotion as they really do not need it—that can be heard in virtually every part of the United Kingdom. Different transmitters across the country broadcast a selection of services that does not vary from location to location, and about 97% of the UK’s population can receive one of the three national multiplexes. There are also 58 local commercial DAB multiplexes, covering approximately county-sized areas. Each broadcasts up to 14 commercial radio stations as well as the relevant local BBC station for the area. According to figures from the Library, over 90% of the UK’s population should be covered by one of those multiplexes. In my area, for example, I can receive BBC Radio Devon and some of the commercial services that currently operate on DAB.

However, one instantly realises that there is a real gap between all that and what most people recognise as the third layer of radio: community radio. We have national radio, regional radio and then the small-scale community radio stations that many people know and love.

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that community radio is an oft-forgotten layer? We hear about the big names in radio, but community radio reaches right into the heart of many local communities.

[Kevin Foster]

I thank my hon. Friend for that interesting observation. In some cases, community radio can become quite famous across the country—I will touch on hospital radio later—because it reflects the community in which it is being broadcast. As I will go on to say, some communities have different language services that would not necessarily have an appeal across the UK, but they speak to a particular need and provide people with what they want to hear. There is an explosion of opportunities on the internet, so it is strange that what one can get on to the radio is restricted. We even have the bizarre situation in which many areas can receive more TV channels, broadcast free-to-air to homes, than radio stations. That contrasts with the situation that most of us will remember from about 20 or 25 years ago when we still only had the main analogue TV stations, but radio had started to expand. The Bill seeks to expand that sort of choice so that people can get more local news and things from their local community that mean something to them, but not necessarily to an entire region.

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[Kevin Foster]

At the moment, they are, in effect, operating under a trial basis that Ofcom has created. If the Bill did not proceed, I suspect that they would be able to continue on a trial basis, although I have seen indications that they might not be able to do so, because it is a trial. To be blunt, if the current system is reinforced by the failure of the Bill, with Parliament deciding that it would rather stick with having the national operators and the current 58 local areas and that it did not wish to see things on a smaller scale, at some point those radio broadcasts would need to be brought to an end. My guess is that some might move purely to internet broadcasting, restricting their audience, and others might seek to switch to a community FM licence. This could be one of the few examples of this Parliament saying, “We can see a new technology breeding, coming on and creating new opportunities, and creating more diversity of media, but we would rather you all went back to just FM only, with the national operators the only ones able to take advantage of this.” In other debates we sometimes get a misleading picture presented that people in this country get their news from only one source, which is palpable nonsense when we think about the number of options that exist. If we do not want to create the type of opportunities this provides, having seen what they are, that would be a negative step. I see the Minister indicating agreement with that element of my comments. I am sure he will wish to comment on the future for those stations if we do not seek to create a permanent structure of small-scale multiplex licensing. It is safe to say that the future would be rather grim.

We know that the technology works, and we know the operators who did this succeeded and created new services. So the technology is there and the gap in the licensing is there, so the next thing to address is whether the demand exists.

[Wendy Morton]

Will my hon. Friend say a few words about preparedness and whether the infrastructure is in place? Is it going to be financially viable for some of these community radio stations to move on to the multiplexes?

[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.

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[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure, as always, to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham). I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) on the very assured way in which he introduced the debate on quite a technical subject, which has the capacity to be quite dry but which he brought to life in an entertaining way while dealing with all the technical aspects in a confident manner.

I venture to suggest that this Bill is ideally suited for the private Members’ Bill procedure. It does not seek to impose any cost on the taxpayer and deals with a relatively narrow area of the law, dealing with a problem that has arisen that could not really have been foreseen when the original legislation was drafted because of the developments in technology, the advances in software and the reduction in the price of the equipment, which I will come to. All those developments have left a gap in the legislation that the Bill seeks to fill.

[Wendy Morton]

Does my hon. Friend think that another opportunity for the provisions in this Bill would have been the Digital Economy Bill?

[Mr Nuttall]

It would seem that the nature of what is in this Bill could have been included in the Digital Economy Bill—maybe the Minister will explain why it was not when he addresses us—given that the matter undoubtedly needs to be addressed.

I rise to support the Bill and I have no wish to try to scupper it. I do have some concerns about the precise detail, which I will come to but, in broad principle I agree that the Bill is needed.

