Gaelic Broadcasting Bill

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B I L L

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establish a Gaelic public broadcaster, Rèidio-Alba, and make consequential amendments and repeals to legislation, and for connected purposes.

BE IT ENACTED by the King’s Most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows—

PART 1: RÈIDIO-ALBA

1 Establishment of Rèidio-Alba

(1) There shall be a body corporate responsible for broadcasting in the Gaelic language in Scotland, to be known as Rèidio-Alba.

(2) Rèidio-Alba shall be owned and controlled by the Scottish Ministers.

(2) Rèidio-Alba shall have a Bòrd, with a membership of not more than twelve people, appointed jointly by the Office of Communications and the Scottish Ministers (“the appointers”).

(3) The membership of the Bòrd must include at least—

(a) a member nominated by Bòrd na Gàidhlig, and
(b) a member nominated by Highlands and Islands Enterprise.

(4) When appointing members of the Bòrd, the appointers must have regard to the desirability of having members of the Bòrd who are proficient in written and spoken Gaelic.

2 Transfer of functions

(1) All functions and assets of BBC Gàidhlig are transferred to Rèidio-Alba.

(2) All functions and assets of Seirbheis nam Meadhanan Gàidhlig, as legislated for by the Communications Act 2003 (c. 21)

are transferred to Rèidio-Alba.

(3) All references in legislation to “Seirbheis nam Meadhanan Gàidhlig”, the “Gaelic Media Service” or “MG Alba” shall be taken to mean Rèidio-Alba.

(4) In this Act, “BBC Gàidhlig” refers to the operational department of BBC Scotland (itself a division of the British Broadcasting Corporation), responsible for, among other matters—

(a) BBC Alba, a television channel,
(b) BBC Radio nan Gàidheal, a radio station,
(c) coverage of Am Mòd Nàiseanta Rìoghail,
(d) BBC Naidheachdan online,
(e) production of television and radio programmes, and
(f) tools for learning the Gaelic language, including SpeakGaelic.

(5) The British Broadcasting Corporation should strive to include Rèidio-Alba’s programming on the Corporation's online media, as with Sianal Pedwar Cymru.

(6) No members of staff of the two organisations being transferred into Rèidio-Alba shall be let go until three years after Royal Assent.

3 TBh Alba and Rèidio nan Gàidheal

(1) In this Act, “TBh Alba” and “Rèidio nan Gàidheal” refers to the television channel formerly known as BBC Alba and the radio station formerly known as BBC Radio nan Gàidheal respectively.

(2) TBh Alba and Rèidio nan Gàidheal shall spend no more than 20% of their on-air time on sports programming.

(a) This clause does not apply to other Rèidio-Alba radio stations and channels.

(3) Should TBh Alba provide subtitles, it is to provide the following options for them—

(a) No subtitles,
(b) Subtitles in the Gaelic language, and
(c) Subtitles in the English language.

(4) Paragraph (c) of subsection 3 of this section does not apply to current affairs programming, including news programming.

4 Funding

(1) Rèidio-Alba shall derive no less than 95% of its funding from the licence fee.

(2) The Scottish Ministers are to make payments to Rèidio-Alba for the remainder of its required funding.

(3) In this Act, “licence fee” has the same meaning as in The Communications (Television Licensing) Regulations 2004.

4 Funding

(1) The Secretary of State and the Scottish Ministers shall jointly secure that in 2023 and each subsequent year Rèidio-Alba is paid an amount which they believe to be sufficient to cover the cost to Rèidio-Alba of—
(a) providing Rèidio-Alba's public services, and
(b) arranging for the broadcasting or distribution of those services.
(2) The proportion of funding Rèidio-Alba receives from the Secretary of State and the Scottish Ministers shall be decided by agreement between the Bòrd of Rèidio-Alba, the Secretary of State, and the Scottish Ministers.
(3) Any sums required by the Secretary of State under this section shall be paid out of the Consolidated Fund, and any sums required by the Scottish Ministers under this section shall be paid out of the Scottish Consolidated Fund.

