Digital Economy Bill [ Lords]

Part of Business of the House – in the House of Commons at 4:44 pm on 6 April 2010.

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Photo of Jeremy Hunt Jeremy Hunt Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport 4:44, 6 April 2010

I am very happy to give that assurance, because we want Channel 4 to provide strong competition for the BBC for the type of programmes that the market will not provide. We are one of the few countries in the world that has such competition in the non-commercially viable parts of the sector. Channel 4 was set up by the last Conservative Government and we are proud to have done that.

One final thing that the Government have ducked, which is incredibly disappointing, is the possibility of giving the public a right to access Government data sets, which was mentioned in the "Digital Britain" White Paper, and which President Obama has successfully introduced in the United States. It would have been a huge leap forward for our digital economy for people to be able to access those data.