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[Seema Kennedy (South Ribble) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) on bringing forward this Bill. He has worked particularly hard on it, not only in spending the night here with other hon. Members—[Laughter.] You know what I mean. He has done a lot of research, because this is quite a complicated Bill—at least, it touches on something technical. Often in this House, when those of who do not have an engineering or science background are discussing these matters, it feels as though we are analogue children in a digital age and we are always running to catch up. I am absolutely delighted to support this Bill, because through it we are, if not in the vanguard of technology, anticipating the future.

I have an admission to make: I am an absolute radio nut. There have been periods in my life, sometimes several years, when I have not had a television, but I have always had a radio. I lived in Tehran for a few months in the early 2000s, and my only company—besides my family—was the BBC World Service. The only English voices I heard were through the means of short-wave radio. That was fantastic, but now I am a total convert to DAB. In true radio style, I want to give a shout-out to my favourite radio presenter, Graham Liver of BBC Radio Lancashire.

The transfer from FM and all the other frequencies to DAB has been somewhat controversial. We heard at the beginning of the week that Norway is going completely on to DAB, and that has caused some consternation in that country. We have to recognise that, as my hon. Friend said, this has nothing to do with switching off other frequencies. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) mentioned that there might be technical difficulties in doing that.

[Wendy Morton]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the switchover in Norway is an opportunity for us, as a country, to watch and learn from what it is doing as we take our radio forward into the future?

[Seema Kennedy]

That is an excellent point. Of course, we have huge geographical and demographic differences with Norway, but we should be watching and learning, and seeing what happens there—I completely agree.

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[Seema Kennedy]

There are so many cricketing metaphors that I could use, but I had better not. I agree with my hon. Friend, but there must be a balance. We have to do things in an evolutionary way and look at what other people are doing. However, in this House, we need to be alive to the possibilities that technology offers us and our constituents, particularly in this area, where a great barrier to entry exists.

In discussing the Bill, we have heard that the costs for small community radio are prohibitive. Different figures have been mentioned, but for a non-London multiplex service, the cost is about £3,500 per month. That is too high a figure for community radio stations to raise. There is also inadequate capacity. That barrier to entry prevents the opportunities that could be offered to businesses and communities. In a day and age when groups and entrepreneurs can set up from their laptops or mobile phones, this area seems at odds with what is happening in other spheres of life.

I want to focus on community radio. Some hon. Members have spoken about community radio stations in their constituencies, but others have said to me, “We don’t have one.” I am very lucky that South Ribble has a radio station called Leyland Festival Radio. I pay tribute to two constituents, Keith Bradshaw and Rev. Phil Gough. As Mr Deputy Speaker knows, because his seat used to contain Leyland, the Leyland festival is the highlight of Leyland life. As hon. Members might be aware, Leyland has had a long history of vehicle making, including trucks, tanks, buses and the Popemobile. All those things are now stored in the vehicle museum in Leyland. In a weekend in June, there is a huge festival at which there is a parade of classic vehicles and floats. It is a joyous occasion where we can make the most of what is fantastic about Leyland and its heritage. I remember going to watch the Leyland festival as a little girl; now I have the great honour and pleasure of judging the floats.

Back in 2015, a group of local people came together who wanted to celebrate the occasion. They wanted to create a moment and a focus for the civic pride involved. This happened between April and June 2015, when I was the candidate and then had the great honour of becoming the Member of Parliament. It culminated in three days of hyper-local community radio broadcasting on FM in June 2015.

The aims of Leyland Festival Radio were to enhance community identity not only in Leyland, but in Farington and Moss Side. Other hon. Members might never have heard of Farington and Moss Side, but they identify very strongly with Leyland. This is the point of the Bill. We have county-wide multiplexes—as I have mentioned, I am a huge fan of Radio Lancashire—but there are sometimes stories up in Lancaster or in other parts with which I cannot identify. The hyper-local networks therefore mean a lot to people.

Leyland Festival Radio wanted to have community involvement. Its inception brought together local people across generations and backgrounds. That is the key point that I want to make in this speech. The radio station has developed transferable skills. As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) said, community radio is a training ground for people. Leyland Festival Radio has developed transferable skills such as production, presenting and marketing. Structured training was offered, with everybody getting a one-day introduction to radio course, but they also learned from each other because there were young people, old people and people from all different backgrounds. There was a lot of peer-to-peer learning.

