Communications Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 3:00 pm on 22 May 2003.

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Photo of Lord Evans of Temple Guiting Lord Evans of Temple Guiting Labour 3:00, 22 May 2003

The noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, seeks clarification with the amendment, and I hope that I will be able to give it to her. One essential feature of public service television is that it has to be free to view. Once someone has acquired the right equipment and paid the television licence fee, they should be able to receive the public service channels free of any further charge, and we want to ensure that that continues to be the case in future, after the switchover to digital television. Therefore, the Bill provides for a specific prohibition against charging viewers for reception of those services. That is not a new policy as similar provisions are already contained in, for instance, the licences for Channels 3 and 5.

For clarification, that is not to preclude any applicable commercial charges between broadcasters and those who buy the right to carry or otherwise retail their services—for example, on satellite. Nor is it to preclude any public service broadcaster from selling programmes to other broadcasters in the UK or abroad. Similarly, we do not wish to prevent a public service broadcaster from charging, even at a premium rate, for the phone call made by a viewer to vote—the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, gave the example—a character in or out of a programme or to enter a competition. The Bill does not prevent broadcasters from charging for such specific requests, so long as everyone can receive for free the programme on which the vote is made.

It is not prohibited to charge those who want to vote or gamble on some features of the service using their phone line as a return path. If the purpose of the amendments is to make that clear, we believe that they are superfluous. However, if they propose to create a distinction between ancillary services that are broadcasts and those that are not, that would not only fail to add clarity but might be flawed. I am not sure that that is what the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, is proposing.

The prohibition to charge the viewer for the reception of a public service channel applies not only to the main services, but to any ancillary services within the meaning of Section 24(2) of the 1996 Act, as amended by Schedule 15, such as subtitling and other forms of assistance to the disabled. I am sure that we all agree that such services must be free. However, some other services might be included in the public service channels that we want viewers to receive free of charge, such as some interactive services.

The distinction that the amendments would introduce between ancillary broadcast services, which have to be free, and ancillary services that are not broadcast services, which would be charged, fails to add clarity and might well be flawed. Today's technology means that some services are not technically broadcast, but delivered in response to requests made by the individual users, although they are and have to be regulated as broadcast services. All cable providers may well soon stop providing the signals carrying normal broadcast television directly to homes, and instead receive and store all programming on local servers that serve perhaps 500 homes. It would not be fair that a cable viewer could be charged for the reception of those programmes, while a viewer receiving the same programmes via a true broadcast was not.

I hope that, in the light of those explanations, the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw the amendment.