PART 2 CONSEQUENTIAL AMENDMENTS AND REPEALS

5 Amendments to the Broadcasting Act 1990

The Broadcasting Act 1990 (c. 42)

is amended as follows—

(1) In section 183, subsections 1 to 2 (inclusive), subsection 4B, and subsection 5 are repealed.

(2) Schedule 19 shall no longer have effect, and is repealed.

6 Amendments to the Broadcasting Act 1996

The Broadcasting Act 1996 (c. 55)

is amended as follows—

(1) In Section 32—

(a) After subsection 4, paragraph (b), insert—
“Rèidio-Alba,”
(b) In subsection 7, “Seirbheis nam Meadhanan Gàidhlig” is replaced with “Rèidio-Alba”.

(2) Section 95 is repealed.

PART 3 MISCELLANEOUS

7 Extent

(1) Part 1 extends to Scotland only, with the exception of section 2.

(2) Parts 2 and 3, as well as section 2 of part 1, extend to England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

8 Commencement

(1) This Act comes into effect immediately after Royal Assent and after the Scottish Parliament resolves that it should come into effect.

(2) The assets and functions of BBC Gàidhlig and Seirbheis nam Meadhanan Gàidhlig shall be transferred to Rèidio-Alba within 365 days of Royal Assent.

9 Short title

(1) This Act may be cited as the Gaelic Broadcasting Act 2023.

This bill was written by the Most Honourable /u/model-avtron, Marchioness Hebrides LT CT PC MP MSP MLA MS, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport and Tòiseach na h-Alba, on behalf of His Majesty’s 34th Government and Solidarity. It was co-sponsored by the 21st Scottish Government and the Scottish National Party.

Opening Speech

Speaker / My Lords,

I am proud to be able to introduce this bill; a King’s Speech commitment, even.

A Gàidhlig broadcasting is nothing but a massive success story. The first Gaelic broadcast on radio was all the way back in 1912, but it (and other facets of life in the Gàidhealtachd more generally) did not get the attention it deserved for a very long time. In the latter part of the 20th century, the start of the Ath-bheòthachad; the Gaelic Renaissance, this thankfully began to change. Broadcasters, chiefly the BBC, began to take a’ Ghàidhlig seriously. Dòtaman, which many young Gàidheals grew up on, a prime example. And we got a Gàidhlig radio station, Radio nan Gàidheal, too: a mainstay in increasingly rare Gàidhlig life.

The Broadcasting Acts of 1990 and 1996 provided for a Gàidhlig Broadcasting Fund and a service to administer it, MG Alba. That began the era of Gàidhlig broadcasting being a staple of Scottish television, but there was no ‘Gàidhlig channel’, merely Gàidhlig on mainly English channels like BBC One Scotland and BBC Two Scotland. Two shows of this time that are representative of this era (although continued beyond it) is global current affairs magazine-style programme Eòrpa (Europe), and Dè a-nis? (What Now?), which, being the Dòtaman of its time, many Gaelic-speaking Scots grew up on, including myself.

In 1999, we got our first Gàidhlig channel: TeleG. But it was in no way expansive, and only broadcast for an hour a day. But, finally, we got a proper and large channel for a’ Ghàidhlig: BBC Alba. Displacing TeleG, and broadcasting significantly more.

However BBC Alba and BBC Radio nan Gàidheal must not be the end of our great progress for craoladh na Gàidhlig (Gaelic broadcasting). With the utmost respect to the great people there, the British Broadcasting Corporation is a very large organisation, and is not directly accountable to the Pàrlamaid na h-Alba. This bill proposes the splitting of BBC Gàidhlig into a new organisation, Rèidio-Alba, which is both not too large, and accountable. It also integrates MG Alba into Rèidio-Alba, reducing unnecessary bureaucracy.

I commend this bill.

This reading will end at 10PM on the 7th of December.