Digital Switchover (Disclosure of Information) Bill

It has been a wide-ranging and interesting debate. We have had 11 speeches from Back Benchers, covering a huge range of issues, and I hope to get to grips with them as I wind up. I seem to have an hour and 10 minutes in which to do so. May I say what a pleasure it is to have the Minister for Pensions Reform, the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (James Purnell) on the Front Bench to hear my remarks? As we all prepare for a Christmas of repeats, it is nice to see him, a former Minister in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, in his place just as it would have been nice to see the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Alun Michael), a former Minister in the Department of Trade and Industry, who has not, I am afraid, had the courtesy to hear my debut on the Front Bench. It would have been nice to have had them both here to debate this important issue, as they were both in their ministerial posts at the start of it. A huge range of issues has been covered in the debate, which has been remarkable for a number of reasons. My hon. Friend the Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford (Mr. Whittingdale), the Chairman of the Select Committee and an extremely distinguished Member and contributor to the debate—he is with us in spirit—said that this is the first time that the House has had a chance properly to debate digital switchover. As far as I am aware, it is the first time that the Government have let us have even an inkling of what digital switchover is likely to cost. The Secretary of State produced the figure of £600 million and pleased as punch though she was to give it to us, that means, if my maths is correct, roughly £25 a TV licence. I suspect that the Government thought that the debate would end there, but my hon. Friends the Members for Maldon and East Chelmsford, for Poole (Mr. Syms) and for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson)—it is no coincidence that they are all Conservative Members—chose to hold the Government to account on that figure. I have to say that they were also joined by the hon. Member for Selby (Mr. Grogan) in holding the Government to account, but I suspect that he wanted the Government to spend even more money on digital switchover. There is a serious problem with the Government’s figure. As far as I am aware, no document has been given to any Member of Parliament to explain how the Government came to the conclusion that it would cost £600 million. The Government have not, as my old maths teacher used to say, shown their workings and they have not come up with an evidence-based document to show how the figure was arrived at. We would be right to say that it was calculated on the back of an envelope. There is an even wider point. The Secretary of State was extremely pleased to tell us that the £600 million was going to be ring-fenced. Again, however, as my hon. Friends the Members for Maldon and East Chelmsford, for Poole and for Hexham pointed out, if it is to be ring-fenced, will it be shown on the TV licence? Is every person who gets a television licence going to know that they are paying a digital tax for digital switchover? The Government would like to have us believe that it is cost free; they would like to hide it in the licence fee. If it is to be ring-fenced, there is no logical reason why it cannot be ring-fenced directly on the face of the TV licence. That leads to a further problem. If the money is to be ring-fenced, how will it be accounted for if, by some miracle—I know it would be a miracle—the Government estimate were wrong? If the Government somehow underspent—that really would be a miracle—or the BBC underspent its £600 million, would the money be returned to the Treasury, or would there be a remake of Laurel and Hardy, starring the former DCMS Minister, the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde and the former DTI Minister, the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth? What would they do with such a sudden windfall? What—shock, horror—would they do if the BBC overspent on the carefully calculated sum of £600 million that the Government have suddenly pulled out of a hat this afternoon? What if they were to overspend? Where would the extra money come from? That is the most important factor. My hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire) was quite right to hold the Government to account on that matter. We are quite right to ask the Government questions. We have been asking them for months when the TV licence fee will be concluded and we asked them again and again for an estimate of the cost of digital switchover. Only today, as I have explained, have we heard from them. Apart from my hon. Friends rightly holding the Government to account, we have had a very good natured and important debate. Hon. Member after hon. Member volunteered their own services in the cause of digital switchover, which may indeed reduce the costs. The right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth offered to help, as did the hon. Member for Glasgow, North-West (John Robertson), but nobody could trump my hon. Friend the Member for Poole, who offered to set up an MP hotline. Even now, I can imagine his Westminster report with his home telephone number going out all over Poole so that my hon. Friend is ready to tell people as soon as they ring him that he is willing to help. I wish only that my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) had been in his place to see that we are all in this together, in action, in this Chamber. The debate started with an excellent speech from the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr. Brown), who on this occasion spoke in support of the vulnerable. About two weeks ago, he was attacking the vulnerable—namely, smokers—and coming out in favour of a ban. He admitted that he was a subscriber to Sky television, no doubt because of his passion for football. Because he represents a constituency that is covered by Border television, which is one of the first areas likely to see switchover, it is right that he should wish to comment on the issue in the debate. The hon. Gentleman also rightly raised the extremely important issue of cowboy operators. As hon. Members have said, there is no doubt that cowboy operators are already out there trying to sell wholly inappropriate digital services to customers who may not benefit from them at all. No doubt, the carefully worked-out estimates provided by the Secretary of State, which will be placed imminently in the Library, will show just how much has been set aside to train the digital installers who will help the vulnerable. In addition and most important, we need to know what regulations the Government may consider introducing to try to restrict the activities of cowboy operators. The cowboy operators who turn up at someone’s door offering a wholly inappropriate digital service are not the only ones to be worried about. The hon. Member for Glasgow, North-West in his most excellent speech expressed his concern about the companies that sell digital television equipment and effectively offload redundant equipment or equipment that is soon to become redundant. He talked about the need for the trading standards office and trading standards officers to get involved, and I genuinely ask the Minister what discussions he has had with his colleagues at the Department of Trade and Industry about the work that they can do to discourage rogue traders—if one can put it that way—from flogging goods that are about to become useless. There was a great deal of discussion about the digital divide in the fine speech from the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Mr. Moore) and in the lengthy contribution of the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth. The right hon. Gentleman pointed out in his 25-minute speech that, when he was a Minister, he had asked a lot of detailed questions of his officials about digital television. I was tempted to think that that might be the cause of the delay in digital switchover. The right hon. Gentleman also made the excellent point about the need to future-proof the digital switchover and the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk echoed that point. It has been echoed time and again by many of the charities that take a close interest in the subject.