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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

Before the Minister sits down, I offer some reassurance to the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, and give an example to the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, of why the Government are creating a useful situation. I declare an interest as deputy chairman of Channel 4. During the four years I have been on the board, there has never been any discussion about production being brought in-house. Whether or not the existing terms of trade will be debated and discussed over the coming years is an issue that has all sorts of ramifications. However, none of the discussions of the Channel 4 board have even suggested bringing production in-house. I want to reassure the noble Baroness on that. I think I am being helpful in raising the broader issue—I was waiting for the Minister to raise this. One of the biggest decisions we made on the Channel 4 board was a decision to take Channel 4’s PSB obligations for education online. In hindsight, it was one of the best decisions that we ever made. It was made after a lot of discussion. The truth was that audiences for Channel 4 education were diminishing. Frankly, the young people who the programmes were aimed at were increasingly not around at the time that they were available. It has been an unalloyed success. It is that type of flexibility, and that opportunity, to deliver the best possible programming to audiences when they are there, and in the means that they may have access to, that has made the channel a much more significant player in the education space than was previously the case.