Meeting of the Parliament 16 June 2011
I fully agree. Indeed, that point was made in the Government’s digital strategy, which we launched in March of this year. The member is absolutely right. We can provide a supply, but if the demand is not there, we face another challenge. Improving the content, particularly the Scottish content, would help in that regard, particularly in areas such as Glasgow and Lanarkshire, where the issue that needs to be addressed is not availability but take-up.
The panel reached the firm conclusion that a fairer redistribution of television licence fee income would be the most appropriate method of funding a new network but, in the event that it proved impossible to reopen the current licence fee settlement, it proposed an alternative, interim funding mechanism, which would involve a ring-fenced share of revenues from the auction of cleared spectrum after digital television switchover has been completed throughout the UK in 2012. We have proposed both methods to the UK Government, and we will continue to press the issue of spectrum auction revenues, in particular, but, so far, we have not been able to make any progress on that important recommendation.
I want to highlight two other areas in which I believe that our lack of power over broadcasting has had, or could have, damaging consequences. The first of those is the television licence fee. In October of last year, the UK Government negotiated a licence fee agreement with the BBC trust that will last until 2017. That agreement will have long-lasting consequences in the devolved nations, beyond the budgetary constraints that it will impose on all BBC services. In Wales, it implemented a new method of funding the Welsh language channel, S4C, through the licence fee. Among other things, the new arrangement will ensure that S4C in Wales will receive £95 million a year of support from licence fee payers from 2013 onwards. The equivalent figure for BBC Alba is only £8 million a year. For Scotland, the settlement had the effect of closing off a possible source of funding for the digital network for the next five years. It is unfortunate that last year’s licence fee agreement was negotiated over a period of a few days behind closed doors. Nobody outside the BBC trust or the UK Government even knew that the discussions were taking place.
The final area that I want to talk about is local television. Current UK policy on local television is a bit unclear, following an apparent reversal of direction two weeks ago. We are still waiting for further details, which we expect to get towards the end of July. However, as things stand, the UK Government can make decisions on local television in Scotland that would have a major impact on Scotland’s media scene without any discussion with the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliament. As members have raised previously, that could have a knock-on impact on advertising revenue and the viability of Scottish newspapers. We have had meaningful discussions with Jeremy Hunt, Ed Vaizey and Sir Nicholas Shott, as he wrote his report. The UK Government may choose to consult us, but it is not required to do so, and discussions to date have been at the initiative of the Scottish Government. As we have an interest in the Scottish media scene, our media companies, the newspaper industry in Scotland, advertising revenue and availability in that market, it is concerning that we might not have any right to consultation.