My Lords, first, I need to apologise to noble Lords that I was not present at Second Reading. I am grateful to a number of local radio stations, and especially to Rob Persani of Rutland radio, which is where the Vale of Catmose is, for bringing to my attention the issue in Amendment 72. I am also grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, and the noble Lord, Lord Foster, who have put their names to the amendment. I also want to thank my noble friend the Minister for the meeting yesterday with the Secretary of State and the MP for Rutland and Melton, Alicia Kearns.
I support Amendments 71 and 73 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Storey. The purpose of Amendment 72, however, is to ensure that Ofcom issues licences where there is no digital coverage. I accept that the wording of the amendment would need redrafting on Report to more clearly define the test needed where there are areas of no coverage. Applying for licences needs to be in the system outlined in Amendments 71 and 73. Ofcom does not need to run expensive competitions any more for FM licences, and it is not surprising that
no new FM licences have been issued since 2009 if it has to run such a competition. As has been outlined, if you have a DAB licence, your FM licence is now automatically renewed. That simple process of renewal online with the payment of a fee could apply to new licences, rather than the expensive competition process that we had previously.
Commercial radio stations used to come in all shapes and sizes, so it is sad to learn, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, outlined, of the demise of local radio. “Much in little” is Rutland’s motto, and there are about 41,000 people living there, plus tourists. Rutland radio is a great way to find out what is happening in the local area, especially as you drive around, but it has areas where digital has no reach.
The vision of Ofcom for the digital switchover for local radio is called small-scale DAB—smaller areas where it issues what are called polygon licences. I assume for the purpose of Amendment 72 that, as with the internet, His Majesty’s Government’s policy is that everyone should have radio access. Looking at SS-DAB and FM, even if small-scale DAB was the answer technically, it is not small scale enough to work economically.
Instead of the one frequency that you need for an FM station—at a cost, I am informed, of around £15,000 plus your annual fee to Ofcom—under a polygon licence a station such as Banbury radio, as the noble Lord just mentioned, would have to buy three such licences for that small-scale area delineated by Ofcom, at triple the cost. The local economy of advertising, which is what supports those local FM radio stations, just cannot sustain that; the areas envisaged by small-scale DAB are just too big.
I am grateful that the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, will cover the more technical issues relating to small-scale DAB, but, as I have outlined, it does not reach everywhere. In a place such as Rutland, it comes in and out when you drive between the villages and the two towns—yes, villages and two market towns is Rutland. Alicia Kearns MP recited to us yesterday how the digital signal goes out for lengthy periods when driving around. SS-DAB is fine for areas of greater population, but those areas do not need it. Apparently, there are pockets all around the country where you cannot get digital radio. No one is sure precisely where all those are, but it would be interesting to know from His Majesty’s Government whether they have looked at where the gaps are and what the internet coverage is in those areas. I suspect that there is quite a lot of correlation, but it is merely a suspicion.
Internet radio is also not the solution for those areas. Statistics from the UK Consumer Digital Index from Lloyds Bank show that 2.1 million people in the UK are offline, and 4.7 million people do not access the internet. Age UK did a survey of over-65s, and 2.7 million people, which is about 22% of that age group, are not accessing the internet. That could be due not to lack of coverage but to disability, cognition failure or vision problems. They will continue to rely on digital or FM radio.
It was rather prescient that, only yesterday, we raised with the Secretary of State that national resilience needs FM. In the national resilience strategy, it turns out that FM is the most resilient form of communication,
so we will not be switching off FM in the near future. In the event of power outage or solar flares, it is the most resilient. Today, it just so happens that the Deputy Prime Minister is outlining the preparedness of household strategies to boost national resilience. The advice is to boost your analogue capabilities and buy a wind-up radio—but to receive what? FM, of course.
Why not allow those who want a new licence to broadcast on an FM frequency that will remain for the foreseeable future? All the commercial risk is on the operators. It will not cost His Majesty’s Government a penny. Also, the more people who continue using FM radios, the more resilient households are. They will know that their FM radio works and will not be scrambling around in the back of the wardrobe to dust it off in an emergency—but perhaps I am only the person who, on reading the national resilience strategy, is wondering where the batteries are for that torch that I bought, and where the candles are that I bought when the Deputy Prime Minister last talked to me about resilience.
Finally—and to give my second “it just so happens”—your Lordships’ House has just had a repeat of an Urgent Question from the other place on South West Water. In areas with no digital coverage and an emergency that is not a power outage, sometimes there is time to communicate with your population—for example, if there is flooding or a forest fire. But if you need to tell the public, “Stop drinking your tap water”, that is an immediate message. I hope that His Majesty’s Government are looking at how South West Water managed to communicate with all its customers in the local area. Sadly, as we renew only 0.1% of our mains water network each year, instead of the 1% average on the continent, I think that such incidents will be more frequent.
Many in your Lordships’ House will know of “Rutland Weekend Television” by Eric Idle, but the local coverage of Rutland radio and other local stations is not a comedy; it is essential. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will have some good news to tell your Lordships’ House on this amendment.