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Digital Switchover (Disclosure of Information) Bill

moved Amendment No. 6: 6: Clause 1 , page 1, line 15, leave out paragraph (a) The noble Lord said: The reasons I am keen to move this amendment is that we on these Benches feel rather strongly about this issue. These amendments, which refer to the deletion of the BBC in Clause 1, started life as Liberal Democrat amendments in the other place. I want some rationale from the Government that goes further than we got on Second Reading—at which I was unfortunately not able to be present—about why the Government believe that licence-fee payers should have to pay for digital switchover. The Minister was clearly on the record at Second Reading as saying that the costs to the BBC—to licence-fee payers—were clearly capped at £600 million, so I suppose we should be grateful for small mercies. But the rationale as to why the licence-fee payer should even pay that £600 million and not the taxpayer eludes me and many of my colleagues. Indeed, I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, was particularly eloquent on the subject. He said: "““This proposition was examined first by the BBC Select Committee of this House. It was then examined by the culture department Select Committee of the other House …we were totally united: we walked arm-in-arm on this issue””.—[Official Report, 28/2/07; col. 1520.]" The absolute consensus is completely against having the licence fee payer do this. It may well be that the poor old DCMS has been heavied by the Treasury, as ever—I suspect that that is the case. As the Minister has made clear—and that is why his answers to the amendment tabled by the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, were so revealing—the BBC is frankly quite unnecessary in this Bill except for the purpose of paying the bill. That is all it is. Everything else can be done by the contractor, which will do the necessary. All that the BBC is there for is to pay the money over to the contractor—the £600 million or more. We have not seen any form of justification for having the BBC being involved as it is, and I would be interested to hear the Minister’s rationale as to why the BBC was ever brought into this in the first place. There is no satisfactory precedent for this, although I suspect that the Minister will start talking about colour television, but that is not on all fours at all with this major switchover, which should be borne out of general taxation. I beg to move.