Examination of Witnesses (Questions 620
- 628)
TUESDAY 12 MARCH 2002
RT HON
TESSA JOWELL,
RT HON
PATRICIA HEWITT
AND MR
ANDREW PINDER
620. The main Bill, not the little piddling
one.
(Ms Hewitt) I completely agree with what Tessa said
and I do not think I need to elaborate.
621. Can I come back to the question of broadband.
It seems to me, in the background, there are two conflicting forces
at play. One is the City, which ever since dot.com went out of
fashion has become very risk-averse again to technology and will
therefore invest where there is the least risk, and the least
risk is where there is the most people. It is like any other infrastructure
investment. It will tend to start in the south east and move out.
The other thing, which other Members have touched on and which
particularly concerns me with a constituency in the far north
of Scotland, is the opportunity that broadband has for business
for delivering economic wealth that is sustainable in our areas;
to actually change the fact that we currently need a lot of grants,
and which therefore would give us the opportunity to have a really
sustainable economy. If I can just be very parochial for a moment,
I visited a call centre in Alness, which is a very important source
of employment that has replaced older industries. I asked the
people there what was the one thing they would like to see happen.
The answer was broadband. I even asked them what they meant by
broadband and it started at 500 and moved up. It seems to me that
there is a role for government to make that happen, because private
industry will not make that happen due to a lack of incentive
or competition. Is that something for one of your departments—I
think probably it is the DTI—or is it the Scottish Parliament?
How do we actually deliver that opportunity to those kinds of
areas?
(Ms Hewitt) Let me comment, first of all, on your
starting point about what the market will and will not do. Of
course, the cable companies and then BT, when it was putting ADSL
into its exchanges, focused on the areas where they thought they
could make some money and there would be enough customers—which
is why we have got 55-60 per cent coverage in population terms.
I do think the priority, particularly for BT which has made a
very, very big investment in ADSL over the last two years, is
now, having got its prices down, to get out there and actually
advertise and deliver the service, and drive up demand in the
areas where ADSL is available. Of course, if that does not happen
you then have a knock-on effect and even less incentive to invest
beyond the areas where broadband is already available. I am reasonably
optimistic about that, but I will be monitoring it very closely
as that roll-out starts. That then leaves us with the absolutely
crucial issue of the areas where broadband is not commercially
available at the moment. Of course, there is a role for government
there. There is, I think, an issue perhaps for the regulator to
look at which is the cost of leased lines, because when you are
talking about your large-scale call-centres and other businesses,
at the moment the cost of leased lines, which is the way they
will get broadband, is really very high compared to a number of
other countries. That is holding back inward investment and other
development that will bring employment into rural and other disadvantaged
areas. That might be a regulatory issue that we can ask Oftel
to look at. More broadly, however, of course there is a role for
Government and it is both for my department and for the Scottish
Parliament and for the Welsh Assembly. To put it at its simplest,
there is a choice there: do we think that government should pay
for the whole of the costs of getting broadband infrastructure,
using whatever technology, into the parts of the country which
are not currently reached? In which case, let us be quite clear
that we are going to be competing for that investment along with
the even more pressing needs of railways, hospitals, schools and
everything else, since—particularly in the case of railways—we
are dealing with a failure and an inadequacy of infrastructure
investment that goes back a couple of decades. Or do we think
the role for Government is actually to partner with the private
sector so that we get a combination of public and private sector
investment that can get broadband more rapidly into the areas
where currently it is not reaching? What we have been trying for
some years is a variety of approaches. Chris Bryant will remember
the National Assembly for Wales tried an experiment in a remote
part of Wales where it helped to pay for ADSL in a BT exchange
that certainly would not have been commercial viable. However,
the take-up has been very low, which may have to do with the services
that were being offered, it may have to do with the price or it
may be a combination of both. A different approach is now being
taken in another experiment that is currently being done in Cornwall.
I have referred, as Andrew has earlier on, to the way in which
we can connect up public sector procurement; use that to get a
point of presence for broadband connection into a rural village,
possibly because the school or library or some other public sector
point is being connected, and then, since you have run, probably,
fibre up to that point, off that get some other connections that
can be accessed by, particularly, small businesses and people
who are self-employed, and then open that up generally. That is
what we are doing to try to make this happen.
