Ian Stewart: It is a bit rich for the hon. Gentleman to pray in aid the line that the Government took when he argued in Committee that there should be no named person and no imprisonment sanction. I am wholly in favour of considering this complex matter, but not at the expense of the Bill, which it is imperative that we get through. He understands that a trade-off was involved when the Lords tabled these...
Ian Stewart: If the hon. Gentleman is sincere about not trying to kill the Bill, he will give the matter a good airing today, but vote for the Bill to go through.
Ian Stewart: Will my hon. Friend give way?
Ian Stewart: Perhaps my hon. Friend should have given way to me earlier, as I would have said exactly what he has just said. When the Bill began its passage, Members had certain priorities, especially in Committee, so the House should remember that although the process described by the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) is correct, and it is an important issue, other Members have different...
Ian Stewart: I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in this important debate and I congratulate the hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) on securing it. I was unable to attend the well attended debate on 6 December, and I should like to talk today about the waterways in the Eccles, Salford and Greater Manchester city region. I have had dozens of written representations from constituents...
Ian Stewart: I am very pleased to have secured this debate. The category "community media" includes community television, radio and internet and is an area of growing interest across the country. It is not yet as well known as it should be, but my view is that it will soon have an impact far beyond its current recognition. I feel privileged to present not only my views but those of the 147 MPs who have...
Ian Stewart: I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. The all-party community media group will be campaigning on those issues, and I am sure that the Minister, who has ears to hear, will act in the future. As my hon. Friend has pointed out, community media are particularly effective in engaging and serving some of the most disadvantaged groups in our society. They provide a voice for many people who are...
Ian Stewart: I agree with my hon. Friend. In my area of Salford, we have been successful in gaining a licence this year. Even there, however, the process was costly. I am sure that the Minister will take that on board as well. The wider community media sector has more than 2,000 organisations, which use a variety of platforms for broadcasting, all with one aim—to give a voice to local people. They...
Ian Stewart: I agree with the hon. Gentleman, and the thrust of my speech is about securing sustainable and adequate funding. Community media also aim to develop social capital by building social networks, facilitating understanding and promoting shared norms in communities that are sometimes divided. For example, Bradford community broadcasting has made a major contribution in developing a sense of...
Ian Stewart: I agree, but it is also important to identify that before the engagement that the hon. Gentleman talks about, community media can help to improve political understanding, so that the engagement is based on better understanding. Fostering self-esteem is so important. It is the simple matter of someone getting that glow of pride when they know that their programme has made it to air. Indeed,...
Ian Stewart: I acknowledge that. Those issues are fundamental to the development of community media as a vehicle for our constituents. The community benefits from community media partly because community media reach the parts that other media cannot. Their use of peer-to-peer communication means that the audience see or hear someone like them—someone who looks like them and, it is hoped, shares their...
Ian Stewart: As a bilingual Scot, I appreciate my hon. Friend's point. That point, made on behalf of the Greek community, can be made on behalf of every other ethnic community throughout the country, and it is not only a matter of those ethnic groups benefiting from community media. As has been pointed out, those of us who come from different ethnic groups also benefit. That is very important and leads me...
Ian Stewart: I will not be covering that aspect in my contribution, but Ofcom is coming to the next meeting of the all-party group on community media, and the issue is on the agenda. I am sure that my hon. Friend will be happy to attend that meeting and make a contribution. The second major threat to community media is related to those that we have discussed. The community media sector as a whole is very...
Ian Stewart: Indeed, that is perhaps a pointer, and I hope later to put some, let us say, friendly pressure on the Minister to at least consider ways of making more secure and adequate funding available to the sector. As hon. Members can see, the potential impact of community media fully lives up to the prediction made about the pilot community radio scheme by Ofcom's assessor, Professor Anthony Everitt,...
Ian Stewart: I accept that the Government's actions in this field have been good, but does the Minister accept that the actions of some bad agency employers—I acknowledge that there are good ones—need to be addressed quickly, and that the Bill would do that?
Ian Stewart: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Ian Stewart: My hon. Friend has taken 32 minutes to profess his support for the Bill. May I point out to him that there is at least one other Member—my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley (Barbara Keeley)—who wants to make a sincere speech on this issue?
Ian Stewart: I rise to support the Bill because my constituents from Swinton, Irlam and Eccles have made it clear to me that it should be supported. The information that my constituents give to me is that they are not opposed to the legal and safe riding of motorbikes, but that they do not want to be put at risk on pavements or kept up late at night by noisy, high-speed riders. Last year, Greater...
Ian Stewart: Those powers are already used very effectively and to their full extent by Greater Manchester police authority, which is one of the best authorities in the country in dealing with this issue, as my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley (Graham Stringer) said earlier. That is not enough in itself to deal with the problem, for all the reasons stated in every contribution made by hon....
Ian Stewart: I am not one for congratulating Ministers in a mealy-mouthed way when they do not deserve it, but the Minister deserves congratulation. In his time as the Minister of Sport, he has encouraged—that is the polite way of putting it—major structural change in some of the sports in which I take an interest. However, the main sport in which my constituents are interested at primary level and...