Once Carter goes, whither Digital Britain?

Posted by Julia Glotz Friday, June 19th, 2009

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Digital Britain: 245 pages of “outcomes, proposals, roadmaps and recommendations” on the UK’s digital future. On top of that, there’s the promise of a dozen further consultations and new non-governmental bodies.

Despite all this bureaucracy, communications minister Stephen Carter’s report has mapped out a clear vision of Britain’s digital future.

It ventures into new ground with its precedent-setting proposal to “top slice” the licence fee. The BBC is understandably worried about how it might get sliced in the future (particularly under a Tory government).

The surprise element in Tuesday’s announcement was the 50p-per-month levy on telephone users to help pay for next-generation broadband. A clever idea, but we will still get a two-tier service, where a third of the country will have a “universal” service of as little as 2Mbps.

That might be OK today - although barely enough to run the iPlayer and the Pirate Bay at the same time - but it will be a country road alongside the superhighway of 40Mbps and more available to the more fortunate.

A bigger levy might not be viable, but Carter could have come up with other solutions. Maybe that top slice could be better spent on next-generation networks than on propping up the dated institution of regional television news.

This was never Labour’s Digital Britain but Stephen Carter’s and the close link between the man and his work has been both a blessing and a curse.

For many, Carter’s understanding of the subject matter - from his experience at the troubled helm of cable operator NTL and in the calmer waters of Ofcom - and his palpable enthusiasm for his work made the Digital Britain project credible. Even those who criticized his report for lacking tangible results acknowledge that he has done a good job in framing the debate about Britain’s digital future.

But with Lord Carter’s departure from government imminent, the uncomfortable question is about who will now drive the Digital Britain agenda. With the end of the peer, what will be left of the show?

Ben Bradshaw, the newly appointed culture secretary, has a difficult act to follow simply because he is not Stephen Carter.

In fact, the key figure now may not be Bradshaw but a future Conservative culture commissar. This week, the Tories were out to get Carter, with shadow secretary of state Jeremy Hunt describing Digital Britain as “digital dithering”. The Lib Dems, who might hold the balance of power after the election, said it was a “complete damp squib”.

Already, skepticism and even apathy are accompanying discussion of the report. In these dog days of Labour, the common attitude is: “Well, we’ll see what’s left of this when the Tories come in”.