TELEVISION RECEPTION, THE HIGHLANDS (Hansard, 17 November 1969)

§ Mr. Robert Maclennan (Caithness and Sutherland)

I wish to express to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary my appreciation of his attendance at this very late hour to participate in this debate, 1075 He will know that my interest in improving the television facilities in the Highlands goes back over a period of two years during which I have made repeated representations to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications and his predecessors that the facilities should be extended at a rate more rapid than that which appeared to be planned, particularly by the B.B.C.

In a letter to me dated 7th August this year my right hon. Friend indicated the plans for the extension of television broadcasting facilities in the Highlands, and described how it was not intended to introduce into Caithness in particular services on ultra high frequencies before 1974. In consequence, I wrote to advise my right hon. Friend of my intention to raise this matter in the House at the earliest possible opportunity.

In the document which the B.B.C. produced in July outlining its plans for broadcasting in the 'seventies, the Chairman, Lord Hill, set out his view of the function of the B.B.C. In the foreward he said: The B.B.C. is a public service, and wishes to remain one. The B.B.C. unhesitatingly accepts that this implies a responsibility to provide a comprehensive service to meet the needs of minorities as well as majorities. …Whatever else happens, the public service which the B.B.C. provides should be complete nationally and locally. How far short of that responsibility the B.B.C. has fallen in the Highlands is apparent to all.

One must recognise that technical and economic difficulties make it impossible for the services to be extended immediately throughout such a geographically difficult area as the Highlands of Scotland, but what is quite unacceptable, and what induces a sense of unfairness in the minds of many of my constituents, is that the planned progress is so slow.

There are, it is true, areas within the Highlands which do not receive any television at all. I believe, from a reported interview with the B.B.C. Controller for Scotland, that half the Highland area is not so placed as to be able to receive any television at all, it must be admitted that although these mountainous areas are inhabited by a relatively small number of people. In fact, it has been asserted that 1076 only 2 per cent. of the population of the Highlands cannot receive television at all.

But the problem which exercises me is more that of those who are in areas which receive only one channel, B.B.C. 1. These are the people who feel particularly harshly the sense of unfairness and discrimination. After all, they pay the same licence fee as those more fortunately placed in other more populous parts of the country, yet they receive only one channel. The consequence of this is that some of the most worth-while broadcasting is denied to them. For example, it appears that the University of the Air will not be available to those who live in the northern parts of my constituency.

What is resented even more, perhaps, than the restriction on choice of programmes is the serious problem of interference, a problem affecting those who watch B.B.C. 1 throughout the country but felt most acutely by those who have access only to that channel. What progress has been made by the B.B.C. in combating the difficult technical problems which have given rise to interference on B.B.C. 1?

As early as 20th February, 1968, the Postmaster-General, now my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science, wrote to me to say that he had initiated a special study of this problem of interference. What has happened to it? Has it been completed? Is the product of the study the information sheet which has been put out by the B.B.C. engineering information service, and released in May of this year, describing the problem of television interference from distant transmitting stations?

That document, a copy of which was sent to me by my right hon. Friend, does not lend itself to easy comprehension. It is not of a kind likely to be useful to those who suffer from interference. There are various technical explanations of why intereference occurs. It is described as due principally to interference from other users of the same channels, sometimes abroad. It may be attributable to reflection from ionised layers some miles above the earth's surface; also to tropospheric propagation in which waves are conducted through the atmosphere over greater distances

1077 than usual; and to drifting clouds of ionised gases in the atmosphere known as sporadic E which are capable of reflecting signals in the Band I range but which are transparent to the much higher frequency signals in the Band III range.

That is an interesting explanation, but the information sheet is rather less helpful with advice as to what can be done about it. It is suggested that the best advice can be obtained from a television dealer with experience of local reception. That may be so, but I wonder how many television dealers are equipped to give the kind of advice which is necessary to deal with these problems.

It is stated, also—this seems to be more a matter of history than of advice? The B.B.C. is taking action to reduce the effect of these various kinds of interference by building different relay stations to provide strong signals in the areas particularly affected ". Perhaps accurately, though I suspect not, we are told that the programme of work "is almost complete". Is the programme of work almost complete in so far as it affects the Highlands and Islands of Scotland? if not, this is a most misleading document.

