Petition Foreign language channel on Freeview. Government to get the BBC to liaise with other EU state broadcasters to share the best TV programmes.

With the switch to digital-only TV in the UK nearing completion, this is an ideal opportunity for the creation of a foreign-language-only TV channel on Freeview.

There are many great TV programmes from continental Europe, but they rarely make it to British terestrial TV because they're not in English, and won't automatically get high ratings.

I ask our government to task the BBC to liaise with the other EU state broadcasters to share more TV programmes. A new channel on Freeview could show just foreign TV programmes from the likes of France Televisions, ARD (Germany), RAI (Italy) or TVE (Spain) - with subtitles in English.

Benefits to the UK - more exposure to non-English language (and culture), more language learning in schools, youngsters more able to find work in rest of EU, not just English-speaking countries.