Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, my criticisms of these amendments are not quite as general as those of the noble Lord. I regret very much that, under Amendment 9, Clause 29 will perish. The House and the public need to recognise that we are likely to face an even greater problem in regional news in this country. We are going back to the 1950s. If ITV continues on its present path and policy, there will be no ITV regional news and none of those regional news programmes that have a major audience in this country. However, it is worse than the 1950s. At least in the 1950s there were strong regional and local newspapers. I speak as someone who chaired two regional groups. No one would say that this is the best time in the history of British journalism for regional newspapers. As the noble Lord said, unless we are careful, we will have a BBC monopoly at the regional and local news level. That seems to me entirely wrong. I do not think that anyone in any part of the House wants that outcome. I am an enormous supporter of the BBC’s reporting standards, which, both at home and overseas, are among the best in the world. However, I also think that the BBC needs competition from another major organisation. If we lose that competition from independent television, that will be totally counterproductive for the national interest and democracy. Clause 29 would have provided a mechanism to allow for that to happen. It was not a particularly radical solution; it would have allowed consortia to be put together. Frankly, it is difficult to see what alternatives there could be to Clause 29. I do not know what the alternative will be. I hope that the noble Lord will give the House some help in his response. The noble Lord who spoke for the Liberal Democrats asserted that the pilot schemes, which had already been announced, have perished. Is that the case? Have they perished? It is one thing to have the policy absolutely withdrawn, but does that mean that all these weeks and months of negotiation in which the consortia have been put together will just be struck through? If so, what about the costs? Will the local newspapers that have taken part in these negotiations simply be told, "Awfully sorry, but we have changed our mind and there is no recompense"? Frankly, this is a sad move. It needs to be established and recognised that there has always been an implied subsidy and support for independent television companies under the analogue system. One of the reasons why ITV is moving away from its support for independent regional news is because that subsidy is being withdrawn. I do not think that the public money issue is as crucial and unique as some might claim. I think this is a very regrettable step. My Select Committee made this clear and I am not in any way going to resile from what it said. We need to tackle this problem and all we are doing at the moment is allowing a position to take place where regional news in this country becomes a BBC monopoly. That is not in the public interest.