Mr Ivor Richard: Will it be made public?
Mr Ivor Richard: The right hon. Gentleman said that last night. From where does he get that information?
Mr Ivor Richard: It would be unfair of my hon. Friends to press the right hon. Gentleman too far on this point if he does not know the answer. I understand the position well. However, I must probe the matter further. If the Authority will not allow a newspaper to buy into the all-news station, what is the point of leaving the legal right of purchase into that station in the Bill? This right seems to be...
Mr Ivor Richard: Mr. Richard rose—
Mr Ivor Richard: I put this question yesterday. What, in common sense, is the justification of allowing a newspaper to buy into an all-news station with which it is in direct competition for advertisement revenue?
Mr Ivor Richard: The right hon. Gentleman will recall that my hon. Friends opposed this provision in Committee. He will also recall the ground of our opposition. He will further know that our attitudes have perhaps been mollified somewhat between that stage and now. However, if he goes on expressing thoughts along the lines that the Evening Standard and Evening News should be part runners of such a station in...
Mr Ivor Richard: It is apparent that the Minister has not considered these two subsections in relation to new Clauses Nos. 1 and 2. The idea that a London news station can be set up and, it having been set up and the Authority being about to award the contract to a consortium including neither the Evening News nor the Evening Standard, then the Authority would be bound under new Clauses Nos. 1 and 2 to offer...
Mr Ivor Richard: Of course I am not saying that the House of Commons should say which newspapers should be allowed in and which newspapers should not be allowed in. I am saying that the House of Commons should ensure that no newspaper, particularly a London regional one, which is the one which under new Clause No. 1(2) is most likely to be affected and the one which is the most likely to be considered,...
Mr Ivor Richard: That may be, but let us look at the realities of what we are considering. The whole of the Minister's speeches on Second Reading and in Committee on this aspect were devoted to saying how important it was that we had a central London news station. The Minister has continually said that there are to be two stations for London—one will be the normal entertainment station and the other will...
Mr Ivor Richard: I am about to finish. The right hon. Gentleman will know that, both in Committee and since, I have been reluctant, on behalf of the Opposition, to lose an additional news service. [Interruption.] There is no need for the Minister to froth at me. All he needs to do is to read Hansard. I said that I thought that the idea of having alternative source of news to the B.B.C. was desirable. I am...
Mr Ivor Richard: The great difference in television is that Independent Television News is owned by the programme companies. There is no direct participation by a Fleet Street newspaper in the I.T.N. company. The hon. Gentleman asks whether I am arguing that they should be automatically excluded. What I am saying is that they should certainly not have an automatic right of entry, which is what they will have...
Mr Ivor Richard: One hears of instances of bias in various parts of the country. I put the point back to the hon. Gentleman. I cannot, on my feet now, give specific instances of bias. Of course not. I did not know that the point was going to arise until 25 minutes ago, when the Minister made his extraordinary speech. We are here envisaging newspapers having an automatic right to purchase a shareholding, and...
Mr Ivor Richard: I remember being asked to take part in a television programme in Memphis, Tennessee, on which at 7.20 a.m. I was expected to talk about the Common Market. I was immediately preceded by an advertisement for English muffins, which I have never seen on this side of the Atlantic. [Hon. Members: "Shame."] Well, I have never seen the sort of muffins I saw on that programme. After the broadcast I...
Mr Ivor Richard: I shall not advise my hon. Friends to vote against the deletion of subsection (5). However, we maintain our opposition to the deletion of subsection (6). I understand that Mr. Speaker agreed that we might have a Division limited purely to the proposal to delete subsection (6).
Mr Ivor Richard: We are grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. The Amendments are the results of points made in Committee which were substantial, and we are grateful that he has found himself able to meet them.
Mr Ivor Richard: I am happy to take up one point made by the right hon. Gentleman and that is to join him in paying tribute to those hon. Members on both sides who sat through the Committee stage. It was a unique Committee for a number of reasons. The first was that it was a very small Committee. The Government had eleven Members and we had nine. Secondly, I did some calculations and discovered that on a...
Mr Ivor Richard: Yes, we failed. Tolstoy beat us. But it must be admitted that he was not considering quite such a petty Measure as this Bill. The other unique feature of the Bill was that throughout the whole of the 34 sittings, the 84 hours and the, 670,320 words, the only members of the Committee supporting the Bill were the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Mr. David...
Mr Ivor Richard: Two mainly and the third occasionally. The hon. Member for Brighouse and Spenborough (Mr. Proudfoot) and the hon. Member for Hendon, North (Mr. Gorst) know what this Bill is about. They know why they do not like it and why they oppose it. Throughout the whole Committee stage, the only supporter that the right hon. Gentleman had for the Bill was his junior Minister. There must have been...
Mr Ivor Richard: As my hon. Friend says, from locally bred pigs. Gone are the days when there was talk about reinvigorating local communities. We are left, not with local commercial radio, but with half-baked, semi-illegitimate local regional radio.
Mr Ivor Richard: The Minister says "Nonsense". but the first five stations will be, two in London, one in Manchester, one in Birmingham and one in Glasgow, and the time that it will take to get down to local radio in the picturesque mythical town which Lord Eccles, the Paymaster-General, had very much in mind months ago when the White Paper was brought in will be longer than the tenure not only of the...
