Communications Bill

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Mr. Richard Allan (Sheffield, Hallam): I echo the points made by the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East about the role of community media. The duties set out in subsection (1) relate to encouraging and enabling the public to understand how the media works, and how material is put together and edited. Quite simply, the best way to understand that process is to do it. There are some good examples of that. The best way to educate people is to give them a taste of the subject.

In my city of Sheffield, the BBC local radio station, Radio Sheffield, has on its ground floor an active community media centre, where people learn how to use the internet and create community websites that form part of the BBC website, which is the most popular website in the country and an important part of the media. Up the road, in what was the National Centre for Popular Music, a lottery-funded project that opened and then shut down rather rapidly, the ground floor is being put to good use by Sheffield Community Radio, which brings people in and shows them how radio works. It is particularly exciting that that radio station will no longer have to go off air when its temporary licence expires, because it continues broadcasting using real media across the internet. There are now good opportunities for community media, and that is by far the best way to promote media literacy.

Dr. Nick Palmer (Broxtowe): Does the hon. Gentleman feel that the word ''community'' is defined too narrowly in amendment No. 228? Nowadays, one of the great attractions of the internet is that it makes it possible to form a non-geographical community. For example, I might feel

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that I have more in common with the hon. Gentleman than with my neighbour, who does nothing but watch football.

Mr. Allan: I do not think that we are talking about any specific definition of community; we are talking about media literacy. I am not talking about amendment No. 228, which has not been selected, but about the entire clause and the appropriate response to it. I ask the Minister to respond positively, and to say that he believes that an appropriate way for Ofcom to interpret its powers under the clause is to try to generate active participants in media, as opposed to passive consumers. We do not want people to sit like couch potatoes and accept media; we want them to understand and engage with it. We now have the tools for that, and I hope that Ofcom, under clause 10, will interpret its role of promoting work with community media in the widest sense, through geographical, non-geographical, and other types of media. That is an important way that Ofcom could fulfil the obligations that have sensibly been set out.

Michael Fabricant: I simply wanted to add the question of the electronic programme guide. Sky television is to be congratulated on its development and use of such guides. I shall be curious to hear whether the Minister believes that there is a role for the electronic programming guide in promoting media literacy. I am particularly thinking of the issues raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford, namely the quality of certain types of programme and whether they are suitable for certain age groups in terms of sex or violent content. Also, there is the issue of whether it should be made clear on the programme guide that subtitles are available for the hard of hearing. That harks back to our debate this morning. I feel that the electronic programme guide is the ideal medium by which clause 10 can be exercised.

Mr. Thomas: I rise to support the comments of the hon. Members for Milton Keynes, North-East and for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan) regarding the ability to use community media as a tool to succeed in promoting media literacy, which is the basis of the clause. I put on record that I am grateful for the clause, which is important. It gives Ofcom a huge opportunity to reach out to the grass roots.

The Chairman: Order. The Committee is beginning to have a bit of a weekend feel about it. Could private conversations be held outside, please?

Mr. Thomas: Thank you, Mr. Gale.

Ofcom can use community media and the function of promoting media literacy to be real to the people on the doorstep. It is over 10 years now since I helped to establish a community radio station in Ceredigion—Radio Ceredigion—which unfortunately is no longer community-owned. It was taken over by a large newspaper group. Nevertheless, it still functions and has facilities for volunteers to go in and work in local radio. My experience 10 years ago of trying to put together my own radio programmes helped to shape a considerable amount of my understanding of the media. It would be useful for Ofcom to look at such possibilities.

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I have two concerns relating to media literacy. First, I worry that Ofcom will be a big animal and will lack the subtle touch that media literacy and community media demand. It will not have the attention span necessary to meet the concerns mentioned by hon. Members. Would it be permissible for Ofcom to work with other institutions in delivering its functions under the clause? I have in mind such institutions as Cardiff university's centre for journalism studies, which is a high-class training ground in Wales. Could Ofcom work with outside institutions to achieve its functions of promoting media literacy, rather than try to do it all itself? I am concerned that, if Ofcom keeps everything in house, and does not work with bodies that may have more experience, it will have an iron fist rather than a more subtle approach.

My second point was touched on by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam: it is increasingly the new media that people use for community media projects, such as online and digital radio, and the streaming of real video and radio, which are not specifically covered by the clause. Will the Minister confirm that promoting media literacy includes everything to do with what we currently call the internet and whatever it may become, even though that aspect is not, strictly speaking, regulated by Ofcom? I want to be sure that the clause is drafted sufficiently widely to include those aspects.