The radio station was a partnership. There was money from South Ribble Borough Council and it involved Runshaw College, which has its own excellent radio station, as I have mentioned, and local community groups. It presented an opportunity for businesses to talk and for artists and performers to get proper on-air broadcasting experience. My first ever radio experience was as a candidate in the 2010 election, when I stood in Ashton-under-Lyne. I was interviewed by Tameside Radio. I am sure the only people listening were my agent and my grandma, but it was still a great experience for me. Such interview opportunities are valuable. A fantastic sense of community cohesion grew up around Leyland Festival Radio.

[Wendy Morton]

I thank my hon. Friend for being so generous in giving way this morning. She is touching on the value of community radio. I know that she is a great advocate for tackling isolation. Does she agree that community radio is an excellent means of reaching into the homes of some of the most vulnerable and isolated members of our communities?

[Seema Kennedy]

My hon. Friend anticipates the next part of my speech. It is almost as though she had seen it in the Tea Room, which she did not. I am glad that the points I am making in this place about isolation and loneliness are getting through. That is exactly the point I will move on to next.

To conclude my remarks on the excellent work of Leyland Festival Radio, although it continues to broadcast breakfast programmes presented by Keith Bradshaw, it is very limited. The aim of the group is to be a community radio station for Leyland, Farington and Moss Side.

To move on to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), I believe that hyper-local radio has a role in combating loneliness and isolation. Members will know, because I have raised it before, that the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) and I are carrying on the work started by our late colleague, Jo Cox, and that the Jo Cox loneliness commission will be launched in Speaker’s House on Tuesday 31 January. I know that other hon. Members will join us.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North said that he always has his radio with him. We recognise that radio is a very intimate medium; it really can speak to us. I know that from friends and family members who have suffered from loneliness. Indeed, when I have been very lonely in my life, I have put the radio on. It makes us feel safer and as though we have somebody there.

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[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup), who talked with so much passion about her local radio station. She is a good advocate for all things in her constituency.

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) on presenting the Bill. I will shed a little light on his hard work and determination in pursuing a slot for this important Bill. Reference has been made to the sleepover at the House of Commons to secure Bill slots, a well-known practice to those of us who are determined to try our best to get legislation on the statute book. All I will say is that a number of us were there that night, and there was no DAB radio to entertain us, but we certainly had the “Bong! Bong!” of Big Ben chiming throughout the night. I leave it at that.

The Bill is techy in parts, but it is very important and much needed. It will create a lighter-touch licensing regime for the new small-scale radio multiplex services that have come out of the Ofcom small-scale DAB trial. It was pleasing to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) refer to the word “dab”, and during my research I sought confirmation that we are talking about DAB—digital audio broadcasting—and not the viral dance in which a person leans into their elbow as if they are sneezing. Mr Deputy Speaker, you will be pleased to know that I will not be doing any dabbing in the Chamber today.

Let me get back to the more serious aspects of the Bill. About 250 community radio stations and 200 smaller commercial stations are currently transmitting on FM and do not have the opportunity to broadcast on digital radio. Near my constituency, we have Ambur Radio in Walsall and a number of local radio stations in the Birmingham and west midlands area. I hope that if the Bill proceeds through this place and gets on to the statute book, more community stations and more local stations will be encouraged to start up.

There are two reasons why such stations do not have the opportunity to broadcast, the first of which is the insufficient capacity available on local DAB multiplexes. As we have heard, a multiplex is a way of broadcasting digital radio, whereby a number of DAB radio stations are bundled together to be transmitted as digital data on a single frequency in a geographical area. That is a much more efficient way of transmitting stations than FM, AM and other analogue methods. The second reason is the prohibitive costs of broadcasting on these existing DAB networks. DAB broadcasting is currently transmitted via three national multiplexes, Digital One, Sound Digital and the BBC’s national DAB service, with an additional 58 local commercial DAB multiplexes covering county-sized areas, but the cost of broadcasting on such a multiplex is quite large. These multiplexes have a limited capacity and can carry only a certain number of stations, meaning that the biggest county or countrywide stations can afford to broadcast, whereas smaller community stations, which serve a much smaller area, are simply priced out of broadcasting on the multiplex.

