§ Mr. Morganasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) whether he wishes to encourage and in crease television broadcasting in the Welsh language; and whether he will make a statement of his intentions in that respect;
(2) whether it is the Government's policy to give priority to the provision of transmitters of the fourth television channel in Wales as compared with the rest of Great Britain;
(3) whether he proposes any change in the policy adopted by the previous Administration in respect of the provision of transmitters of the fourth television channel in Wales.
§ Mr. WhitelawWe have already said that we shall seek an early start to Welsh language broadcasting on the fourth channel in Wales and that we want to see increases in the present level of Welsh language broadcasting. I shall be discussing with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales and with the IBA and the BBC how best these aims can be achieved in the context of my proposal that the fourth channel throughout the United Kingdom should be supervised by the IBA.
As regards engineering, we continue to give first priority to the extension of the uhf coverage of the existing services, which is of benefit to Wales.
As my hon. and learned Friend will know, both BBC-Wales and HTV-Wales have already announced their aim to provide additional programmes in Welsh for children before the new channel comes into operation. I welcome their efforts in this direction.