Hansard

I apologise to those members whom I am detaining from the by-election campaign. I suspect that they will be en route once this debate concludes.

The viewing public will experience the biggest changes to broadcasting in a generation shortly after midnight tonight, when the first major stage commences of the full switch of the Selkirk transmitter in my constituency to digital television signals. Some viewers already receive digital television from the transmitter, and Whitehaven in Cumbria has already switched. However, with the switch of Selkirk and its 11 relay transmitters, the south of Scotland will be the first and the biggest region of the United Kingdom to switch.

Since the UK Government decided that the Borders TV area would be the first to be switched over to digital, my Westminster colleague Michael Moore has led the campaign to ensure that viewers in the Borders have received proper information and are involved in the decision-making process. He deserves commendation for his work supporting community activists and representatives, voluntary groups, broadcasting professionals and many others with direct or indirect interests, to ensure that the benefits of digital are exploited for Borders viewers and any disadvantages are militated against.

This week, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport visited the Borders and, during our recent debate on the Scottish Broadcasting Commission, I and other representatives raised with the Minister for Europe, External Affairs and Culture concerns about the switchover.

At one minute past midnight tonight, the Selkirk transmitter will be switched off and it will remain off until 6.30 am—or earlier—when BBC2 will be broadcast fully on digital. Some of the relay transmitters may configure automatically, but, by 10.30 am tomorrow, all relay transmitters are due to be broadcasting BBC2 in digital format.

All digital boxes will have to be retuned for viewers in the area. People receiving their signals through their digital box will then have to switch between analogue and digital signals for a fortnight, before the second switchover on 20 November. In some regards, that will be a bigger switchover. At one minute past midnight, the Selkirk transmitter will again be switched off. The transmitter and all the relays are due to be broadcasting fully digital signals by 4 pm the following day. Again, all boxes are due to be retuned. It is worth noting that that applies to each box for each television and video recorder. Viewers have had to purchase both boxes, and they will have to be retuned twice.

The two stages of the switchover will make the region the first to be fully broadcasting digital television. Digital UK has been proactive in spreading the message on the need to buy the boxes and on the processes involved as digital switchover starts. However, inevitably, some people will not have received the literature, seen the broadcast captions on their televisions, seen the local advertisements, or seen the poster banners that are displayed across the Borders.

For those who have had difficulty in purchasing and installing proper equipment, a help scheme has been established by the UK Government. The scheme was welcomed warmly; the fact that Sky was the successful bidder was welcomed less warmly. Concerns have also been expressed that the choice of equipment for the scheme, although of high quality, was the most expensive. For elderly people wishing to purchase and install the box, it has worked out considerably more expensive than a box simply bought from a high street retailer.

Constituents have approached me concerning the operation of the scheme, customer service and a lack of flexibility. To be fair, I should say that I have also had constituents commending the scheme. However, a recent report on the scheme showed that take-up was just 65 per cent. It has not been uniformly successful.

Concerns have also been expressed that the design of the scheme could have involved at a much earlier stage the excellent network of community, voluntary and charitable bodies in the Borders that have worked so hard to ensure that the people whom they support are aware of the switchover and are supported through it.

In addition to the people who have had difficulty with the technological changes, there remain people in the Borders—in my constituency and in John Lamont's constituency—who have had real difficulty receiving any terrestrial TV signals at all. I know about that, because I am one of them. In a letter that I received only this morning, a constituent highlights the fact that the difficulty of receiving signals in rural areas is often not taken into consideration by the UK Government. He lives in Innerleithen and his letter concerns the Innerleithen mast. He says:

"My house is amongst the closest to that mast but because the mast is sited on the reverse slope of Caerlee we receive no signal from it. Indeed, because of the local topography, we receive no signal from Peebles or Selkirk either."

That point highlights one of the issues that affect rural areas such as the Borders. Some people may have received a poor signal but will now be able to receive a better digital signal; and most people will be able to receive a better signal through their existing aerial and therefore receive a much better service; but some people will, regrettably, still not be able to receive any terrestrial TV signals.

Viewers who will receive their signals through the Selkirk transmitter will receive the full signal of six mux coverage after switchover. Mux is the abbreviation for multiplex. Viewers receiving signals through relay transmitters will receive three mux coverage—known as "freeview lite". Across the Borders region as a whole, only 51 per cent of households can currently receive digital TV signals through an aerial. After digital switchover, that will go up to 98 per cent, which is positive. However, crucially, of those households only 53 per cent are predicted to receive the full freeview line-up of 48 channels. Elsewhere, only 20 channels will be available. The forecast of 47 per cent—for viewers in my area and in the rest of the Borders TV area who will receive only half of the digital service—is the highest in the United Kingdom. The area closest to our figure is south Wales, which has 70 per cent coverage and therefore 30 per cent lack of coverage. The situation is simply not acceptable to the 47 per cent of viewers who will receive a secondary service. They pay exactly the same licence fee as everyone else.

The UK Government's response—that people should not really complain, as the 20 channels that they will receive are the most popular ones—is glib. It is especially glib in the context of the review of the Office of Communications—Ofcom, the regulator—on public service broadcasting. One of the options that Ofcom is still considering is the provision of public funding for some digital channels—including some smaller digital channels—that could provide public service broadcasting as part of their package. Those may include a Scottish digital channel, which is the favoured option of the Scottish Government. However, one of those channels—or the part of the channel that public money will go to—will not be receivable by half of the viewers in the Borders.

The switchover is exciting. It is the biggest change, and I wish the engineers well in their work in Selkirk tonight—and, indeed, on 20 November. I ask the Scottish Government to do what it can, working with the UK Government, to support Borders viewers who have already been jolted by the loss, in the new year, of full local news coverage—an issue that has been raised several times in the Parliament. I ask the Government to ensure that the breadth and quality of the digital offering that those viewers will receive, as the first viewers, will be the same as in other parts of the UK. They pay the same licence fee and should receive the same digital signal and service. A two-tier service is not acceptable to the Scottish Borders and should not be acceptable to the Scottish Government or the UK Government.