The document summarises what one can do in three ways. It suggests that one should see that one's aerial is properly attached. That seems a matter of common sense. It suggests that, if there is an alternative transmission in one's area, one should ask the dealer to erect the necessary receiving aerial, which also seems common sense.

It also states:

As soon as B.B.C. I is transmitted on ultra-high frequency in your area, take advantage of these transmissions, which are relatively free from interference. It is in respect of this third piece of advice that one must feel most dissatisfaction in view of the fact that in the area about which I am particularly concerned, the northern part of the mainland Highlands, there is no expectation of ultra high frequencies with 625 line definition starting before 1974.

I should be grateful if my hon. Friend would state what progress is being made in tackling these difficult technical problems and explain, if there are barriers to the reallocation of channels, what these barriers are, and also what progress

1078 is being made in the building of relay stations.

The programme for extending television services througilout the Highlands was, as I have said, described to me in a letter of 7th August, 1969. The Postmaster-General drew attention to the fact that it was intended to introduce B.B.C. 2 into the Inverness area by the opening of the Rosemarkie station in the spring of next year. This will be of great assistance to the more populous parts of the Moray Firth area. Inverness, Nairn, Invergordon and Dingwall can all expect to benefit. I should be grateful if my hon. Friend can say whether the eastern part of Sutherland will also be able to benefit from the opening of the Rosemarkie station.

What came as a sharp disappointment was the news that no programme had been prepared for the extension of these services to the transmitting station at Rumster Forest, whence colour television would he relayed to Caithness. One is bound to ask what priorities the Government and the B.B.C., which has prime responsibility in this sphere, had in coming to this decision. It is clear that the cost of providing television to our population throughout the British Isles varies enormously depending upon the concentration of population as well as upon the technical difficulties of the area. But the priority which appears to have been left wholly out of account, in my view mistakenly, is that which ought to be given to a population which lives far from the advantages enjoyed by urban population which can enjoy the experiences of the live arts in particular and which may also have access to other means of educative facilities—the universities and further education classes.

Television is also a most important source of information which throughout the Highlands is in many cases the most rapid means of communicating news in view of the necessary delays that at present occur in the postal services. In Thurso, in my constituency, it is not possible to obtain a daily newspaper before 10.30 a.m., and on Sundays the papers do not come urtil the afternoon. Television and broadcasting generally provide the most immediate source of information. In these areas the public pay the same licence fee as everyone else, 1079 but, particularly during the summer, they are subjected to extremely bad reception and the limitations of programme choice that I have described.

How can this unfairness be dealt with save by extending the service and more rapidly introducing the new stations? I believe that no alternative to that extension will fill the bill. In the meantime I shall be grateful if my hon. Friend will give thought to the question whether it would be possible to vary the licence fee on a regional basis. I know that there are difficulties. They were described in a series of letters I received from my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for Education and Science and the President of the Board of Trade when they held the position of Postmaster-General. I do not minimise the difficulties, but it is important to recognise that the sense of unfairness is justified.

It has been suggested by the Controller of the B.B.C. in Scotland, Mr. Alasdair Milne, in an interview given to the arts editor of the Scotsman and reported in the Highlands and Islands Development Board's quarterly of autumn, 1969, that the best way to tackle the problem might be by some kind of subsidy—as I understand him, by the board. Apparently, it and the B.B.C. have been discussing ways of co-operating in places where there could be piped television with lamp-post reception masts.

Although it would certainly fall within the powers of the Board to give such a grant, and it has given grants for purely social and non-economic purposes, it seems that the B.B.C., if Lord Hill's statement which I quoted is right, has shouldered the responsibility for providing a comprehensive service to meet the needs of minorities as well as majorities, a service which is complete nationally and locally. Therefore, I think it proper that the B.B.C. should consider whether it should not subsidise the piping of television into areas remote from the normal methods of relay.

It must be acknowledged that the cost of installing television for the population not now enjoying it, or enjoying only one channel, is increasingly steep. It has been said that it might be as high as £150 per head of the population in communities where 2,000 people or fewer are receiving it. I think that the people of the High- 1080 lands are sick and tired of hearing about the cost of providing them with essential services, be they water, electricity, roads or whatever it may be. Services will always cost more in the remoter parts of the country where the population is sparse, and if we are not to see this vicious circle retained it is essential to recognise, in this matter as in others, that there must be a direct subsidy. I suggest to my hon. Friend that he should consider whether or not a subsidy could be made in this way.

