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Brian White: Does the Minister envisage the prime role of Ofcom in terms of access conditions or in terms of promotion and generally making people aware?
Dr. Howells: Those functions are not necessarily exclusive. I have spoken to my hon. Friend about this point before. Ofcom's role in ensuring that access is there is very important, but that sits nicely alongside a broader discussion about the virtues of broadband and what might or might not be possible in respect of ensuring that people take advantage of it.
An interesting experiment is currently taking place in my constituency. It is a pilot project involving Radiant, a company that provides a wireless mesh system—I hope that I have remembered the correct technical term. That offers tremendous potential in areas where the topography is difficult such as the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda and my constituency. I understand that it is working in partnership with BT. I hope that that pilot project continues because it is important. We have heard a lot this afternoon about local loop unbundling, copper wires and coaxial cables. There is also satellite. The technical and financial achievements
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of BSkyB have been extraordinary. It is doing a lot of work—
Michael Fabricant: And taking big risks.
Dr. Howells: Certainly, it is taking big risks in developing the technologies for us to access broadband and work with it in ways that are not possible at the moment, although I am convinced they will be in the future. We should not assume that one technology will transform this country. There are many possibilities and we must look at them all.
Mr. Bryant: My hon. Friend makes a valid point. Different technologies may well solve the problem of access to broadband services. Indeed, the Welsh Assembly is making sure that the pricing structure for satellite is subsidised to match that for ASDL through BT; the price is the same. That will enable rural and semi-rural areas to have access to broadband services much faster. Does he think that Ofcom will have a role in overseeing subventions such as that introduced by the Welsh Assembly?
Dr. Howells rose—
The Chairman: Order. Before the Minister answers that question, I remind him that we are not having a general discussion about broadband. We are talking about access-related conditions.
Dr. Howells: Yes, Mr. Atkinson. I apologise. I will press on. I will not be drawn by my hon. Friend's intervention to defend the Welsh Assembly, keen fan though I am.
Mr. Whittingdale: The Minister said that he has finally got access to ADSL. I assume that he has got that from BT and not as a result of an unbundled local loop. He also referred to wireless mesh networks, satellite and other potential ways of distributing broadband. That adds to the impression that a number of people have about local loop unbundling. It was held out as being the way to obtain more competitive markets and to roll out broadband access, but because progress has been so appalling people have rather given up on it and are looking at alternative technology to achieve that objective. Does he feel that too, and do the Government still attach the same priority to local loop unbundling as they did two or three years ago?
Dr. Howells: I firmly believe in what I said a few moments ago about alternatives and the progress that has been made with BSkyB and other technologies. I stand by that. The Government have to be technology neutral in much of this. I would certainly expect Ofcom to keep the situation firmly under review. The hon. Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford mentioned that over the past year Oftel has completed a step change in the way in which it has dealt with this. I am keen to see bundles of local loops unbundled as soon as possible. There is no question about that.
It would sound strange if I said that I did not have confidence in this creature that we are creating in the Bill to ensure that, wherever necessary, steps are taken both to review what is happening in that market and to act in a way that will enable competition to help all the other technologies that I have mentioned. I will
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certainly not pin my colours to the mast of local loop unbundling. There are many other techniques, both current and future, that could help do the job equally well.
Thirdly, Ofcom may set access-related conditions of a technical or operational nature to ensure that the operation of an electronic communications network remains consistent with any network access obligations that may be imposed under clause 83(3). The obligations may be imposed either on the operator who is required to provide access to the network, or on the beneficiaries of the access.
Fourthly, Ofcom may set access-related conditions in respect of conditional access systems. Clause 71 deals in greater detail with conditional access conditions.
Michael Fabricant: I do not want to press the Minister if he is unable to answer fully now, but I suspect that he saw the logic behind my point about roaming within the United Kingdom where one's own network is unavailable. Would what the Minister just said apply to access from one mobile network to another and, if so, should Ofcom have a role in ensuring that roaming within the UK between UK telephone networks is made available?
Dr. Howells: I certainly believe that Ofcom should examine that issue. One of its central remits is to promote and encourage competition whenever possible, so it should examine the contractual arrangements presently in place. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda made clear, that is what we buy into when we purchase our mobile phones. We enter into a contractual arrangement, which will have certain limitations. Incidentally, I am appalled to hear that the hon. Gentleman takes a mobile phone with him on walks. It drives me insane when I am walking in the Welsh mountains, where one hardly sees a soul. If I hear a phone going, it is usually Peter Hain. [Hon. Members: ''Who?''] I should say my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales, who, though a keen and fine walker, simply cannot leave his mobile phone at home. [Hon. Members: ''He's probably lost.''] My right hon. Friend has never been lost.
The powers are necessary in order to secure and support effective competition in the provision of communications services, so the clause should stand part of the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 69 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 70
Specific types of access-related conditions
The Chairman: I remind the Committee that we spent one hour and a quarter on the preceding clause. If members of the Committee do not want to sit very late or throughout the night, they have only about 15 minutes for the rest of the requisite clauses to reach the deadline. I hope that they will bear that in mind as we progress.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr. Greenway: I promise not to take as long as during the preceding debate, but clause 70 poses some important issues. I want to debate what Ofcom will do in future about the specific types of access-related conditions to which the clause refers—application programme interfaces and electronic programme guides. I confess to being no expert on application programme interfaces: in fact, I had some difficulty even understanding the definition.
I shall not bore the Committee on that point, but I do want to say a few words about electronic programme guides, which the Minister knows is one of the current flashpoints between public service broadcasters and satellite and cable operators. Clause 70 allows Ofcom to set access-related conditions. The key question is how Ofcom will use the power.
In the same spirit in which the Minister said a short while ago that the Government were technology neutral, I have no intention of coming down on one side or the other of any of the commercial arguments between the PSBs and the platforms. As the Minister knows, there are opposing arguments but the Committee has a duty briefly to air them to shed light on how Ofcom will deal with them, which it will have to do.
Clause 299 requires Ofcom to have a code of practice, which has yet to emerge. The prominence of programming displayed on EPGs is of particular concern to S4C. The Minister and the hon. Member for Rhondda will know that that matter is a particular bête noire for S4C. It is an extreme point, but shows the challenge faced by Ofcom in resolving such issues.
5.45 pm
I am sorry that the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr. Thomas) is not present to contribute to the debate, because he would have a lot to say about the matter. Hon. Members will be reasonably familiar with S4C's point, which I do not want to labour, but in Wales if one has a Sky dish and receiver, channel 104 is S4C, not Channel 4. However, my briefing note from S4C says that people who receive their signal through a cable system get something called channel 7. The channels are certainly not in the same order as in England.
Brian White: Is the hon. Gentleman saying that there should be a single EPG for all platforms, or that individual companies should be able to make up their own numbering systems?
Mr. Greenway: The code of practice should deal with that issue.
Another problem is potentially more difficult. I do not know whether you were in the Chair the other day, Mr. Atkinson, when I said that I could not read my pager without my spectacles. I am adept at the Sky zapper, though, and know my way around all the channels, including all the marvellous radio channels that we can access through Sky. Not everybody is so adept—people with disabilities, for example, whom we mentioned last week.
There are lists of dedicated channels, but I understand that if one looks through the EPG for
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children's channels, the ones that come up do not provide information for any children's channel in the Welsh language. That is an issue for S4C and for Welsh viewers. Although I understand the technological difficulties—
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