HC Deb 08 June 1978 vol 951 cc341-3
1. Mr. Ashley

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he next proposes to meet the Chairmen of the British Broadcasting Corporation and the Independent Broadcasting Authority.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Merlyn Rees)

I have no immediate plans to do so.

Mr. Ashley

Is my right hon. Friend aware that it is now technically possible to superimpose instantaneous and verbatim captions on live television programmes, and that these can be beamed specifically on to the sets of deaf people without being beamed on to all television sets? That has great significance for deaf people, because it means that television is now available to them for the first time. It is a British breakthrough and could have significance to deaf people throughout the world. Will my right hon. Friend encourage the BBC and the IBA to consider the possibility of financial support?

Mr. Rees

Research is taking place at Southampton and Leicester for the BBC and the IBA, and the programmes which the BBC is already showing, and which the IBA proposes to show, indicate that both organisations are considering the matter. I have no responsibility, because it should not be for me to tell the IBA and the BBC what to do. However, I shall talk about the matter. I know that the organisations are seized of it and of the great technical changes that are now opening up before them.

Mr. Stokes

Before the right hon. Gentleman meets the two gentlemen concerned, may I ask him whether he is aware that there is widespread public concern about the amount of sex, violence and swearing on these television channels? Unless the institutions deal with that themselves, some form of censorship will become inevitable.

Mr. Rees

First, it is a man and a woman, not two men, but that is by the way. There are problems. When I publish the White Paper on the Annan Report, the question of censorship, or at least control, and how it should be imposed, is clearly a matter to which the House will have to give its attention. However, it would be wrong for the House to censor programmes transmitted by the BBC, the IBA, or any other organisation.

Mr. Aitken

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that one of the most worrying problems of the BBC and ITV companies at present is that there is between £3 million and £5 million worth of brand new high technology equipment lying around unused and untouched because the unions refuse to handle it? Does he realise that it is partly due to the sharp edges of the Government's pay policy that the unions are using quasi-Luddite tactics, the employers being quite powerless to strike a productivity deal with the television unions even if they wish to do so?

Mr. Rees

Whatever the differences may be on the precise matter, pay policy is a matter which it has been right for the Government to pursue in the fashion that they have. It is not my responsibility—I do not believe that it should be the responsibility of the Home Secretary —to get involved in negotiations between the trade unions and the organisations concerned. I know that in all spheres of life, whenever people feel that new techniques will put them out of jobs and when they are not in the kind of professions where they can pick up jobs easily, problems arise. However, I know that the organisations are concerned about this matter.