BROADCASTING ENABLING (Hansard, 3 August 1966)

Hon. Members
Oh, no.

Mr. Jenkins
If the House will permit me, I will take less than the traditional 10 minutes for this task.
I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to enable the Postmaster-General to establish a Television and Radio Authority for the purpose of running the fourth Television Channel, setting up a National Popular Radio Programme and acting as parent station to local radio stations and to abolish pirate radio whether operating within or without territorial waters. This proposal is firstly to enable the Postmaster-General to set up a National Popular Radio Programme, which will replace the pirates. One of the important functions which the new Television and Radio Authority envisaged in the Measure will have—[Interruption.]

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. I would remind the House again that it insisted that Ten Minute Rule Bills be taken at this time of day. It must be consistent and listen to the hon. Gentleman.

§ Mr. Jenkins
I was saying that one of the important functions which the Authority I am suggesting would have is the job of setting up a national popular music programme to replace the pirate radio programmes. I congratulate the Government in general and my right hon. Friend in particular on deciding to get rid of the pirates.
Radio 390, whose listeners have written at its suggestion to many hon. Members, interferes, as my right hon. Friend knows, with Swedish Radio broadcasts and also with shipping broadcasts on the Medway. Like most of the other pirates, it has an extremely dubious background. It was originally established by Tom Pepper, alias Featherbee, who died mysteriously, and some other people. It was twice "hi-jacked" by force, before being sold to its present owners. I understand that the police in Folkestone have a record of one such incident of violence in connection with this station.
I should like to quote from what The Scotsman said when Radio Scotland, a station with a similarly dubious back- 474 ground, was established. The paper said: Meanwhile, the pirates are revelling in a tobacco advertising bonanza put their way by Labour's cancer-conscious ban on TV cigarette commercials. This is only one example of the fact that, once an organisation is outside the law, it is outside the law not just in one respect but in all.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend for deciding that this cannot go on. It is high time that this bunch of law breakers ceased to be supported by businessmen who claim to be respectable. An object of the Bill is to replace the pirates. There is no doubt that the Government proposals to dispose of the pirates will be effective, but there needs to be established by next spring, when the last of the pirates will, I hope, be walking the plank, a legitimate popular music programme or programmes.
The Bill, which I hope the Government will adopt and adapt, has the establishment of such a programme as a main purpose. I find the B.B.Cs sound programmes very acceptable, but there are those who do not and they should not be compelled to accept "Auntie" B.B.C. in a "mini-pop" skirt as a substitute for "Mr. Cosy-Tones" and his audible syrup. I do not share the taste. It is too sweet for me, but that is no reason why I should impose my choice on others who like to be chummed up to in a manner which the B.B.C., rightly, does not regard as the appropriate style for any of the Corporation's programmes.
The pirates, whatever their antecedents, have gained an audience. This is a measure of the B.B.C.'s failure. I ran a radio station once in Rangoon in 1945. It was a very good Forces' station, much better than any other, and I know from that experience that every radio station or programme acquires a personality of its own, which informs, in a subtle way, its entire output.
The Bill would propose the establishment of a new public Authority, publicly owned, publicly capitalised, but acquiring its main revenue from advertising. It would not be the I.T.V. of sound radio, still less would it be commercial radio. It would take advertising, but so does the Radio Times, so does the New Statesman and so does the Daily Worker—I beg its pardon, the Morning Star, when it can 475 get it. What counts is not the source of the revenue, but who controls the enterprise. The sources of revenue of the steel industry will be the same after nationalisation as it was before, but the ownership will be changed, and that is what matters.
The first task of the new Authority will be to replace the pirates in a manner acceptable to their audiences, but also to the writers' and performers' unions and organisations, but it will have other duties as well—to form a main feeding source for future local radio stations, to launch the fourth T.V. network and to give support to the University of the Air. The B.B.C. needs competition in sound, but it needs the right sort of competition. I wish to bring in the Bill so that hon. Members can see and judge for themselves whether the recipe which I propose is not the right one for us.