It may seem strange to introduce what may be thought of as a rather marginal debate, but I believe that its subject will grow in importance, and that we shall come back to it.

Last week, at the all-party group on cricket, Tim Lamb, chief executive of the Test and County Cricket Board, said that the awarding of the contract for broadcasting cricket to Channel 4 might be the last such negotiation between broadcasters and sports bodies.

As pay-per-view and digital television grow, there will be a complete change in the way in which not only sports coverage but other coverage is negotiated. As David Elstein, former director of programmes for Sky, said, in 10 to 15 years' time, when pay-per-view is fully developed, we shall be paying for each individual programme. I am not sure that that is the way in which we should be developing. Is that really what we want?

At the moment, the scope of pay-per-view is limited by economics—how to make it pay—and technology, but, with the convergence of technology, it will spread. It is estimated that 10 million homes will have digital television in the next 10 to 15 years. As shown by the Select Committee report on the convergence of technologies and the Government's response to it, which I welcome, the debate will be more important in future.

Companies are now looking at ways of broadcasting visual images along old-fashioned copper wire—the old telephone links—so the ways of distributing visual images will change. It is not only television that will be affected. I have heard one person say that there will soon be pay-per-listen radio. All the hottest and latest releases—not that I can remember them—will be on pay-per-listen radio, and the rest of us will have to wait a few weeks or months to hear them.

There is great uncertainty about the way in which technology in general, including pay-per-view, will develop. I shall concentrate on football today, but what I say applies to other sports and other types of television too. The Office of Fair Trading is now investigating the deal between the Football Association and Sky Television, alleging that a cartel operates, and that each club should negotiate individually. I cannot understand how a cartel can be operating when 31 clubs have appeared in the Premier League over the past six years.

If we take that idea seriously, however, and the Office of Fair Trading gets its way and clubs start negotiating individually, a series of questions will arise. What happens if clubs negotiate with different broadcasters operating different systems, with one on pay-per-view, one on digital and another on terrestrial television? When will sport be televised, and will pay-per-view get the premier slots? If we take that to its logical conclusion—