Tesco selling at £15 - but that is very much the exception and the audio quality of the £15 DAB set is poor (and lots of DAB facilities are missing) that it supports the point that people with good FM sets will downgrade to poor DAB sets.

In a time of massive austerity it seems odd that the government is about to make the population spend £5 billion on a product that offers such debatable advantages.

First - the FM frequencies aren't to be sold, they are to be retained for 'local use' as community radio. So no golden egg for the Exchequer.

Second - every single DAB radio will be made in China and so we will be forcing the British public to contribute to a further increase in our negative trade balance with China, this time by another £5 billion.

If you ask (and no one ever has done so) would the public like DAB radio or an additional £5 billion spending on hospitals or schools then the answer would be interesting.

We are to be forced to spend significant money on a project that appears to have marginal advantages during a period when the average family is having severe strains put upon their budgets.

If we spent the money on UK infrastructure and UK services it would serve UK employment and the people of this country better. The alternative is keeping large numbers of Chinese in employment as all DAB radios will be made in China.