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Mr. Roger Gale (North Thanet): It is a great sadness that the right hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) should come as a Johnny-come-lately to the debate and seek to--
Dr. Cunningham: Just for the record--as the hon. Gentleman always begins his speeches with these sorts of comments--I have come to the debate at the exact same time, and on the same occasion, as the Secretary of State.
Mr. Gale: If the right hon. Gentleman had waited until I had finished my first sentence, he might have taken it in context. It is a great sadness that he has come as a Johnny-come-lately to the debate, apparently for the specific purpose of denigrating the remarks made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.
The Westcliffe house Royal National for Institute for the Blind home and the Royal School for Deaf Children are in my constituency. I take a particular interest in matters affecting the community. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Hughes) for putting his case. However, I felt unable to support his measure--he knows this, we have discussed it--in Committee. As someone who has been involved in broadcasting for almost 30 years, I believe that what he proposes is practically and technically impossible--certainly not realisable within the context of the transfer from analogue to digital broadcasting and in the context of the investment that is necessary in digital broadcasting.
It does not surprise me in the slightest that Labour Members choose to pay no account whatever to cost. Cost is a consideration which must be taken into account, particularly by small television companies. It is blindingly obvious that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State cannot possibly put forward any quota of programmes that might be discounted by the Independent Television Commission. That power has been given to the ITC, and it has been made clear to the House that that power will be used sparingly.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State--I understand that this is why my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West has chosen graciously to accept the Government amendments--has taken the sentiments expressed on both sides of the Committee and translated
them into something practicable, not something that is blue sky, pie in the sky, unrealisable and, therefore, unfair to the people whose hopes we might have raised.
Mr. Miller:
I thought that you understood the technology.
Mr. Gale:
I do understand the technology and, as a result, I recognise the financial constraints placed on small companies by a blanket coverage of the kind suggested in Committee. Today we have proposed a workable step forward which has been recognised as such by the Royal National Institute for Deaf People and the RNIB. This morning, I received a letter from two constituents, Mary McCann and Peter Gallagher, who are pupils at the Royal School for Deaf Children. They say:
Mrs. Anne Campbell:
Will the hon. Gentleman explain to his constituents--who correctly make the point that sign language interpreting and subtitling improve their understanding of television programmes--that, if that provision is available on the new digital services, viewers who are not hard of hearing will be able to turn off the services and therefore not be distracted by them? I hope that that is understood.
Mr. Gale:
That is not the point that my constituents were making: they want the existing service to continue. My right hon. Friend has made it absolutely plain that the existing service will be not only continued but enhanced. The Secretary of State said--to those who bothered to listen--that she would go down the path that was first trodden by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor) in 1990. Those of us who served on the Committee that examined that legislation will remember clearly the way in which he introduced a measure of subtitling that was realisable and achievable. It was a significant move forward in the provision of facilities for our constituents who suffer aural or visual disabilities. The Secretary of State has taken that a step further this afternoon--and she has done so in a measured and a realisable manner.
That is the sensible way forward. The Government's proposals are workable and I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West understands that and is prepared to accept them. I hope that the rest of the House will do likewise.
Ms Liz Lynne (Rochdale):
I am pleased that the Secretary of State has come forward with some proposals. The 5 per cent. target for sign language interpretation is
For instance, I gather that subtitling exemptions will be increased from what was passed in Committee. Again, I do not honestly think that that is acceptable. That will mean that programmes that could have been seen by a large number of disabled people will not be able to be accessed. We must protect the provisions that were passed in Committee. Deaf and visually impaired people are excluded enough--there are 8.7 million deaf, hard-of-hearing or visually impaired people in the United Kingdom. On average, hearing people can listen to 672 hours of television a week. At present, only two hours of that is in sign language.
Mr. Peter Brooke (City of London and Westminster, South):
I sympathised with the amendments moved in Committee by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Hughes)--although his arguments might have been more persuasive to sympathisers like me if, in sending out extracts from the Committee transcript, he had supplied copies of the Minister's speech as well as his own. That might have given us a clearer idea of the scale of his requests.
I came to listen to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State today--given my sympathies with my hon. Friend's argument--not least because one of my grandfathers was deaf and one of my grandmothers was blind. Although I understand that only one of those conditions is potentially hereditary, I lived through the experience of those disabilities in my immediate family and I sympathise with those who suffer from them.
I am not prone to disloyalty to the Government--as the Whips may be reassured to hear--and I am conscious that I have exhausted my personal quota of disloyalty to my right hon. Friend in another capacity. However, it is not merely chivalry that causes me to say that I shall support the Government this evening. My right hon. Friend has listened to the debate, responded fairly to the points put to her and been flexible. In those circumstances, I shall support her--not least on the advice of my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West.
I am happy to be enlisted in any future guerrilla force that chooses to harry both the Government and the broadcasters as soon as economics and technology allow so that further resources might be made available to those with disabilities. However, on the strength of the speech
by the right hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) today, I shall not enlist in a force that is led by him. I have as little confidence in his grasp of the economics and the technology of this industry as I have in his understanding of the profit motive in the working of the national lottery--an issue which I suspect will haunt the Opposition in a wider context in future.
Mrs. Anne Campbell:
I shall not detain the House long, but I must make two or three points that have not been raised before.
I refer first to the Secretary of State's point about the 5 per cent. target for sign language interpretation and to the exempted programmes, which is a new concept in the Bill. I am worried that, if 10 per cent. of programmes are exempted or excluded, 5 per cent. of the remaining 90 per cent. is only a 4.5 per cent. sign language target. If 20 per cent. of programmes are excluded, the target becomes only 4 per cent. Therefore, the 5 per cent. target is already being whittled away: we are talking about not 5 per cent. but 4.5 or 4 per cent. All hon. Members must understand that point.
"As deaf people the provision of Sign Language interpreting and subtitles is very important because both facilities help us to access the information.
My right hon. Friend has met their concerns. She made it plain this afternoon that the existing subtitling that is available on analogue television will be transferred to simulcast when digital and analogue are simulcast and will then be rolled over into digital when analogue is taken off air.
We do not want subtitling reduced. Without it we cannot understand the programmes and are denied information.
We understand that interpreting can be distracting and therefore could not be offered on many programmes. However, we hope that the Breakfast News will still be subtitled.
Please will you put our feelings forward to Parliament".
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