Labour to raise pounds 1bn in sell-off of airwaves
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Your support makes all the difference.The Labour Government is to launch a pounds 1bn "privatisation" of the business airwaves, raising extra windfall revenue from companies who run minicab businesses, mobile phones and pagers.
The surprise measure fell into the lap of Margaret Beckett, President of the Board of Trade, who inherited it from Ian Lang, her Tory predecessor, who was said yesterday "not to have got round to it".
The Prime Minister's office said that the Wireless Telegraphy Radio Spectrum Bill would give the Government power to auction off licences of radio frequencies, for set periods, in particularly congested areas like cities.
At the moment, the licences are sold off at cost, raising only pounds 40m, and the auction process is expected to guarantee that the bidders do not take more of the frequencies than they need.
It is estimated that - where the new charge applies - the new legislation could add about 50p a week to the cost of each minicab, and, possibly, 10p a week to the cost of a mobile phone or pager.
A government source said that businesses which use the frequencies - excluding the broadcasters - contribute an estimated pounds 12bn to the economy and are thought to be expanding at the rate of about 700 jobs a week.
The actual detail of the legislation is still be decided, but the frequencies are to be auctioned off for fixed periods of time, which means that the measure falls short of full-scale privatisation.
Ministers will have no qualms about the action, because it raises much- needed money from a booming business sector which has been provided with a "cut-price licence to print money", as one Whitehall source put it.
The new Bill will be one of 26 to be included in the Queen's Speech legislative programme to be announced by the Monarch in the formal State Opening of Parliament this morning.
After a meeting between a group of Dunblane parents, Tony Blair, Cherie Booth, Jack Straw, the Home Secretary, and Donald Dewar, the Secretary of State for Scotland, at Number 10 yesterday, the Prime Minister's office said that Mr Blair had given them an assurance that all handguns would be banned and that he would override any resistance from the Lords.
t It was disclosed last night that the Commons Speaker, Betty Boothroyd, will make an early statement on the status of the two Sinn Fein MPs, who have said that they will go to Westminster, but will not take their oath of allegiance to the Queen; a requirement imposed by law on all serving MPs.
Without taking the oath, MPs are not allowed to speak or vote in the Chamber of the House - or draw their salary. But it had been suggested that they might be entitled to office space and other facilities.
Miss Boothroyd is expected to rule that elected Members have no entitlement to use the facilities of the Palace of Westminster until they have taken the oath of allegiance - thereby restricting the access of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness to the Commons precincts.
Dunblane pledge, page 6
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