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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, I again declare my interest as deputy chairman of Channel 4. I will try to clarify the situation, as seen from the channel. First, there is an absolute, genuine, self-denying ordinance. Channel 4, as the noble Baroness said, was created as a route to market for independent production. I make no apology for the fact that I was part of the lobby group in the late 1970s that persuaded Willie Whitelaw and the then Conservative Government to create a quite brilliant invention. I speak for myself and not on behalf of the channel, but what the channel seeks to preserve is the ability to innovate. Innovation requires that we invest from time to time in material that has no commercial value whatever. I am particularly keen to protect our 4iP project. It is, effectively, the channel’s R&D department. Total expenditure is around 3.5 per cent of the total content budget. To be unable to spend on R&D would, in the long run, potentially cripple the channel. None of us knows how successful the experiments being carried out in the digital area will be, and there is no way of knowing. What is certain is that we are moving into uncharted territory. There is no commercial competition for what 4iP does. It works, where possible and most of the time, in partnership with other organisations. My hope—and, I think, that of the rest of the Channel 4 board—is that what will spin out of the activities of 4iP is a new industry, offering opportunities to new production companies in new ways to create new revenues. That cannot be done unless, within the channel, we have the freedom to spend our own money as intelligently as we can on research and development. There is nothing to look for behind that. It is why the channel is grateful to the Government for being given the freedom to pursue the matter in the way it presently does.