Office of Communications Bill [Lords]
4:30 pm
Mr Michael Fabricant (Lichfield, Conservative)
I appreciate the time that the Minister is taking to explain this. Although he is right to say that once Ofcom is up and running it should be funded by the sector that it regulates—that is normal—the method of funding that he proposes is abnormal. Is it not double-counting? Is he not asking a sector that is already suffering from lack of advertising receipts to support not only the Independent Television Commission and the Radio Authority, but the shell Ofcom organisation?