STV

Debate between Ian Murray and John Penrose

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[John Penrose]

I plan to deal with some of the remarks made by PACT later in my speech. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is right about part of its remarks, but we have to take into account not only its remarks in their totality, but all the other remarks and consultation submissions made in response to the Government’s request.

The Secretary of State believed it inappropriate to consider this matter in isolation, given the wider and more comprehensive review of public sector broadcasting and regulation that the Government are undertaking over the term of this Parliament. On that basis, he concluded that the proposal should not be taken forward. The Government appreciate that this decision will not be welcomed by everybody. Implementation of the proposal was not, however, in the interests of the Scottish economy as a whole, nor was it likely to promote competition or diversity of production in the long run.

The responses to the public consultation are published on my Department’s website, but I wish to highlight some of the specific points raised by the existing independent production sector. They perhaps deal with some of the interventions that have been made, and they highlight the concerns raised and give some background to the decision.

Many respondents were concerned about the displacement of commissions from the existing Scottish independent production companies to STV. PACT said:

“There is significant risk that the proposed change in the definition would potentially severely damage the Scottish production sector by displacing commissions from other Scottish producers”.

Its contribution expanded on this by saying that

“our main concern, though, is that STV will displace commissions not from London companies but from other, typically smaller Scottish independents, with the resulting damage to the Scottish production sector. The last five years have seen the growth of larger, typically London-based independent companies. However, with a few exceptions, Scotland remains characterised by small companies specialising in one or two genres. A 2008 report, for example, indicated that average turnover for an independent company in Scotland was just £1.33m per year.”

[Ian Murray]

On PACT’s point about the sector in Scotland being characterised by small production companies, the issue for Channel 4 in trying to commission more programmes from Scotland to try to get its percentages up—everyone in Scotland is keen that that should happen—is that there is not sufficient critical mass up there to produce something that Channel 4 could do on a returning basis to achieve that. The only organisations that could do that are the BBC, which cannot do it for licensing reasons, and STV Productions, which cannot do it because it does not have independent producer status, so there is a bit of circular argument on this issue.

[John Penrose]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s logic, but the burden of what PACT has said is that the danger of giving STV independent production status is that it would cannibalise existing Scottish independents and we would end up with a much smaller number of larger producers, with STV massively in the lead. That is a possible outcome, but clearly the Secretary of State, in balancing what he was asked to consider, did not view it as strongly as some of the alternative outcomes.