622. There is a very specific point and it is
to do, very much, with broader business use of broadband. Again,
this is parochial, but there is a fibre-optic cable that runs
up the A9, and in Alness it is a BT-run site. They cannot connect
the fibre-optic cable. My concern is that Government has spent
a lot of money through various ways bringing 1,000 jobs to Manpower
in Thurso and 1,000 jobs to Manpower in Alness and all these other
businesses, but if it is left to the private sector what will
happen is because those are not alas where the most profits are
they will be last on the line and we will lose out to overseas
competitors. Therefore, all that money we have already spent to
create that wealth, to give us the boost, disappears. I am putting
to you that there is a special case for protecting the investment
that government has already made.
(Ms Hewitt) I think that is right, although I am not
quite sure if that particular fibre on the A9 is part of the JANET
network or a different network. This matters because the procurement
that was done for JANET and now Super-JANET, which is the very,
very high-speed academic network, was done on terms—rather
favourable terms—that make it rather difficult to start
exploiting it for commercial purposes. You can get into some desperately
technical and complex legal issues here. These are exactly the
issues that we are addressing with our colleagues in Scotland
so that we ensure that, as far as we possibly can, we exploit
fibre connections that have been paid for publicly and then use
them to get the investment and the jobs that those communities
need.
(Mr Pinder) Obviously there is a follow-up on the
Alness issue. I suspect the Member has had dealings with Dounraey.
623. Inverness has the oldest BT equipment in
the country, apparently.
(Mr Pinder) We will follow up and write to you separately,
if we may, about that. I think it is easy to overlook the fact
that this is, as I said earlier, a very new technology and the
market is developing really quite rapidly. There is lots and lots
of innovation happening out there, which we sometimes kind of
overlook by focussing on ADSL and on cables in the larger cities.
We have got some money, as you know, £30 million to fund
agencies and there is such a thing as executive cells (?) which
are doing innovative things to try to get some innovation in just
these very areas of rural communities and so on. The Scottish
Executive are sponsoring a scheme to get a wireless network into
the—not your constituency—Western Isles to try to
improve access to rural communities. They are running a scheme
to look at how you might transmit broadband along power lines
to reach rural areas, and looking at open access networks where
rural communities can access broadband in a central place. There
are lots and lots of innovation. On top of all that, of course,
there is satellite, and in Scotland and Wales there are pilots
running, and I hope those pilots will be extended through to the
rest of the UK. So let us not get too focussed on ADSL and cable,
even though they are mainstream and will be the main means of
delivery. There are, in some of these rural communities, some
real opportunities for things to happen through the use of alternative
technology, and we need—and I need—to keep up the
pressure to make sure that sort of thing happens.
Mr Flook
624. Secretaries of State, I too am going to
be rather parochial but from a very community viewpoint, and I
hope the national implications are there. I am particularly concerned
about the future of Restricted Service Licences and community
TV in particular. What I would like to know is how you are going
to push further the development of community TV generally, and
whether or not you have discussed extending the licence from 4
to 10 years?
(Tessa Jowell) Perhaps I can start with that and say
that the RSLs in relation to radios are better established and
we have had more progress in that area than we have in relation
to television. The key issue is, as you will be aware, about the
availability of spectrum. In relation to access radio, the Radio
Authority has very much taken the lead in this. In public policy
terms, we want to support the development of community radio,
and subject to the availability of spectrum (and this, obviously,
is a matter which is under consideration in the spectrum review,
on which the consultation has only just finished) in principle
we would also favour RSLs in relation to television. Very local
radio and very local television has the potential for representing
otherwise excluded interests, particularly those of ethnic minorities,
and has a role in developing a sense of community identity, and
may also have a role in providing an outlet for communication
at a particular time—Manchester doing for the Commonwealth
Games, or something like that. So in broad terms we support the
development of RSLs and that support we will look at in the context
of the conclusions from the spectrum review. The Radio Authority
had given the go-ahead to 15 access radio pilots and a decision
about further quantity and scale will rest very heavily on the
outcome and success of those.
625. I get the impression from your answer that
you are skirting around the issue of television and community
TV, and the reason for mentioning the word "parochial"
is that in Taunton we have one of the few RSLs that are up and
running as part of the LBG Group, which is in administration.
A number of buyers for that very successful television station
are finding trouble with only a four-year licence, where we are
already two years into it, and not only just the short length
of the licence but the complete absence of any thought about creating
a digital platform for those RSLs.
