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Pete Wishart (North Tayside) (SNP): The hon. Gentleman is making a very impressive case for a Gaelic digital television channel. Having attended and chaired some of the events at this year's Perth mod, I feel that I have done my bit for the language in the past few weeks; indeed, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that this is about more than just television programmes—it is also about the skills, expertise and experience that can be built up if we secure a digital channel? If we do not, if we have to rely instead on a terrestrial television channel, it will simply wither on a funding vine.

Mr. MacDonald: The hon. Gentleman has made an important and relevant point. I am afraid that I missed this year's mod, but we can jointly pay tribute to its organisers for what was a very successful event indeed.

As I said, the Government have produced lots of reports, but there is still no financial backing to underwrite the aspirations contained in them. To the Gaelic community, this is beginning to look like tokenism. What is the point in the new Scottish Parliament opening with a Gaelic psalm if there is no delivery for Gaelic in the decisions being made by that Parliament? What is the point of my constituency in this place being rebranded by the boundary commission with a new Gaelic name if there is no new funding for the Gaelic Media Service from this Government?

The contrast between the current funding position for Gaelic television and what is needed in order that its aspirations be met is bad enough, but the contrast with past funding is even more embarrassing. I admit this through gritted teeth, and it is a pity that the official Opposition's spokesperson is not present to hear me say this—perhaps that indicates a slackening of their commitment to, and support for, Gaelic under their new leadership—but the fact is that the previous Tory
 
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Government spent more money on Gaelic television than either this Labour Government or the Scottish Executive are managing to do between them. When the Gaelic television fund was created, the then Conservative Government found £9.5 million of brand new money to back it. Adjusted for inflation, the equivalent sum today would be almost £13 million. Yet the actual allocation of funding for Gaelic broadcasting in this financial year is only £8.5 million. That is a funding shortfall of more than 30 per cent. compared with what the Tories were able to spend.

Funding for Gaelic broadcasting has not increased—not even in nominal terms—since 1997. Yet during that time, total Government expenditure has increased by 41 per cent., and the Scottish Executive's budget has increased by a similar amount. By way of contrast, funding for Welsh broadcasting has increased by £16 million in just the past three years. During the same period, there have been real-terms cuts for Gaelic. These are indefensible statistics, and the Scottish Executive, this Government and those of us who support them should feel deeply embarrassed about them.

It is no wonder that the Government were criticised by the Council of Europe's committee of experts when it reported in March of this year. It pointed out just how poorly the Government are doing in respect of their broadcasting obligations under the terms of the European charter for regional or minority languages. I was delighted when we signed up to that charter. It was something that I helped set in motion when I was in the Scottish Office, working with Donald Dewar. It saddens me that the progress that we made then has now ground to a halt.

Part of the problem, I acknowledge, is that the constitutional arrangements have obviously changed since I was in the Scottish Office. Responsibility for Gaelic broadcasting is now shared between Whitehall, through the Minister's Department, and the Scottish Executive, which is accountable to the Scottish Parliament. Co-ordination between the two tiers of government is consequently a bit more complicated, but that is no excuse for the failure of either tier to live up to its responsibilities to Gaelic broadcasting.

Gaelic television has become, I fear, a devolution orphan, kept on a starvation diet and forced in consequence to reduce its output each and every year. Not only is the Gaelic broadcasting fund too small to deliver the digital channel that was provided for in the Communications Act 2003; it cannot even deliver the basic 200 hours of annual programme output that was anticipated in the Broadcasting Act 1990. Those 200 hours, which we had in the early 1990s, have been cut down to just 137 hours today. Again, that reduction is indefensible and unacceptable.

Mr. Simon Thomas (Ceredigion) (PC): The hon. Gentleman has drawn, quite rightly, on experiences in Wales and he will also know about the experience of TG4 in Ireland, which runs an Irish language service with the sort of money that he suggested could run a Gaelic language service. It happens there in practice. As to declining hours, we have seen S4C in Wales become digital and greatly expand its hours. The hon. Gentleman might like to reflect on the fact that over the
 
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20 years that Wales has had S4C, the number of Welsh speakers, once in decline, was first halted and then increased at the last census, whereas the number of Gaelic speakers has, unfortunately, been on an inexorable decline. Perhaps a Gaelic service would help to protect the language in its heartland in Scotland.

Mr. MacDonald: The success of S4C in stabilising the language is something that we should take careful note of, and draw some hope from. The parallel that the hon. Gentleman drew with the Irish position is also interesting because the new channel in Ireland runs on a similar budget to what is spoken about for the Gaelic service. There are actually more native Gaelic speakers in Scotland than there are native Irish speakers in Ireland. That is a fact that not many people are aware of. Irish is widely used in Ireland. It is learned at school, but when it comes to native speakers—where people learn the language in their own homes—there are more Gaelic speakers in Scotland, as I said.

The game of pass-the-parcel between the Government here and the Scottish Executive in Edinburgh has been going on since devolution. The result has been the deadlock that I described, which is failing the Gaelic community and, indeed, making a mockery of the spirit of devolution. Both Governments, in Westminster and Edinburgh, are to blame for the impasse, but it is the Government here who have reserved to themselves—quite rightly, I believe—the responsibility to legislate for broadcasting. This Government passed the Communications Act last year, so they have a special responsibility to deliver the promises implicit in that Act for the Gaelic Media Service to provide a Gaelic channel.

