Digital Economy Bill

My Lords, I cannot work up the same sort of enthusiasm for the statutory underpinning of the BBC. Although I deplore interference with the running of the BBC and the licence fee, and welcome the promises of better behaviour in future in the recent licence settlement, it seems to me that statutory underpinning creates a platform for statutory interference as well, which could be a lot more dangerous. Things are run quite well and we now have a royal charter that will last for 11 years. That gives us time to reflect on possible changes at some point in the next 11 years—but certainly not at the moment.