Communications Bill
6:15 pm
Lord Crickhowell (Conservative)
My Lords, I can be relatively brief because I am in the happy position that the Minister, for understandable reasons, prepared his speech before he heard mine. Virtually every point he made I had specifically dealt with in the course of my speech, except, perhaps, the last. On the last point, I can only say that I still do not believe it really makes a difference. If and when the company has passed the test and acquired, the question is whether regulation will be an effective weapon with which to defend one of the jewels in our broadcasting system.
I do not often find myself dealing with remarks made from my own Front Bench, but they are relatively easy here, too. My noble friend Lady Buscombe has simplified my task. She advanced only a single argument—one that she advanced at Second Reading—she did not speak in the Committee stage and she repeated her words from Second Reading this afternoon. I am not being difficult; they are useful words. I shall repeat them again so that we are all clear about them—