HC Deb 09 May 1990 vol 172 cc261-6

Amendment proposed: No. 117, in page 11, line 15, at end insert— '(2A) If it appears to the Commission that it would be appropriate for a particular Channel 3 service to do so, they may determine that the service shall include the provision of different programmes—

  1. (a) for such different parts of the area for which it is provided, or
  2. (b) for such different communities living within that area,

as they may determine.'.—[Mr. Mellor.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker

With this it will be convenient to take Government amendments Nos. 239 and 118.

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Mr. Maclennan

It would be churlish to allow this moment to go by without saying how grateful we in Scotland are to the Government for amendment No. 239, which has been tabled in response to a debate we had in Committee and will ensure that the Scottish channels cannot all be acquired by a single company. I thank the Government.

Mr. Mellor

I am touched by what the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) has said. We have sought to honour that and all the other undertakings that were given, and I am glad that this is a popular move.

Dr. Kim Howells (Pontypridd)

This group of amendments touches on crucial issues affecting the television service in Wales and provides a valuable opportunity to improve that service. The Broadcasting Bill affects Wales in two major ways. First, it recognises the success of the Welsh fourth channel S4C and goes some way towards securing its continued financial security. It also sets out the future of Channel 3, which includes the franchise area for Wales.

ITV's strength has been its commitment to regional programming, and its regulation by the IBA has been a key factor in maintaining a generally high standard of quality programming. Both the BBC and Channel 3 Wales are catering for a country with particular assets and problems, and should be helped to improve consistently their contacts with the people of Wales in order for local experience to receive the expression that it deserves. Without a genuinely broad menu of local programming, television does not present a valid picture of the area that it serves. The Bill and the amendments prompt us to decide where we stand on the balance between television as a service and as a business.

Wales is a small country and its population, in viewing terms, a minority audience. The interests of the audience in English and Welsh, and of the television industry in Wales, must benefit as much as possible from the legislation. Apart from Northern Ireland, Wales may be the only television region to be served on Channel 3 by a single company. That should oblige the winner of the franchise to be particularly aware of its obligations. If it falls short of the obligations, there will be no other Channel 3 company producing Welsh programming in the English language. The obvious consequences would be grave.

Already the Government have accepted that there should be specific provision for children's religious and regional programming. Further provision should be enshrined in the Bill to ensure that the Channel 3 company in Wales will have a specific duty to produce certain types of programming. I am concerned that the absence of a legal requirement will create loopholes for the unscrupulous to exploit. The ITC is to be allowed to draw up illustrative guidelines, but it is not yet clear how well equipped the commission will be to insist on the standards for which it aims. I fear, too, that without certain quality provision being written into the Bill the general standard of programming on Channel 3 will deteriorate.

The television industry in Wales is a major employer. The Bill should enhance that status and not threaten it. The integrity of Wales as a national region must be preserved. Unlike the position in Scotland, Channel 3 in Wales is represented by a single franchise which coincides with the national boundaries. The Bill does not eliminate the possibility of Wales being divided between two or more non-Welsh franchisees—for example, a company based in Manchester and perhaps another based in London or Bristol. If that happened, indigenous Welsh programming could disappear. Wales should remain a national television region. That would allow Channel 3 to play a constructive role in Welsh national life and would make broadcasting more responsive to the needs of English-speaking Welsh people while taking its place within a bilingual nation.

In the case of the national region of Wales, a suitable range of programmes should include current affairs, documentaries, drama, adult education, sport, social action, light entertainment, and religious, arts and school programmes. Programmes from each category should be scheduled regularly at main viewing times. At least 75 per cent. of the programmes should be made within the Welsh region. That broad range of programmes is currently being produced in Wales and the legislation must allow for at least such a range. Viewers in Wales deserve to see their local concerns dealt with and their experiences reflected in the television medium. A requirement for a range of regional programmes to be shown within the main viewing hours would encourage the Channel 3 contractor to produce programmes of quality. Without such a requirement, regional programmes could be ghetto-ised to the least accessible viewing times. Unless 75 per cent. of local programming is made within Wales, I believe that there will be a significant drop in employment and in the quality of the television industry in Wales.

To sustain such a capability, a full regional production and managerial presence should be mandatory in each Channel 3 region, and particularly in national regions such as Wales. I fear that that issue has been overlooked in the Bill. It is vital that the managerial staff demonstrate a commitment to and a knowledge of Wales and of Welsh culture and issues. There are fears that, without protection, English or European owners of Channel 3 Wales would not appreciate or develop the channel's role as a monolingual service within a bilingual society.

