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Standing Committee E
Thursday 23 January 2003
(Afternoon)
[Mr. Peter Atkinson in the Chair]
Clause 293
Code relating to provision for deaf
and visually impaired
Amendment proposed [this day]: No. 285, in
2.30 pm
Question again proposed, That the amendment be made.
The Chairman: I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following:
Amendment No. 315, in
Amendment No. 316, in
clause 293, page 254, line 30, leave out 'tenth' and insert 'fifth'.
Amendment No. 313, in
clause 293, page 254, line 43, leave out '10' and insert '50'.
Amendment No. 314, in
Amendment No. 284, in
Amendment No. 243, in
Amendment No. 244, in
New clause 15—Conditions to secure access to audiodescription—
'(1) It shall be the duty of OFCOM to set such general conditions as they consider appropriate for securing that audiodescribed television programmes, so far as provided in digital form, are—
(a) broadcast or otherwise transmitted; and
(b) made available for reception in an intelligible form,
by means of the electronic communications networks described in the conditions.'.
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New clause 27—Conditions to secure access to public teletext service—
'The regulatory regime for the public teletext service includes the conditions that OFCOM considers appropriate for securing that the provision of so much of the public teletext service as is provided in digital form is accessible to persons who are blind and partially sighted.'.
I should inform the Committee that we anticipate a Division in the House shortly. When that happens, I shall adjourn the Committee for 15 minutes from the start of the Division.
Mr. Richard Allan (Sheffield, Hallam): Thank you, Mr. Atkinson, for your flexible use of eyesight before the break, so that I was not left hanging when the Bell went. I hope to introduce in fairly short fashion the amendments that stand in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey).
The amendments relate directly to the additional help given to people who have visual or hearing impairment so that they may access television services in the same way as anyone else. The amendments are designed to press the Minister about the proposals and question him about how far and how quickly we should go, and how comprehensive the range of measures should be. It is helpful to test him on those matters because there is a large group of people who need access to such services to enjoy television. We should accept that on its own the market cannot necessarily deliver that. It requires additional assistance. All of us should take an interest in the matter because visual and hearing impairment can happen to anyone at any time. It will happen to a large number of those in this Room as we get older, if it not because of any other catastrophe before that. A large number of us will want the additional facilities dealt with in the clause.
Amendment No. 315 deals with making information available to people about services. Speaking to his amendments, the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East (Brian White) raised some important points about the use of electronic programme guides. Amendment No. 315 refers to information in a generic sense. I understand that many people are not aware of the services available and do not find the information provided accessible. In 1999, the Royal National Institute for Deaf People carried out research that showed that 1.7 million people aged over 55 with hearing loss do not know how to access closed-caption subtitles, and more than half a million would use them if they knew how to access them. We want the Bill to require that information about access to such services be made readily available.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield): Is that not especially relevant now that, on digital television sets, such services involve no extra cost? Previously one had to pay more for a teletext set. All digital television receivers will have access to subtitling and other such facilities as an integral part of the system.
Mr. Allan: It is helpful to refer to the transfer to digital technology. As the hon. Gentleman says, it will make more services available. However, the additional complexity of the new technology might make it less accessible to individuals who struggle with new
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technology. That is a legitimate issue for us to examine. There is no point in adding a new raft of services if people, when they are confronted by the various buttons that must be clicked to get to the options, find the process so daunting that they cannot get through it. Amendment No. 315 would add a requirement to the Bill in that respect.
Amendment No. 316 deals with the ''how quickly'' question. We seek to test the 10-year limit that the Government have included and replace it with a fifth anniversary for the targets in the subsequent subsection. The hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) has just referred to the growth of digital television. Digital television targets tell us that we are entering a phase of rapid change. We are trying to ensure that the transition to more accessible services takes place sooner rather than later, so that those services are in place before the platforms have been entirely rolled out—it might prove more difficult more difficult to do that if it is left until later. There is no reason to wait 10 years to meet the targets that have been set. Those targets should be built into the transition to digital technology.
Amendment No. 314 looks at the way in which the targets are judged according to a particular broadcaster's output. If consumers receive a package of channels, targets should be set across that package rather than judged on each individual channel. We are looking for a different way to set the targets, so that when the broadcaster is deemed to be financially capable of introducing subtitling and the other additional accessibility measures, it should be judged on the entire package. The broadcaster should not be able to claim exemptions in respect of individual channels by saying that it cannot afford to do the additional work for them.
We recognise that the overall costs are significant—[Interruption.]
The Chairman: Order. The Committee is suspended for 15 minutes.
2.36 pm
Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.
2.51 pm
On resuming—
Mr. Allan: There are economic costs involved in the amendments, and I am mindful of them, but I think that the subject genuinely needs public debate. We are not talking about spending revenue from income tax or anything like that, but about the total cost of providing broadcast services. Appropriately enough, given the Government targets that many broadcasters have already taken on board—voluntarily, to their credit—part of those costs would go towards providing services to many of the broadcasters' viewers and listeners who require the additional services. We do not think that the cost is of itself a good enough reason not to try to press ahead more quickly.
Amendment No. 313 was tabled so that we could try to tease out why we have such a low target for
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audiodescription. We have touched on the issue several times, and the Minister has pointed to the fact that the market for audiodescription devices is undeveloped. However, we suggest that there is a chicken-and-egg problem, as until the services have been broadcast as audiodescription, there is no incentive to develop products in the marketplace that will allow the services to be listened to. We suggest that setting in stone in the Bill targets as low as 10 per cent. will further depress the market for audiodescription devices. If that market is to flourish, we need to be more ambitious about the number of programmes broadcast with that additional facility.
Mr. John Whittingdale (Maldon and East Chelmsford): The hon. Gentleman acknowledges that the amendments carry a cost. Does he recognise that audiodescription is estimated to cost some £700 an hour? Working on the basis of 184 channels, the provisions already in the Bill will cost about £38.4 million after 10 years, and the hon. Gentleman's amendments would increase that to £192 million, which is a huge amount. Although channels that enjoy huge revenues, such as the BBC, might be able to meet that cost, the extra burden on small digital niche channels—if the hon. Gentleman's amendments also applied to them—might well make them no longer viable.
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