Becoming a digital community

Published: 26 November 2009

The Bishop of Manchester addressed the House of Lords in the debate of the Digital Economy Bill. The Rt Revd Nigel McCulloch noted that now 70% of households have access to the internet at home.

In welcoming the Bill, he said, "My welcome to the Bill comes with a warning: in becoming a digital economy, we may forget the importance of being also a digital community. The Digital Britain report put the matter memorably:

"We are at a tipping point in relation to the online world. It is moving from conferring advantage on those who are in it to conferring active disadvantage on those who are without."

In other words, getting universal broadband, for example, is a laudable aim, but it is not laudable if the poorer or more rural communities find themselves excluded from the benefits of the digital revolution.

That is why the Government's plans to dedicate £300 million for the home access scheme for low-income families and to create a digital inclusion programme are welcome. I was also pleased earlier this month when, in response to my friend the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Exeter, who is not in his place today, the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, reaffirmed the Government's commitment to use surplus digital switchover funds to help to meet the universal service level.

But now I find myself rather concerned. The Bill appears to begin to use that same pot of surplus money also to fund the proposed regional news consortia. Of course, I welcome, as all noble Lords do, any strengthening of regional news, but is the commitment given by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, on 9 November now rather less than it appeared then?

I am also concerned about the universal connection speed. There are already groups-the Country Land and Business Association is among them-suggesting that the bar has been set too low for the speed. Are the Government getting this right? It is vital that access and speed alone are not the limit of our aspirations. What we need to create is an environment in which high-quality content is readily available on a variety of platforms and in which audiences are empowered with media literacy to make informed judgments. Simply providing the pipeline is not enough; people at the receiving end need to understand how to process and evaluate the material that passes through it.

I turn to what was previously called public service broadcasting, described by Ofcom as, "essential to retaining our cultural identity and maintaining social cohesion".

I come within that remit to local news. All noble Lords will agree that accurate or balanced local news is the lifeblood of a healthy civic society and active democracy. That is certainly true in the north of England, where I serve as bishop of England's second city. Indeed, rather like in the Church of England, where we are at our most transformative and effective at grass-roots level, the power of good local journalism, informing and inspiring people to action, though hard to measure, is nevertheless undoubted. But even the growing number of hyper-local, web-based services, many not for profit, such as the citizen journalism blog People's Voice Media in Manchester, cannot fill the void left by shrinking regional broadcast news services.

While I welcome the Bill's proposed changes to media ownership rules following Ofcom's recommendations as a pragmatic step towards helping local media organisations to survive in these challenging times, I regard the pilot scheme for regional news consortia as more significant. The potential that these partnerships have for plugging the regional news gaps-on ITV, for example-and for unlocking the capacity for local community media groups to get involved could herald much more genuinely local TV news. This takes me back to the need for clarity on the funding mechanisms for these pilot schemes. Can digital switchover surplus really be expected to cover the three proposed pilot schemes as well as the necessary investment in communications infrastructure?

While on the matter of finance, I welcome the Government's decision to postpone any decision about top-slicing the BBC licence fee to give time to explore other funding solutions. As the Communications Select Committee, on which I serve, concluded in its report The Ownership of the News, introducing a contestable element of the licence fee would turn it into something very different. That is why, in welcoming the updating of Channel 4's remit to include the provision of public service content on a range of media platforms, I emphasise the BBC's unique and innovative role in leading the development in this digital revolution.

In rushing to carry out the switchover from analogue to digital on radio, there may be an unintended consequence. For when the moment for switchover comes, will it be timed precisely to the by then obsolete but accurate FM pips or to the new but delayed and therefore inaccurate digital pips? Are the Government consigning us to eternal lateness? However, it would be churlish for a mere pip to get in the way of giving general support to the Government's proposals in this Bill. I give that support, with the proviso that the funding is right and that the whole country is enfranchised to benefit from the amazing advances in communications technology that the Government are so rightly seeking to embrace.


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