Broadcasting

Debate between John Whittingdale and Lord Watson of Wyre Forest

Tuesday 18th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Whittingdale]

I understand that, and there are particular regions—and indeed nations—that feel underserved and hard-done-by. In my view, the BBC made a good move in transferring a lot of its production and facilities to Salford—I was in favour of the establishment of the Media City in Salford—but that was not sufficient for the BBC to then sit back and say, “Right, we’ve done our bit for the English regions; we don’t have to worry any longer.” The west midlands has felt underserved, as has been debated in this House, and I have no doubt that the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson), speaking for the Scottish National party, will talk about the provision of the service, and indeed employment and production, in Scotland. This is a live issue, and I believe the BBC needs to do more.

I want to touch briefly on two particular policy developments that I promoted and remain keen on. The first is the public service content fund. The hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson) talked about the underspend on the provision for broadband and what will happen to it. I hope it will go to establish the public service content fund, which will provide programming in areas that are currently underserved, of which children’s television is certainly an example. It will be administered outside the BBC.

[Mr Watson]

Does the right hon. Gentleman not think that there may be a chance with that development of an onerous bureaucracy being created that may cost the licence payer more, and may mean that the expertise in commissioning content is diminished?

[Mr Whittingdale]

I very much hope that there will not be additional bureaucracy. The precise way of administering it will need to be worked out. There is a valuable consequence of this: this is a very small pot of money, but it will mean that there is an alternative route—other than the BBC—for the obtaining of funding from the public purse for public service content. At present, the BBC has a monopoly in commissioning content with public money. That is in large part necessary, but it is worth exploring this alternative route.

[Mr Watson]

My memory is not great and I have only been reading into the brief for 10 days, but I think that the figure is about £60 million. Does the right hon. Gentleman envisage that being an ongoing demand on the BBC, or will it be a one-off pot as a result of the underspend?

[Mr Whittingdale]

Where the money is coming from has been identified: it is coming from the underspend, as the hon. Gentleman flagged up in his remarks, and that is obviously over a set period; it is not ongoing. We will judge the success of it. It will be to some extent for the BBC to decide whether it is a success, and also for the Government to decide, but I am content that, certainly for the next three years, it is in place.

The other innovation I am very committed to, and to which the director-general has given a lot of support, is the provision for the BBC to support local media through the establishment of local news reporting and the buying-in of content. The purpose of that is first to address an extremely serious issue: the decline of local media and the consequences of that for local accountability and democracy. This alone is not going to solve that as it is a very big issue, but it is a recognition that the BBC has taken content from local newspapers often without even attributing it to the local paper, let alone giving any money for it. This will ensure that local newspapers continue to cover local institutions—local councils, courts proceedings and so forth, which are extremely important for the functioning of local democracy. It seems to me a legitimate use of the licence fee to do this and I welcome the support the BBC has given to the move. It is important that the BBC should not directly employ these people: if it turned out that a local newspaper could reduce their employment even more because the BBC would pick up and employ those people, it would further harm local media rather than helping. The important thing is that, through a tendering process, the BBC establishes a relationship in each area with a local media organisation—it does not need to be a newspaper; it could be a radio or television station—and supports it in ensuring that there is proper coverage of local political issues. That is new, and I hope it will help to sustain local media and local democracy in this country.

Finally, I want to touch on the future of the licence fee. I think I have been quoted in the past as saying that the licence fee was worse than the poll tax. When I said that, it was simply an observation that the licence fee is a flat-rate charge payable by every household and, unlike the community charge, no help is available even for those on very low incomes. It was simply an observation of that. The licence fee has many flaws—it is regressive, it is hard to collect, and there is the iPlayer loophole enabling people to evade it, which we are now closing—but I think the Government are right that for this charter period the licence fee should continue. The speed of change in the way that people receive television is very fast and there may well come a moment when the technology has advanced so that the old argument that everybody consumes the BBC in one form or another is no longer true. Also, if television is distributed via the internet, which is coming and I believe will eventually be the universal method of distribution, that will be the moment when it is possible to experiment with things like conditional access subscriptions. I therefore welcome the fact that the BBC has agreed to put a small toe into the water and use the iPlayer perhaps to supply some additional content on a voluntary subscription basis. That is a small step, but it will shed light on our potentially one day moving towards a voluntary system of subscription to the BBC. The technology does not permit that now, and I do not think it is appropriate now, but I welcome the fact that the BBC has agreed to make that first small step.

I conclude by saying once again that I believe the draft agreement and charter represent a sound foundation for the future of the BBC. I would like to take some small credit, despite all those who told me I was hell-bent on destruction. That was not the case, and I hope this proves it.