UK Parliament / Open data

Digital Britain

Proceeding contribution from Ben Bradshaw (Labour) in the House of Commons on Tuesday, 16 June 2009. It occurred during Ministerial statement on Digital Britain.
I am glad that the hon. Gentleman mentioned the role that Lord Carter of Barnes has played in this report, because I omitted to thank and commend Lord Barnes on his excellent piece of work. Contrary to what the hon. Gentleman said, the report contains some 78 action points. In the main, we are consulting only on matters that require primary legislation, and I hope that hon. Members on all sides will think that that is generally good practice. However, we are consulting on one thing that does not require primary legislation, and that is the idea of sharing some of the BBC's licence fee. I acknowledge that we have decided to do that, because it is quite a big move of principle—but if the hon. Gentleman does not think that we need to consult on it, he can just send me a letter saying that he agrees with the proposal. That would be very helpful indeed. The hon. Gentleman implied that there was no need for public investment in the next generation of broadband roll-out. I appreciate that he has not had time to read all 250-odd pages of the report yet, but when he looks at it more closely he will see that virtually every other country in the world is using public funds to help ensure the provision of good-quality next generation broadband. Australia is using £22 billion sterling of taxpayers' money to that end. By no means are we saying that the amount of money that we intend to use from the digital underspend and the levy on fixed lines will be sufficient in itself, but we do believe that it will be enough to pump-prime as the market would not otherwise do—that is, to complete the final third of provision for homes and businesses. That final stage of provision will cover many people in the rural constituencies of Opposition Members. The hon. Gentleman asked about the timing of legislation. As he will appreciate, I am not going to comment on the next Session in Parliament: suffice it to say that this Government have made it clear that the digital revolution is one of our main priorities. As I said in my statement, it is a major part of our industrial strategy. He was wrong to say that not one urban area in the country has so far enjoyed digital switchover, because Exeter has. [Interruption.] My constituents would be very offended if their city were to be described as anything other than a major urban centre. Exeter recently became the first digital city in the country, and very successful the switchover was too. Contrary to what the hon. Gentleman says, we anticipate that the rest of the digital switchover will go very smoothly. We are confident about that. We think that we are likely to be able to make the savings from the underspend that we have projected, and in fact believe that that may even be a conservative estimate. The hon. Gentleman also said that we are ignoring local news in favour of regional news. Far from it: the model that I have just outlined would enable exactly the sort of local news provision that he described, and not just by the independent television providers who will be invited to bid for this new pot of money. The introduction of digital radio will free up radio spectrum for local and community radio stations, which will be able to provide exactly the sort of very local news and content that he advocates. The hon. Gentleman said that instead of spending the digital underspend on the vital protection of the public service content of news in the nations and the regions, he would rather give the 75p a week back to the licence fee payer. All the way through his response, however, where he agreed with us about outcomes, he was prepared to will the ends but not the means.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
494 c169-70 
Session
2008-09
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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