In the event of a company applying for a Channel 3 franchise as a publisher-contractor, it is imperative that such an applicant should demonstrate that that method of contracting will not diminish the quality of the service provided. If a contractor has an integrated programme and production set-up, the monitoring of the output at every stage—from concept through production to transmission—is relatively easy, but the method of operation of a publisher-contractor requires careful scrutiny. The company should demonstrate adequate commissioning and quality control systems, as well as a commitment to commissioning the majority of its output in Wales.

8.15 pm

I am also concerned that without a requirement for training within the ITV sector in Wales there will be an inadequate, ad hoc system. all the more damaging if the industry becomes either wholly or predominantly based on freelance workers, however excellent many of the productions in which they have been involved.

Channel 3 franchise holders are to operate a full network arrangement, but there should also be a transitional network arrangement during the bidding process. Such a networking arrangement would enable companies to have access to a range of quality programming far in excess of the programmes which it could acquire alone. Inevitably, the companies with a smaller local output—of which the Welsh contractor will be one—would be the most seriously affected by the absence of such an arrangement.

Nationwide showing of local material aids communication within Britain. Without such an arrangement, the concerns of regions such as Wales would be further isolated. The network commissioning body should be required to take a considerably greater number of programmes from regional companies than at present, if the regional companies wish to offer them. It is important for quality programmes made in Wales to be seen in the rest of Britain.

I believe also that the initial contractor will require a period of stability in which to establish itself and to deliver the promised programme service. The ITC must be empowered to scrutinise all companies taking over licence holders. Otherwise, the quality threshold and other guidelines will be invalidated. In other words, there should be a moratorium of a minimum of three years on takeovers in the period immediately after the franchises are awarded.

As well as accepting the framework that I have outlined for Channel 3 Wales, I urge the Minister to ensure that the Home Office will continue to offer S4C a safety net, should advertising revenue drop to such an extent that the 3.2 per cent. share of the net advertising revenue is insufficient for S4C to continue its current programming. As I am sure the Minister knows, S4C fulfils a unique cultural and national remit. Since its inception, a large and thriving independent television sector has developed in Wales, providing S4C with approximately 380 hours of viewing per year—soon to increase to more than 500 hours. Its existence is affected directly by S4C's funding. To strengthen its position, I press the Minister to ensure that cable operators are required to carry public service channels and S4C on all distribution systems in Wales. Without that requirement, viewers in some areas would be deprived of their only Welsh language channel.

Mr. Ted Rowlandss (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney)

I support the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells). It was a portmanteau of a speech, covering the gamut of issues raised in Committee and on Report. I want to argue the case which we started making in Committee. The development of S4C has produced successful and flourishing Welsh language programmes, but it is important that there are opportunities for what we describe, in inverted commas, as Anglo-Welsh writers and productions. That is the most important lesson that we have learned from S4C. Talent exists and can be developed not only in Welsh but also in Anglo-Welsh.

I should like to explain what we mean when we talk about the Anglo-Welsh language. In our different ways, we speak it ourselves. It contains the sounds, the rhythms, the tones, the experiences and the history not only of the Welsh-speaking communities in our Principality but of the Anglo-Welsh-speaking community. They are different.

Dylan Thomas is one of our most underrated poets. He wrote Anglo-Welsh poetry and combined Welsh and English in the sounds and rhythms. I shall quote to the House a typical example of his poetry: It was my thirtieth year to heaven

  • Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood
  • And the mussel pooled and the heron priested shore
  • The morning beckon. …
  • And I rose
  • In the rainy autumn
  • And walked abroad in a shower of all my days …
  • And I saw in the turning so clearly a child's
  • Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother
  • Through the parables of sunlight and the legends of the green chapels. …."
That could not have been written by an Englishman but only by an Anglo-Welshman.

We are continuing in this debate the case that we started to make in Committee. We want to see in the broadcasting system which, hopefully, the Bill will create a combination of arrangements and opportunities that will allow the expression of poets, writers and social commentators. That will produce a distinctive experience that is different from that produced solely by English or Welsh speakers. It will be an Anglo-Welsh culture of its own, but part and parcel of the total culture of our society.

