Culture, Media and Sport committee

Debate between John Whittingdale and Damian Green

Thursday 26th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Whittingdale]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the part he played in preparing the report, which was considerable. I agree with him about the importance of the creative industries, on which the Select Committee has concentrated. I do not entirely agree with his second point, because it is important that there should be a genuine debate and a public consultation. We recommended an independent review panel, and all that would be pre-empted if the political parties set out their conclusions in their manifestos, which are to be published in four or five weeks’ time.

[Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)]

As chair of the all- party BBC group, I congratulate my hon. Friend and his Committee, particularly on their ideas for preserving a universal funding mechanism at a time when the licence fee is becoming technologically more difficult to justify, because it is that universal funding mechanism that has provided the basis for all the good things about the BBC that he and his Committee rightly praised. If universal funding is preserved, as I hope it will be, has he considered the importance of the BBC working more in partnership in future, especially with local newspaper groups, in order to preserve other aspects of the media culture such as local news, which are more fragile than they used to be?

[Mr Whittingdale]

I very much agree with my right hon. Friend. We made it clear that we see a greater role for partnership arrangements between the BBC and private sector organisations, and I welcome the fact that the director-general has already indicated that that is a direction in which he wants to move. As I suggested earlier, I also agree with my right hon. Friend about the need to find ways of supporting local media, which are under tremendous pressure, and the BBC has a very important role to play in that.