I note that the Minister for Sport and Tourism, who is replying to the debate, has proved himself a good friend of Scotland—and the highlands and islands in particular—in the past, when he authorised a large increase in the Scottish land fund, which I can tell him is doing good work in the highlands and islands. I look forward to hearing his response tonight.

Mr. Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD): I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing tonight's debate on this important subject and on the excellent way in which he has presented his case. Before he concludes, I want to let him know that I fully support what he said. Television is an integral part of the modern world and if we want the Gaelic language to flourish, we need a Gaelic television channel. I hope that the Minister will take heed of what the hon. Gentleman has said.

Mr. MacDonald: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman and, indeed, to all hon. Members with Scottish constituencies who have spoken on behalf of their political parties tonight and offered me their support for a Gaelic television service.

I conclude by saying something that echoes what the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr. Reid) has just said. The Government and all of us must accept that a dedicated Gaelic television service is not a luxury in the context of today's expectations in the 21st century. Indeed, it is the minimum acceptable provision for an indigenous British language that has been spoken in these islands for at least one and a half millennia.
 
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The British economy is the fourth biggest in the world. Let us have no more pretence that we cannot afford a television channel for our Gaelic speaking community. If the Government want to boast that modern Britain is a vibrant, multinational and multicultural society—indeed, a multilingual one—and that they cherish that diversity, they cannot afford not to deliver a Gaelic television service.

7.15 pm

The Minister for Sport and Tourism (Mr. Richard Caborn): I want to begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Western Isles (Mr. MacDonald) on securing this debate. The House will be well aware of his enthusiasm for and interest in the Gaelic language, and also of his background in the Scottish Office. I welcome this opportunity to say a few words in this debate. The rather specific nature of the debate and the informative interventions that we have just heard from hon. Members mean that I can be brief in my response, although I hope that it will be helpful.

Funding for Gaelic broadcasting came to prominence in September 2000, when the Milne committee—to which my hon. Friend the Member for Western Isles referred—produced its report recommending the establishment of a Gaelic Broadcasting Authority to run a dedicated Gaelic television channel, at a cost of £44 million. We reached the view that the Milne report's core recommendations could not be justified, but we accepted that there was a need for change better to meet the aspirations of Gaelic viewers. Building on the findings of the report, we introduced important legislative changes by means of the Communications Act 2003, and I shall say more about that later. However, Gaelic broadcasting has been high on the political agenda for a number of years.

The current funding for Gaelic broadcasting, the Gaelic broadcasting fund, is made to the Gaelic Media Service—the SMG, to use its Gaelic acronym—via Ofcom, the communications regulator, and amounts to £8.5 million. That is the amount included in the devolution settlement of 1999. The funding is set to rise to £8.7 million in the financial year 2005–06, and to £8.9 million in the financial year 2006–07. As my hon. Friend the Member for Western Isles said, this fund comes from the Scottish Executive's block vote allocation.

It is true that budgetary cuts in 1998 reduced the fund from its original level of £9.5 million to its current level of £8.5 million. My hon. Friend the Member for Western Isles said that Britain's economy was the fourth largest in the world, but he will know the reality of the budgetary pressures on public expenditure that we inherited in 1997. That sum formed part of the devolution settlement and responsibility for setting the level of grant is for the Scottish Executive to decide, in accordance with its own spending priorities for Scotland.

However, £8.5 million is still a considerable sum of money, and the Gaelic Media Service continues to use it to produce high-quality Gaelic programming. That programming makes an important cultural and economic contribution, especially to the highlands and islands of Scotland.

I agree that Gaelic broadcasting has been constrained, and I believe there are two key reasons for that. The first reason is the limited role that the Gaelic
 
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Television Committee and, later, the Gaelic Broadcasting Committee—the CCG—were given by the Broadcasting Acts of 1990 and 1996. The inability of those committees to take a more proactive role in commissioning programmes was an area of difficulty, as was their rather awkward arm's length relationship with the broadcasters that ultimately transmitted these programmes to the public. The CCG could fund programmes, but depended wholly on the BBC and the Gaelic Media Service to broadcast them.

Secondly, Gaelic broadcasting is under pressure because the Scottish Executive has seen education policy and funding as the most effective way of supporting and promoting the Gaelic language. Their ultimate goal—one that we shared when Westminster was responsible for those matters—is to ensure that the Gaelic language continues as a healthy, living indigenous language of the UK.

I am pleased that the first of those obstacles was removed, as my hon. Friend said, by the Communications Act 2003, which not only gave the Gaelic Media Service broader powers to ensure that a wide and diverse range of Gaelic programmes are broadcast and strengthened the committee with a broader representative base, but also allowed the GMS to hold a broadcasting licence, which it was not previously able to do.

However, Gaelic broadcasting remains disparate and its future uncertain. It was for that reason that in June this year the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport reconfirmed her strong commitment to Gaelic and Gaelic broadcasting. She made a commitment to seek to break the current impasse and ensure a better deal for Gaelic broadcasting for the longer term. She did not hold out the prospect of Department or additional Exchequer funding for Gaelic broadcasting, and I wish to make that message quite clear, as it has been misinterpreted by some people involved in the issue. However, she is committed to looking at the future of Gaelic broadcasting within the context of the BBC charter review and the wider future of digital broadcasting.

To help to resolve some of the problems facing Gaelic broadcasting, Ofcom was asked to draft a policy options paper. Ofcom is currently finalising its "Looking to the Future of Gaelic Broadcasting" paper and we hope to use that document as a means of moving the issue forward.

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