§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (Mr. Norman Pentland)

My hon. Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) has asked a number of questions, but he has left me very little time in which to pay fuli justice to every one of them. However, I congratulate him on raising the question of television reception in the Scottish Highlands. The subject is a new one to me, but I know that it is one to which he has paid a great deal of attention over a considerable period.

The problem of television coverage in remote areas, particularly mountainous ones in Wales and England as well as in Scotland, has always presented difficulties. The services of B.B.C. I and Independent Television on V.H.F. and 405 line definition reach 99.5 per cent. and 98 per cent. of the United Kingdom respectively. Because of the special difficulties in mountainous areas, the figures for Scotland alone are 2 or 3 per cent. lower in each case.

I am reluctant to quote statistics at this hour, but out of a total estimated population of about 300,000 in the Scottish Highlands about 120,000 hold television licences—a licence for every 2½ people. If the figures were as good in the rest of the United Kingdom, I doubt whether we should be very much concerned with licence evasion. Certainly, the figures seem to demonstrate that very many people there find it worth while to own a television set, and that by comparison with Europe our services are giving much greater coverage.

But there are in Scotland, scattered about in a number of small isolated communities, not all of them in the Highlands, about 120,000 people whom television does not reach. Others may get 1081 only a very poor picture. To them, my statistics offer no comfort at all. No one would dispute that these are the very people for whom television could add a new dimension to the quality of life. The more remote they are, the fewer are the other amenities likely to be available to them.

Furthermore, although only relatively few people cannot receive B.B.C.1 or Independent Television or both, about 25 per cent., nearly 11 million people, in Scotland are outside the range of B.B.C.2. The comparative figure for the United Kingdom as a whole is 20 per cent. or about 11 million.

My hon. Friend has made it clear in the past as well as tonight that he attaches special importance to the spread of B.B.C.2 in the area of his constituency. One can sympathise with his concern here. B.B.C.2 offers not only an extension of programmes but the superiority of 625 line definition, the possibility of colour and a picture unhampered by interference from foreign stations which has reduced the quality of B.B.C.1 in some parts of the Highlands at various times. Such are the problems and I hope that my hon. Friend will feel that I have done them full justice. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister does not underestimate the sense of deprivation of those who live in areas where television does not reach at all, or reaches only in part.

Before going further, may I remind my hon. Friend that something is being done. The B.B.C. plans to bring its B.B.C.2 service to 90,000 people in the Inverness area next year, which is nearly one-third of the population of the Highlands. When the planning of other stations is being settled, the special needs, such as those advanced by my hon. Friend, are factors which will be taken into account in the programme. My hon. Friend will recognise, however, that there are other places in Scotland and also in Wales and England where people are equally anxious to receive the programmes. Some have much greater populations than the Highlands. Reasons can be and are advanced for special consideration for other places. It would not be possible to give special priority to them all.

1082 But to come back to the problem. I must ask my hon. Friend to consider the whole picture and not just one bit of it. An essential in the task of providing television reception is an exercise in frequency planning. Frequencies are extremely scarce and there are not enough to go round. Each frequency has to be used more than once, but there are severe limitations on the extent to which this is possible, even where stations are transmitting the same programme. Stations dotted all over the country have to be allocated frequencies from the choice available in a pattern so devised that no station will interfere with any other.

In the case of V.H.F. especially the plan must also take account of possible mutual interference with stations abroad. Therefore, it follows that however carefully the sites for stations are chosen and frequencies and power output allocated to them, there are limits, dictated by the scarcity of frequencies, to what can he done. We must recognise that total universal coverage by a broadcast signal is just not a practicable proposition.

I have, however, already said that the V.H.F. B.B.C.1 and I.T.V. coverage has achieved a level only a few per cent. short of this perfection. Could or should it be extended? The House knows that only last week we saw the official beginning of the new duplicated services of B.B.C.1 and I.T.V. These services are being provided on U.H.F. and with 625 line definition. They offer viewers the possibility of colour; they give a superior picture and one free from interference from other stations. They enable viewers to use cheaper single standard sets and they offer British manufacturers for the first time the possibility of exporting sets and components of the same specification as they are selling on the home market. But—