It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah), and I am grateful for her kind words. From what she said I understood that there is overall, general support—if perhaps not specific support—for my point. This is the second day running on which my amendments seem to have had more support from the Labour Front Bench than from the Government Front Bench—a rather uncomfortable position in which to find myself, but I am grateful nevertheless.
I will speak briefly because time is limited and I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) wishes to contribute. Section 73 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 was created in the 1980s, when the Government—understandably—wanted to encourage the roll-out of the cable network to stimulate competition with terrestrial TV. That was a noble aim, but it has been achieved. The cable network now reaches half the population, and there is fierce inter-platform competition between pay-TV platforms and free-to-air TV platforms. It is therefore clear that section 73 is completely outdated and not achieving the purpose for which it was intended. That purpose has already been achieved, so the measure needs to be repealed.
Since cable TV derives even greater value from public service content, and delivers less and less in return as more adverts are skipped on pay TV, section 73 is preventing the normal commercial response, which would be to commercially negotiate the supply of content, putting at risk investment in the programmes that people want to see. Why should public service broadcasters, which are investing heavily in the UK’s creative economy, subsidise the business models of large global companies such as Liberty Global? That is clearly not fair. The litigation that the Solicitor-General mentioned has already taken four years and could still take a while longer, and I am not sure that we can afford to sit back and wait more years, while the issue is kicked into the long grass in such a way. Under the Communications Act 2003, public service broadcasters must, under their current licences, offer their public service broadcast channels to cable and satellite platforms so that consumers will not lose out if that is repealed.