LOCAL RADIO LICENCES

That this House notes that the BBC Trust has encouraged the BBC management to re-think its restructuring plans for local radio; congratulates Lord Patten for his courage in opposing the changes; urges Ofcom to review local commercial radio given that the Guardian Media Group has recently made redundant many high quality news staff; further notes many of the so-called local radio stations are now in fact local transmitters for national radio shows, something that the now defunct Radio Authority would not have allowed; and calls on the Government to ensure that public sector and commercial private sector broadcasters keep the making of their programmes local as promised in their licence applications.