Piped Music etc. (Hospitals) Bill [HL]

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. It will not have escaped the attention of those of your Lordships who are doomed to be here for last business on a Friday that we have been here before. I have initiated a debate on piped music in general and I moved the Second Reading of a Bill which covered piped music in public transport and health establishments, which I then abandoned because, apart from some intelligent and mildly sympathetic comments from the Conservative Front Bench, it received very little support from your Lordships' House. I now return with a Bill covering hospitals alone which, I give notice, I hope to pilot through your Lordships’ House, thus bringing to four the number of Bills that I have piloted through your Lordships' House, one of which reached the statute book as part of the wild animals and wild plants protection Act. I have hopes for this Bill, with such key advocates for my cause as Mr Robert Key in another place. The reason that I have narrowed the field affected so much at the same time as everyone, without exception, who has spoken to me on the subject has urged me to widen it, is that I believe that the case for hospitals is irrefutable. Clause 1 directs the Secretary of State to draw up within two years, after consultation, a plan to prohibit piped music or the showing of television programmes in the public areas of hospitals and to require the wearing of headphones by persons listening to music in those areas and, when he has done so, to lay the plan before both Houses of Parliament. Clause 2 lays down exceptions to be included in the plan for television broadcasts which are in the public interest, including those which are for the purpose of safeguarding the welfare of hospital users. Clause 3 defines piped music in public areas of hospitals, and Clause 4 contains a citation of the Act as it extends to Northern Ireland. There should be no doubt about the need for the Bill. Many hospitals, including outpatients’ departments, are filled with music and television. The reasons for this are, of course, well meant. It is thought that music is calming and television distracting. Some music is very calming; the kind that you happen to like. By definition, however, the proportion of any given involuntary audience that likes the kind of music being played at any particular time is small, while, for the rest, it is actively unpleasant, even painful, or just noise. All unwanted noise raises the blood pressure and depresses the immune system. For some medical conditions, such as tinnitus, noise is actually very painful. A famous survey of blood donors at University of Nottingham Medical School in 1995 found that playing piped music made donors more stressed before giving blood and more depressed afterwards. Surely hospitals should be places of restful calm, whereas too often they are the reverse. I would like to acknowledge the help that I received in preparing the Bill from the UK Noise Association, Pipedown and the Royal National Institute for Deaf People. I urge your Lordships to accept it at Second Reading. Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Beaumont of Whitley.)