HC Deb 07 July 1981 vol 8 c78W
Mr. Michael Brown

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what measures he intends to take to prevent the transmission by satellite to the United Kingdom of television programmes that would contravene domestic broadcasting regulations.

Mr. Whitelaw

An international plan for direct broadcasting by satellite—DBS—in Europe was agreed at the world broadcasting-satellite administrative radio conference of the International Telecommunications Union in 1977. Each country is free to use the channels assigned to it for DBS services as it chooses provided that the transmissions conform to the plan, which is based mainly on the provision of national services with the minimum possible overspill of these services into neighbouring countries. There is no provision in the plan for the broadcasting of services from one country to another, though at the request of certain countries limited provision has been made for services covering more than one country—for example the Nordic group of countries.

The implications of the unavoidable overspill of one country's DBS transmissions into another are discussed in the report "Direct Broadcasting by Satellite: A Home Office Study", which I published on 19 May and on which I invited comments by the end of July.