(Tessa Jowell) I am not skirting around it, I am recognising
the practical fact that access radio pilots will take less spectrum
than will television. I am very happy to look at the particular
point that you make about the length of the licence. There are
also other issues which I am quite sure you are aware of; there
are concerns that the commercial broadcasters have: "Will
these distort the market?" "Will they take advertising
from the established commercial broadcasters?" All this is
material that we want to try to learn from, on the strength of
the 15 radio pilots. I am very happy to look at the specific point
you raise in relation to your local television station, and perhaps
to write to you, Chairman, about the matter of the length of licence.
Mr Flook: In particular, because as my
colleague earlier said in his first questions, 2006 to 2010 is
when you have switch-off for analogue, and that is creating a
problem going forward not just for four years but for any investment
in local community TV and the need to find a digital platform.
Thank you, Chairman.
Rosemary McKenna
626. It has been a fascinating session, thank
you very much, I have enjoyed it so much. My particular interest
is universal access to the internet, particularly for the socially
excluded. I chair the Scottish Library and IT Council and we have
great concern that we are not getting enough access to the socially
excluded, whether it be within rural communities or within inner
cities. I notice you made a reference to JANET and Super-JANET,
which happens to be what we think is the way forward for education
and for access. If the socially excluded are not getting access
they are further excluded, and the longer it goes on the deeper
it gets.
(Ms Hewitt) I am going to ask Andrew to come in on
this in a minute, but let me just say that I absolutely share
your concern about making sure that everybody has got not just
access in a technical sense but has also got the skills and confidence
to use the new technology, particularly internet access. One can
say there is universal access already because there is universal
access to the telephone line, and if you connect the appropriate
piece of kit you can get the internet. However, of course, for
people actually to use it and benefit from it requires much more,
and I am very struck in the very low-income communities in my
constituency—and many, many others I have visited—by
how much the various community access points—in community
centres and libraries and so on—are valued and used, often
by people in their 50s, 60 and 70s, who left school with no qualifications
at all and whose confidence is transformed by the discovery that
they can use this, and then they move on to get a lot of these
new skills. So it is hugely important to us as a policy issue.
(Mr Pinder) As you know, we have this large number
of BT on-line centres to which the libraries make a large contribution.
Therefore, when that programme is more or less complete, by the
end of the year, all libraries will be on-line and we will have
quite dense coverage throughout the UK of open access centres.
So, as Patricia said, physical access is there as well. The problem
that I foresee is that for many people, particularly socially
excluded people, these sorts of places are not necessarily the
sorts of places they want to go; they have dropped out of school,
perhaps, a little early and the last thing they want to do is
go back to something that reminds them of that sort of institution.
We have just picked up some work looking at the approachability
of UK on-line centres; looking at how we do really focus on these
particular groups, who are absolutely our target group. We have
got to get hold of these people and get them on-line. We will
be publishing that research and getting a discussion going. John
Healey (the Minister responsible at DfES for UK on-line centres)
and I have been recently talking about this issue and he shares
that concern. He is looking at how we might make centres reach
out more into the community as well. So we are, as it were, on
the case and we do understand the point you are making. Having
gone through this initial investment of getting the centres opened,
we now need to make sure that those centres, plus other things
we can do, really do focus on the disadvantaged.
627. Libraries are not threatening. People go
into their local library and do not feel that it is not somewhere
that they are welcome. I think they are very important. There
are other areas within the community as well—community centres—and
more community schools so that people feel welcome.
(Ms Hewitt) Can I completely agree with that. Indeed,
in my own constituency in the last two weeks I have opened two
refurbished community centres where the local authority has put
in community learning managers, where there are little IT suites,
there is internet access coming and always, when I visit places
like that, the most popular course that people are flocking in
to sign up for is internet and ICT training. Within the UK online
programme we have been doing some really quite imaginative things:
internet access in one or two pubs, in a caravan that is part
of the travelling fair in the West Midlands, and I suspect we
could do more of that. The study that Andrew just referred to
has indicated some useful directions.
Chairman
628. Thank you very much indeed. We are most
grateful to you for coming this morning and that concludes the
public hearings of this inquiry.
(Ms Hewitt) Thank you very much.
(Tessa Jowell) Thank you.
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