New Clause 2
Digital Switchover (Disclosure of Information) Bill
4:15 pm
Edward Vaizey (Shadow Minister (Arts), Culture, Media & Sport; Wantage, Conservative)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
I hope that the new clause is appropriately drafted. It is what is colloquially called a sunset clause—it is designed to ensure that after a period the legislation will fall into abeyance. The reason for inserting a sunset clause is that the Bill implicitly has a shelf life, which was made explicit on Second Reading when the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport said:
“Effectively, a sunset clause will be operated once switchover is complete in 2012. Members might wish to look at the application of sunset provisions on a region-by-region basis when the Bill is in Committee”.—[Official Report, 18 December 2006; Vol. 454, c. 1174.]
Given the quality of my drafting skills, you will probably be grateful, Mr. Conway, that I have not drafted a clause to bring the legislation to an end as switchover spreads through the regions, but we may seek to do that on Report.
The Secretary of State made it clear that she does not think a sunset clause is appropriate and said that
“the Bill is, in effect, time limited—after switchover has been completed, it will cease to have any effect.”—[Official Report, 18 December 2006; Vol. 454, c. 1182.]
One could meet the Secretary of State halfway, but it is a matter of good law as well as tidiness and neatness that the legislation should cease to have effect at the end of the digital switchover roll-out process rather than sit idly on the statute book. I suspect that some hon. Members support me on that. The hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway is not in his seat, but he said on Second reading at column 1192 that he was interested in introducing a sunset clause, although he has not tabled an amendment to that effect.
Conservative Members believe that a sunset clause is extremely important, not least because it will concentrate the Government’s mind. As has been said repeatedly, mainly by me, the Bill covers the largest civil project in recent times—to switch over the television sets of millions of people throughout the country—and targets help to millions of people during the six years of the planned switchover. We understand that the target date for analogue switch-off is the end of 2012. It is due to start in Whitehaven in a matter of months, yet, as the hon. Member for Bath said, no company has been set up for that purpose. We still have almost no details of how the scheme will operate or what sort of funding will be available to the BBC to implement the scheme, what equipment it will purchase and how the scheme will operate in detail. The Government have set themselves an extraordinarily challenging task, but they have made absolutely clear the date on which they want the switchover to be completed, so they cannot be concerned about having a sunset clause to bring the legislation to an end when they switch off the analogue signal.
I have done an enormous amount of legal research on sunset clauses, just as I did on reversing the burden of proof. My attempt to elucidate the burden of proof was somewhat curtailed, but I hope that my detailed research on the sunset clause will have a fair wind. I will give the Committee the benefit of my thoughts. We start in ancient Rome—