Legislative Reform (Renewal of Radio Licences) Order 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-11-27
Topic: Technology
Diana Barran (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, it has been a pleasure to debate this order with your Lordships, and I thank all noble Lords for the warm welcome they gave it. I will bask for a short moment in the huge praise from the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, for the Explanatory Notes, which was echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara. I absolutely support that and thank all those involved in preparing the notes for their clarity and ease of use A number of your Lordships, including my noble friend Lady Gardner and the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, emphasised the importance of local radio during the recent difficult months of the pandemic and the critical role that those stations have played in communicating messages, particularly on public health and Covid, in many parts of the country and in many community languages, which is of such critical importance My noble friend Lady Altmann and the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, highlighted the significant impact that the radio sector has suffered as a result of the pandemic, with falls of 40% to 50% in advertising revenue. The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, asked what else the department has done to support the sector. We have had the wider economic support packages, but DCMS has also negotiated a significant package of support for commercial radio stations, ensuring that smaller stations benefited from a six-month waiver of transmission charges, and we repurposed the Community Radio Fund to provide small grants to community stations that are facing financial challenges as a result of the pandemic. The fund has made a total of 112 grants, worth a little over £400,000, in two rounds. Finally, Ofcom has relaxed some regulatory requirements on the production of content to support radio stations to develop ways of working to cope with the lockdown and movement restrictions In response to my noble friend Lady Altmann’s question on how we are working with Ofcom on small- scale DAB rollout, we are working very closely with the regulator. The closing date for the first round of applications was this week. Ofcom has been carefully testing small-scale stations, with trials running since 2015 I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for his generous words. The Government, the BBC and commercial radio have all invested in the expansion of the DAB network. We recognise that more investment is needed in Wales, which is one of the issues that the digital radio and audio review will look at Concerns were raised by my noble friends Lord Kirkhope and Lady Gardner, and the noble Lord, Lord Foster, about the risk of the reduced availability of local radio and loss of local content. As I have already said, the Government recognise the important role that radio plays in the provision of local news and information. However, the context in which it operates is clearly changing dramatically, as a result of structural and technological factors. We all know that there is a proliferation of ways to consume audio content, a shift from local to national listening, and greatly increased competition for advertising spend from the expansion of digital media and the rapid growth in online advertising. However, Ofcom, which issues guidance on localness, has made no changes to the local news or information requirements for local stations, and those requirements will not be affected by this order. Indeed, following the consultation on future commercial radio regulation in 2017, we committed to strengthening local news and information requirements, which are the key public service aspects of local commercial radio, and to extending them to digital radio stations. We hope to bring forward legislation on commercial radio reform when parliamentary time allows The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, referred to a "fudge" regarding the digital switchover dates. The specific issue of whether a formal managed switchover should take place, and if so when, will be considered as part of the review, as I mentioned, and we will get that report by the end of March 2021. Again, and to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, no decision has been made to date as to whether or when a switchover should take place To return to the provisions of the order, we believe that it will allow commercial radio stations to focus their efforts at this difficult time on continuing to deliver the vital news and entertainment that listeners value most, while supporting the ongoing transition to a digital future for the radio sector. I commend it to the House.