ADVERTISEMENTS (Hansard, 9 July 1984)

§ Mr. Hurd
I beg to move amendment No. 30, in page 11, line 26, leave out from 'such' to end of line 28 and insert 'other bodies and persons concerned with standards of conduct in advertising as the Authority think fit'. This is a small subsidiary amendment to a proposal made by my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Mr. Brinton), which is now part of clause 12, to extend the Cable Authority's duty of consultation when drawing up or revising its advertising code. As well as the IBA, the authority will have to consult other bodies concerned with advertising standards. We discussed this matter in some detail in Committee.
The amendment is a drafting amendment to adjust the wording of clause 12(1), but not its intended effect. The adjustment is twofold. First by inserting the reference to "other bodies" concerned with standards of conduct in advertising, it avoids the suggestion that the IBA is not such a body. I do not believe that that suggestion was ever made.
Secondly, it removes a slight awkwardness with the present wording which could be read as requiring the authority to consult every person or body which had relevant experience in regulating advertising standards. That might have been a clumsy provision and difficult to fulfil. The amendment is intended to correct that.

§ Mr. Brinton
I beg to move amendment No. 31, in page 12, line 3, at end insert 'in the case of such of the programmes included in a licensed service as are in the opinion of the Authority comparable to ITV or to the programmes included in a local sound broadcasting service and'.

§ Mr. Speaker
With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendments Nos. 32 and 33.

§ Mr. Brinton
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for the previous amendments and also for Government amendment No. 33. When my eyes lit on amendment No. 33 I wondered whether I should withdraw my amendment No. 31. On consideration I decided to pursue it for a few seconds because it seemed that the phrase "licensed diffusion service" may be misinterpreted. Where the programme material on cable is like the programme material on ITV, the standards of advertising, especially in regard to timetabling, should be similar.
My amendment seeks to clarify that issue by using the word "programmes". The word "programmes" divorces the material entirely from what might happen on cable channel or channels. A channel or diffusion service may sometimes produce programmes like those on ITV and at other times do interactive or other activities, which are not similar. I put my amendment tentatively to my right hon. Friend while expressing my appreciation of the Government's amendment.
798 A further advantage of the amendment is that it allows the Cable Authority to decide unencumbered but having presumably consulted the IBA.

§ Mr. Gerrard Neale (Cornwall, North)
First, I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale (Mr. Lang), who no doubt hoped that I would keep my seat. The hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) is not present, but I shall declare an interest as a director of Southend Rentals and advise that the Telecommunications Engineering Manufacturers Association, to his great disappointment, has taken no interest in the Bill, nor sought my advice about it. That may say something about my ability to advise.
Bearing in mind the fact that I raised this point in Committee, it is worth noting that my right hon. Friend has moved a considerable way to accommodate the criticisms of the clause. There is now a far clearer recognition in the wording—I am sure he intended it previously—of the narrowcasting element of cable and of the particular problems relating to the share of advertising time on these programmes, which was noted on Report and subsequently in various ministerial comments. As the amendment will improve the clause, I support it.

§ Mr. Hurd
My hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Mr. Brinton) and I are trying to do the same thing. We are seeking to draft an amendment which will bring the Bill more clearly into line with the policy outlined in the White Paper. We discussed this at length in Committee.
I have considered my hon. Friend's amendment carefully. The difficulty about using the word "programmes" is that it could have a narrow, restrictive effect. Almost any individual programme of the type that appears on ITV may be said to be comparable. For example, a cable operator in Birmingham may offer a cable channel consisting only of Asian films. Under our policy that would constitute a specialised channel and the advertising on it would be unlimited, as my hon. Friend would want. Under his amendment the IBA rules may apply on the ground that Asian language films are occasionally featured on ITV and therefore are comparable.
We have had difficulty drafting the amendment, as I admitted in Committee. We have now found words which bring the statutory language as close as possible to the formulation in the White Paper. I hope that my hon. Friend and the House will accept it. The phrase so much of a licensed diffusion service is as near as possible in statutory language to the concept of the cable channel.
One point that we have made clear—the need for this was emphasised in Committee^* is that whereas the Cable Authority should consult the IBA in deciding those points, the decision should be that of the authority alone, not a joint decision with the IBA.

§ Mr. Denis Howell
This matter exercised the Committee for a long time. The Minister has met our points as reasonably as we could expect, and I express my appreciation for that.

§ Mr. Brinton
I, too, appreciate my right hon. Friend's efforts to get over this difficult point, and I am sure that we are at one in what we intend. This probing amendment 799 was useful in that it enabled us to ask my right hon. Friend to declare his purpose that like will be treated as like, but that unlike will not be treated. in the same way. He has done that, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.