Digital Britain

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. He must be a little disappointed that he was not able to give the Statement himself. It is his report and his speciality, but the DCMS is one of the few departments where the Secretary of State continues to reside in the House of Commons. His introduction to the Statement has been pre-empted not only by the Secretary of State in another place but also by the Prime Minister in an article in the Times this morning. However, since the Minister also managed to insert an extensive article into the Financial Times about his report, perhaps he did not mind. I assure him that the blatant and continuing habit of this Government to press-release major Statements before they have been announced to Parliament is still noticed and deplored in this House. Like my honourable friend in another place, I am not only disappointed by the way in which the report has been handled by the Government, but also by the content. We on these Benches were hoping that the final report would meet the promises we were given at the announcement of the interim report in January. It is clear that that has not been achieved. The report introduces another 12 consultations. In no way can that be considered a final report. We have yet to see what the Government will do on a range of matters; some of them new, some of them, like the possibility of giving Ofcom the power to tackle copyright infringement, which is familiar. The question of illegal file sharing as a whole has been around for years. The report confirms that the Government still have little idea what to do. Once again, they have resorted to setting up another talking shop rather than finding positive steps forward to address the issue. During a debate tabled by my noble friend Lord Lloyd-Webber on the subject in April this year, my noble friend Lord De Mauley queried what a new organisation would do that Ofcom or the Government could not. The answer he received was that the whole issue was still out to consultation. I hope I will receive a fuller answer today. It has been clear for a long time that any effective enforcement of rules will have to be done, in the main, by private companies. I am glad to see that this report accepts that, to some extent. The recent announcement that Virgin and Universal Music will be launching a legal alternative to pirate downloads is a welcome indication of a possible way forward. I find it extraordinary that the report of what the Minister’s right honourable friend in the other House said differs from what he said. He said: ""The Government believe that taking someone else’s property and passing it on to others without consent or payment is wrong"," whereas his right honourable friend in another place said: ""The Government believe that taking someone else’s property and passing it on to others without consent or payment is tantamount to theft"." I wonder why he changed that. The Government should be focusing their attention on encouraging exactly this sort of private sector solution rather than on establishing yet another quango. The inability of the Government to develop an effective policy is also clear in regard to the proposed joint venture between Channel 4 and BBC Worldwide. All the Minister is able to say about it is that talks are ongoing. Talks have been ongoing for months. What real progress has been made? Is there any real chance of a successful resolution to these talks? When does the Minister expect them to be concluded? On the matter of local news provision, we feel that the Government, while initially sounding as if they had got it right, have unfortunately veered off in the wrong direction. We agree that there needs to be good public sector broadcasting provided at all levels of the UK, but why have the Government decided to focus their attention on regional rather than local news? The Conservative Party’s view of regional assemblies is well known. We see them as a meaningless level of bureaucracy that further divides political engagement at a local level with national policy making and accountability. In just the same way, we see the Government’s focus on regional news as an unwelcome distraction from the encouragement of genuinely local provision that would address people’s local concerns and help engagement with their local government, local issues and local priorities. Another critical question that the Minister alluded to a few times in the Statement was the cost of implementation of their proposals. It is clear that the DCMS cannot expect the Treasury to look upon expensive policies with a favourable eye and that the economic situation makes finding private sector partners to make up any funding shortfall extremely difficult and, indeed, unlikely. Nowhere is this clearer than in the Government’s attempts to find a private company to bear the costs of rolling out universal broadband. BT and Virgin are focusing their efforts on the more profitable urban centres, and using satellite broadband to connect rural British households is apparently going to cost £500 million. Therefore, the Government have decided to fund universal broadband with a levy. As my honourable friend in another place pointed out, the figures on this levy are extremely murky and would seem to suggest that a 20-year levy will be needed. Has there been a more accurate analysis of how much money will be saved after all the transmitters have been switched over? The Government have also resorted to looking for money within the licence fee. Accepting that there is surplus money within the BBC, they are contradicting everything they said recently about the absolute necessity for an above-inflation rise in the licence fee. On these Benches, we disagree that any surplus should be hived off to other projects. The licence fee has always been raised on the principle that it pays for the BBC’s core services. If that is not the case, it should be returned to the licence fee payer. I was also interested to hear the last few points of the Statement. I entirely agree that the Government’s handling of data and the current purchasing of IT systems have huge potential for improvement. It seems extraordinary that it is only now that the Government have realised that the digital revolution raises questions of data security and that that should have an impact on how they operate as a major buyer of IT systems. Given the endless succession of data losses and IT disasters in recent years, one would have thought that that conclusion could have been reached rather earlier. Finally, I should highlight that if anything is likely to throw up an impediment to the successful implementation of the type of digital economy to which the report refers, it is the constant reshuffling of responsibilities within the Government. The Minister has indicated that he will be resigning and will not therefore be available to drive this report through to its conclusion. I am not surprised by his decision. He gave a very good impression of enthusiasm when debating the interim report in January, but this report confirms what we then suspected—that this Government have run out of ideas.