We are worried that, in the process of organising the broadcasting arrangements, this major dimension will not be effectively catered for. There are a number of ways in which we can cater for it, and the Government amendments provide the opportunity to do so. It can be done through the new broadcasting opportunities. It may be done by cable television, but we know how limited that will be in the Principality. In yesterday's debate, the Minister responded to the possibility of the variations that could occur on Channel 5. We might be able to take that opportunity.

We have to rest our case on the broadcasting facilities in the next decade. That will be done through BBC Wales and the commercial station HTV or its successor. That combination of existing broadcasting facilities should create a stream of Anglo-Welsh writing, broadcasting and productions in the character of Wales. That is what S4C has done. One of the most potent ways in which we can do that is by getting a greater share of the network arrangements for HTV or its successor company for the Principality plus the west.

I do not believe in breaking up the Wales-Television South-West combination, because it makes up a successful, large company. It has dual management, and dual control of the whole show will produce a major shift in the balance of networking and will create extra opportunities for a Welsh national Wales and the south-west commercial company that will produce programmes and give opportunities to many talented people in the Principality. That channel would speak not only to us but would enable us to reach a greater audience. It is a two-way flow that could be improved by a major shift in the networking arrangements.

It is extremely important to send a message from the House to HTV, BBC Wales and any other company that, in the new decade of the 1990s, we expect them to develop and promote the enormous talent that exists in the communities that we represent. I am sure that I speak for my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd whose passionate speech I welcome and support.

Mr. Paul Flynn (Newport, West)

I am powerfully reminded, when listening to my two colleagues, the hon. Members for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) and for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells), of arguments that go back over 30 years in Wales. The arguments for a fourth channel in Wales, especially in the early 1970s, were for a channel that would be additional to the others throughout the United Kingdom. That campaign went on for a decade in Wales and it was overtaken by a campaign in the rest of the United Kingdom for a very different sort of fourth channel.

Unfortunately, when the channel was given to Wales the deprivation argument continued, because that fourth channel gave Wales a great advantage—for the non-Welsh-speaking Welshman—a channel that did not have Welsh language programmes. That meant that such people were not deprived of English programmes that were available elsewhere.

The fourth channel also gave rise to a flowering of the Welsh language. Bringing the fourth channel in nationally gave rise to a new deprivation argument, because Wales is missing in the scheduling of other channels on the United Kingdom Channel 4. That argument was rehearsed in Committee and yesterday in the House. The need in Wales is for one channel more than exists throughout the United Kingdom.

I warmed to the speeches of those who have the cadences of the Welsh language in their voices. I do not have those cadences. They come from an area of Wales where the Welsh language was recently very much alive, and the stamp and shadow of the language is in their speech. There is an energy and distinctiveness in the valley culture and Welsh culture.

I do not like the expression "Anglo-Welsh" because it is difficult to know what it means. There is certainly not an Anglo-Welsh language. Some Welshmen speak English with a great deal of clarity and force, and English is spoken rather better in the valleys of south Wales than it is spoken elsewhere.

The Welsh language is a great treasure. By any standard of European minority languages it should have died out at least 200 years ago, but we have seen the continuing miracle of its survival. People in Wales see our proceedings on television, see the strange spectacle of the programme being introduced in Welsh and hear Welsh language discussions. However, every word spoken in the House is in English, even though many hon. Members speak Welsh. If I spoke Welsh now and said, Os 'rydw i'n troi at y Gymraeg, bydd y Llefarydd yn ddweud 'dwdw i'n ddim mewn drefn y tŷ; os 'rwyn parhau i siarad yn y Gymraeg, bydd y Llefarydd yn fy nhorri allan o'r tŷ, and continued to speak in Welsh, I am sure that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, would rule me out of order, because in the House the Welsh language has the same status as riotous behaviour.

This is the only Parliament that Wales has, and it is a shame that only one of the two beautiful languages spoken in Wales is allowed to be heard here. Perhaps the day will come when we shall see an end to that. In some Parliaments, a dozen languages are spoken, and I am sure that on some occasions we could manage to deal with two.

I support what has been said by my hon. Friends the Members for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney and for Pontypridd. There is a vibrant and lively life in English and Welsh in Wales; both need wider audiences and the opportunity of full expression on radio and television.

Amendment agreed to.

Amendment made: No. 239, in page 11, line 30, at end insert 'or the whole of Scotland'.—[Mr. Mellor.]

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