Schedule - Further provision about OFCOM
Office of Communications [Lords]
12:00 pm
Mr Michael Fabricant (Lichfield, Conservative)
When my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of York said that I was in a different place, I was not in the other place. I was down the corridor, listening to evidence from Stuart Prebble, chief executive of ITV, Clive Jones, chief executive of Carlton channels, and Mick Desmond, managing director of Granada Enterprises. What they said relates to much of what is contained in the amendment.
The hon. Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey) said that debating the amendment—perhaps he meant tabling it in the first place—was a pointless exercise. I am not sure that it was. In our Committee, it is right and proper to debate what Ofcom should concern itself with. The hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East rightly pointed out my concern about the possible sidelining of radio. He will have been pleased that considerations such as broadband technology and the internet were included as areas of expertise. He appears to disagree, but I do not mean that individuals should necessarily be responsible for them, but that Ofcom should address the issues. In previous sittings, he made the point that Ofcom would be concerned not only with broadcasting, but with new technologies.
I shall stick completely to order and quickly make some observations—perhaps not so quickly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of York has just looked at me rather nervously—on paragraph 5(a) to (g) of the schedule, which is proposed in the amendment.