We have heard a lot today about local community radio, and I want to endorse a lot of that and to talk a little about the future and about DAB radio. I should declare an interest as the chairman of the all-party group on commercial radio. I have made a note of all the Members present today, and I fully expect them to join the all-party group within the next week.
The future is digital radio. In my area of High Peak, we have a lot of signal issues with FM. We have talked about the multiplexes we have, and we do get some of the national multiplexes in High Peak, but even that coverage is not great. However, digital is the future of radio, and there will come a day when we switch from analogue to digital. The sooner that day comes, the better, but we need to remember areas such as High Peak, because those of us there are usually the last to get anything in terms of these technologies.
If digital is going to be the future, we need to use it to secure the future of our local radio stations. Others have spoken eloquently about small local radio stations.
This has been a great opportunity for us all to wax lyrical about our local radio stations, and I intend to be no different. I will talk about the aptly named High Peak Radio, which covers the whole of my constituency. It is a big constituency, at over 200 square miles, and the name—“High” and “Peak”—tells you all you need to know: we have lots of hills, and signals are a problem. However, because of where we are, we do not really identify with the Radio Manchesters, the Radio Sheffields or the Radio Derbys of this world. So High Peak Radio provides us with a tailor-made station for our area.
The future of radio is digital, and I am sure that that is the way High Peak Radio will want to go one day. However, the way things are at the moment, it is beyond the finances of small, independent, community, commercial local radio stations to go into digital—it is too expensive and too difficult.
The Bill is an excellent piece of legislation, and the sooner we get it through, the better. As my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) laid out, it would put in place a framework whereby the likes of High Peak Radio can get on to digital—they can move into the digital zone.
Somebody here once talked about being an analogue person in a digital age.