We have heard a lot today about Ofcom’s work and the trials it has been doing. This Bill seeks to address the issue of capacity by enabling Ofcom to modify the various procedures, provisions and conditions that are attached to the award of radio multiplex licences so that more local and community stations can be broadcast on small-scale DAB multiplexes. Surely that must be a good thing for all Members and all of our constituents.

For several years now, the Government have been discussing the digital radio switchover, and I was pleased to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay refer to that in his speech. Much like the digital television switchover in 2012, the digital radio switchover will see broadcasts moving from the current analogue platform to a digital one. For that to happen, however, criteria would need to be met before starting any process of digital switchover. I was therefore pleased to hear him assure us that the Bill is all about choice and opportunity.

[Kevin Foster]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the focus here is on giving an option for community stations to go on DAB—nobody is going to be forced to go off FM? I am happy again to give the reassurance that the Bill is about giving an option for the third tier of radio, community radio, to go on to DAB if it wishes to do so. Nothing in the Bill would force those wishing to stay on the current analogue transmissions to move away from them.

[Wendy Morton]

I am grateful again to my hon. Friend for giving us all that welcome reassurance.

There are many reasons why DAB and the digital switchover is important—the first, and most essential to this Bill, is choice. My hon. Friend has just reassured us again on that. The variety and quantity of stations available is the main motivation for listeners to use DAB. A huge number of stations are available, and we have heard many examples given this morning. These range from stations that play jazz music non-stop all day, children’s stations and religious stations through to those that play only heavy metal—I have not listened to any of those. The FM spectrum has only limited space and is currently very crowded. DAB provides a greater space, meaning more stations and therefore more choice for consumers and more space for local communities.

Broadcasters are currently paying double transition fees on FM and DAB, as they broadcast the same station on multiple platforms. Cutting their costs allows broadcasters to invest further in the technology of DAB. Surely that must be a good thing. Digital radio offers the possibility to develop content and innovation much better than analogue does, be that scrolling text or slideshows, and the ability to pause, rewind and record live radio. Many people have come to expect that as the norm now. As with most things, there are naturally some negatives to DAB. We heard earlier that reception is currently far from perfect, often being described as a cliff-edge—as you may know, Mr Deputy Speaker, there is either a perfect signal and reception, or absolutely nothing at all. I am hoping you are on the same wavelength as me today.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

In Chorley FM country we get the perfect wavelength.

[Wendy Morton]

That cliff-edge contrasts with FM, which becomes slightly fuzzy as the signal begins to be lost. There are possible options to deal with reception problems but, much like with FM, there is a limit to how many stations can be broadcast from a single multiplex, although the limit for DAB is much higher than for FM. As a multiplex fills up and competition for space increases, the cost of broadcasting from it naturally rises, pricing out local stations. That is another reason why the Bill is so important.

The industry has already made some developments in increasing capacity on the DAB matrixes, one of which is broadcasting stations in mono, which reduces the transmission costs and enables more stations to be accommodated in a multiplex. Another more efficient way of increasing DAB capacity is to switch to DAB+, which is two to three times more efficient than regular DAB. Some of the trialists in the OFCOM trial were allowed to start broadcasting on DAB; it will be interesting to see how they progress, and perhaps the Minister will have something to say on that.

I shall explain the importance of community radio and why it matters. As we have heard, community radio is alive and kicking throughout the UK, with more than 500 stations broadcasting on analogue and online. For those stations to really grow, there needs to be the opportunity and space for them to broadcast on small-scale, local multiplexes covering the local areas that they represent. I am reminded of my own background: I come from a rural area where Dales Radio has been designed to help the area, reporting on things such as bad weather and local road conditions. We have heard the bad weather forecast for today—not only rain and floods, but heavy snowfall throughout the country—and I am sure that local radio stations are playing a vital role for our constituents and local communities. The British Forces Broadcasting Service is another fantastic example of a true community radio station.

I am going to wind up my speech, as I know that time is marching on and others would like to speak. At the heart of the Bill is an opportunity not only to help local radio stations to access local multiplexes, but to make a real difference to our local communities, which we all fight so hard to represent in this place. Some have local radio stations; some do not. I would like to think that for some communities this Bill will bring about the opportunity for more local radio—more chance to broadcast and communicate. That is particularly important at a time when so much is being said about the need for greater social cohesion and for communities to come together, particularly post Brexit. We have a perfect opportunity to all come together and make a difference.