§ Mr. Edward Leigh (Gainsborough)I have the honour of presenting a petition from Doreen Rogerson and more than 1,000 residents of Gainsborough and surrounding areas. The petitioners' concern is:
That Christians and people of other faiths are denied the freedom of expression available to atheists and secular humanists, and that this is a result of current broadcastinglegislation—which bans them from holding many of the types of broadcasting licence open to other people. It is also a result, as the petition recognises, of theRules and Codes of Guidance issued by the broadcasting regulators.They apply special restrictions to the content of religious programming, which do not apply to secular programming. The petitioners call for this discrimination to end. They wish for respectable religious organisations to be able to compete for all types of broadcasting licences, both for television and radio, on a level playing field with everyone else. They wish to be able to turn on their televisions or their radios and tune into programming which reflects their beliefs and values just as easily as they can tune in to any other type of programming.The petition concludes:
Wherefore your Petitioners pray that your honourable House will urge the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to bring forward proposals to amend the legislation to remove discrimination against the ownership of broadcasting licences by religious bodies, and to require the Independent Television Commission and the Radio Authority to amend their Rules and Codes of Guidance to remove provisions which discriminate, in wording or in practice, against religious bodies.To lie upon the Table.