Culture, Media and Sport committee

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Thursday 26th February 2015 Commons Chamber

Select Committee statement

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

I will briefly remind the House of what is still a fairly new procedure. Mr John Whittingdale will speak on his subject for up to 10 minutes, during which no interventions may be taken. At the conclusion of his statement, I will call Members to put questions, and Mr Whittingdale will respond to these in turn, as is the case for any normal statement. Members can expect to be called only once, and their interventions should be questions that are—

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Lengthy.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Brief. The hon. Gentleman challenges me, but questions should be brief. Front Benchers may briefly take part in questioning, and we all look forward to that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Whittingdale]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his extremely kind remarks. I have to say that I am blushing throughout most of this session.

The hon. Gentleman’s point goes to the heart of the debate. I think the argument about providing something for everyone becomes weaker, given the huge increase in choice available elsewhere through the market. When we now have such a large number of channels for specific genres, the BBC should at least say to itself, “Is there really any need for us still to be in this area when there is already so much provision?” That does not necessarily mean that it should retreat into a ghetto—some have expressed that fear—but that it should take account of the huge proliferation of choice and concentrate its resources on the areas that have been poorly served by the market.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

It is perhaps inevitable, on a subject such as this, that my initial exhortation to brevity has been completely and utterly ignored. I have allowed the statement to run over time because I recognised that the feeling of the House was that there were many subjects to be dealt with—and the Chairman of the Committee has dealt with them more than adequately.