Dr. Howells: I thought that this would be a short debate, but it has turned into a long one—and very refreshing it is too.

The hon. Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford spoke about the need for parents to understand what locking devices were available. However, it usually only took my kids about half an hour to work out how to unlock things, so I have to admit that after a while I gave up. My kids turned out to be all right, actually.

The hon. Member for Lichfield came up with an interesting suggestion, as usual. I am the only one in our house now who has to use the Sky zapper to get back to the main menu to find my way around the system. Every one else knows the numbers and they knock them out. [Interruption.] I do not know what my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Mr. Bryant) said, but we had a discussion earlier in the week about better design. Locking elements could be incorporated into design, perhaps not on the surface of the device but in easily accessible software.

In response to the questions asked by the hon. Member for Ceredigion, I would certainly expect Ofcom to look for partners to work with. Some interesting projects are going on at the moment. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam told us about the need for a pro-active approach, to make people aware of the possibilities that already exist.

I have an access radio station on my own patch—GTFM. It is in one of the poorest wards in my constituency and shares its administration with the university on the other side of the valley. It is fascinating to see the different ways in which those two communities have accessed the opportunity and, at the same time, linked up with the rest of that part of the valley. It has been an instructive experience. People

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have learned much. They have learned that they have a voice, which they might previously have assumed was denied to them.

Some hon. Members asked whether there would be an iron fist approach to the issue, whether the boundaries to media literacy would be strictly determined and how such matters ought to be dealt with. I reassure the Committee that that is not the intention behind the relevant provision. Media literacy, by its very nature, must grow, expand and change with the various media that we use.

3.45 pm

An important point was made at the end of the debate: we must be aware of, understand and learn about the interoperability and shading between the different media. Our use of personal computers and of the internet is part of that process. I am sure that hon. Members will agree with me that great work is being done by many of the outreach institutions of colleges, universities, and especially further education colleges, in helping people to get the degree of computer literacy that they need just to get started.

This is an important step forward and I am glad to hear that there is general agreement in the Committee that it should be taken forward.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 10 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 11

Duty to establish and maintain Content Board

Mr. Lansley: I beg to move amendment No. 7, in

clause 11, page 11, line 8, after 'OFCOM', insert—

'(aa) a deputy chairman appointed by OFCOM;'.

The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to take the following:

Amendment No. 9, in

clause 11, page 11, line 11, after 'chairman', insert 'and deputy chairman'.

Amendment No. 171, in

clause 11, page 11, line 11, leave out 'a non-executive member' and insert 'non-executive members'.

Amendment No. 172, in

clause 11, page 11, line 12, leave out 'is not' and insert 'neither is'.

Mr. Lansley: I intend to speak to the whole group of amendments, as they are related and connected.

The amendments relate to the composition of the content board. Committee members, especially those who were involved with the Committee that considered the Office of Communications Bill, might recall that the Government limited the membership of the Ofcom content board to six people. The Joint Committee subsequently recommended that that number should be able to be increased and the Government responded by announcing their intention to use the powers in the Ofcom Act to increase the size of the board to nine and to include a sixth non-executive member. One reason why the Joint Committee came to that conclusion was that we were made aware, not least because of the presence of Lord Pilkington, of the amount of activity—the weight of

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scrutiny—that is required of Ofcom, and of the content board on Ofcom's behalf, in relation to standards, complaints, fairness, privacy, and so forth. For such activity to be permitted to be divorced from Ofcom would be undesirable. Ofcom has—and should have—a legal responsibility for those matters. Although such functions could be devolved to the content board, there is a risk that it could acquire a life of its own and we might end up with two regulators rather than one. In order to reduce that risk, we felt that it was desirable that at least one, and preferably two, members of the content board should be non-executive members of Ofcom and that when the content board meets, its chairman should also be a non-executive member. In order for that to happen, we should prescribe that the content board should also have a deputy chairman and that both the chairman and deputy-chairman should be non-executive members of Ofcom. Of course, neither should be the chairman of Ofcom. There is a high probability, if not a certainty, that the content board would always be chaired by a member of Ofcom. Thus, at least one member of Ofcom would have a continuing familiarity with the content board's work and would be able to speak from a position of authority on how it is approaching its decisions.

There are two likely risks: the content board's decisions might become progressively separate from Ofcom, or instead of there being a single integrated decision-making process Ofcom might become too much of a court of appeal because it starts to second guess the content board. Those risks must be offset and these four amendments are designed to accomplish that: the Government said that that was desirable but that it was not necessary to specify these matters in the Bill.

 

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Prepared 12 December 2002