Public Service Broadcasting (North-East)

Lord Vaizey of Didcot Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2011 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Gray, for what I think is the first time. I congratulate the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) on securing this important debate on public service broadcasting in the north-east. I think that I have said this before, but I will say it again: she is a doughty champion for her constituents and for her region. She certainly does not need to convince me that Newcastle and the rest of the north-east are great places to live and work. I spent my summer holiday last year in Newcastle. This year, I did not have a summer holiday, but last year, when I did, it was in Newcastle. I also spent new year in Newcastle. I am a regular visitor to the Sage in Gateshead. The transformation of Newcastle and Gateshead in using culture to create almost from scratch a vibrant £1 billion a year tourism and inward investment industry is a great beacon to the rest of the UK. It is no surprise that on 5 December the Turner prize ceremony—I think that it will be televised—will be held at the BALTIC centre for contemporary art in Gateshead. Obviously, I do not have the extensive knowledge of the area that the hon. Lady and her hon. Friends have, but she certainly does not need to convince me of its merits.

We watched the same programmes when we were growing up. I fondly remember watching with my late father “When The Boat Comes In”, with James Bolam. It was the Vaizey family’s favourite programme. I am delighted to see that James Bolam’s career has gone from strength to strength. I now watch him regularly in “Grandpa In My Pocket” with my five-year-old and three-year-old. Of course, “The Tube” also did so much to forge our cultural identity.

The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central invites me to endorse the purposes of public service broadcasting, as set out by Ofcom. Given the tone in which she did so, I could not help but feel that she was somehow setting a trap for me, but I can see no reason not to endorse the purposes of public service broadcasting. Perhaps she invites me to—

[Chi Onwurah]

rose—

[Mr Vaizey]

I thought the hon. Lady might intervene at this point. In that case, dot, dot, dot.

[Chi Onwurah]

I simply want to assure the Minister that no trap was intended when I invited him to endorse the important principles behind the purposes and characteristics of public service broadcasting. They are incredibly important at a time when the BBC’s actions would seem to undermine them.

[Mr Vaizey]

As the hon. Lady rightly pointed out in her speech, it is not just the BBC that is a public service broadcaster, but ITV, Channel 4 and Channel Five. If she will allow me to go slightly off-piste, it is important to say that the Government have a communications review under way, and we hope to publish a Green Paper early next year. In it, we will discuss the future of public service broadcasting, but it is certainly our intention, in principle, to maintain the public service broadcasting principles. It is interesting—I say no more that, and I hope Members will not read anything more into my words—to have a debate about the future of public service broadcasting in a digital age, when we have multiple digital channels and the internet. Our initial thinking is certainly that public service broadcasting remains an extraordinarily important cornerstone of UK content throughout the country, and we intend to reinforce the purposes of public service broadcasting in the Green Paper.

Most of the hon. Lady’s remarks focused on the BBC and the cuts it is making as a result of the licence fee settlement. Obviously, I will put the positive case for what the BBC is doing. In the recent debate on local radio, which was well attended, with more than 50 colleagues present, I was intrigued to find myself being assailed by Labour Members for being a defender of the BBC, which is perhaps an unusual position for a Conservative Minister to be in. However, I will bow to no one in my defence of the BBC; it is the cornerstone of public service broadcasting in this country, and we are lucky to have it. It does a superb job. In fact, its commercial rivals—I am talking about not only Sky, but ITV, Channel 4, Channel Five and, indeed, some of the newspapers—express concerns to the effect that the BBC does its job almost too well, making it harder for them to make a living.

The BBC therefore does a fantastic job, but everyone is having to make savings, and when families up and down the country are trying to manage their budgets, this is not the right time substantially to increase the BBC licence fee. What the BBC does have, which no other media company in this country really has—indeed, very few media companies around the world have this—is certainty over its funding until March 2017. That is an important asset for the BBC, and it means that it can plan ahead. Let us not forget that the BBC also receives additional income because of the success of BBC Worldwide.

The BBC is therefore well funded, but it is having to make savings. As we know from the debate about local radio, which focused on the proposals in “Delivering Quality First”, the BBC is looking to make savings of about 10% in local radio, if we take into account the cuts and the fact that the BBC wants to put more money back into programming. In that debate, I defended the BBC’s approach in “Delivering Quality First”, because I felt—and I still feel—that it has taken a strategic approach, and some of the changes that it proposes for local radio are based more on quality than cost cutting.

I must tell the hon. Lady and her colleagues, however, that that debate had a significant impact. I am not privy to the BBC’s thinking or to any changes that it might be thinking of making, but I assure them that I think the BBC has listened to the concerns that were raised. I do not know what changes, if any, it plans to make, but it is certainly legitimate for hon. Members to raise such concerns, and I am pleased that the hon. Lady attended the meeting with Mark Thompson and Lord Patten, when they came to the House to discuss these issues.

On the specific changes in the north-east, my understanding is that there are no plans to stop providing an “Inside Out” edition for the north-east. There will be savings in that programme strand, because this is a regional programme that goes out across the country in different regional variations. That means that there will be a smaller team, and more items in specific programmes might be shared.

On local radio, my understanding is that Newcastle and Tees will have to share a programme on weekday afternoons. The hon. Lady also mentioned the weather report, and I agree that it is an important part of public service broadcasting. There will still be a specific evening weather report, but it is true that the BBC is planning to pre-record the weather report for the early-morning and lunchtime broadcasts on local radio and regional television.

The BBC has had to make some tough decisions, but it has done so in a way that shows that it wants to provide the best possible service for every region in the country. I think the BBC takes its regional responsibilities very seriously, and I certainly know from my conversations with the director-general over the years that he absolutely feels in his bones the need for the BBC to be a service for every licence payer, wherever they live in the United Kingdom, and he would be wary of any proposals that undermined that.

The hon. Lady mentioned the Government’s proposals for local television, and she raises a good point. She mentioned concerns that local television might not be up and running until after 2015. We hope to have the first 20 stations launched in 2012, but if I am wrong about that, I will write to her to correct myself. I also understand—again, if I am wrong, I will write to her to correct myself—that Newcastle and Middlesbrough are among the locations that were consulted over the summer about the local TV framework and potential locations. An announcement will be made just before Christmas on where Ofcom intends to advertise local television licences.

Local television is potentially a revolution in public service broadcasting. It is there to complement the existing public service broadcasting framework, not to replace it. It is there to fill the gap that the Secretary of State felt very keenly, and which he worked on in opposition. Funnily enough, too many regional programmes, which many hon. Members have rightly defended in recent months, are still not local enough, and the Government think audiences would welcome ultra-local television.

On the other investment going into the north-east, the BBC has an impact fund, which is designed specifically to fund programmes in the regions, and it has funded 13 programmes in the north-east over the past two years.

The hon. Lady mentioned changes in the regional development agencies and in Northern Film and Media. I am delighted that Creative England has now been launched under the exemplary leadership of Caroline Norbury, and it has now received £5 million from the regional growth fund. It will maintain a presence in all the regions, and it will work with Northern Film and Media to ensure that investment opportunities exist for local independent production companies, video games companies and all the other high-tech companies that are so successful in the north-east.

One issue we have not covered, and which I often mention—this was an achievement of the previous Government, and I am happy to credit them with it—is the explosion in community radio, which was brought about by the Communications Act 2003. There are now more than 200 local community radio stations across the country, and I am sure many are also thriving in the north-east.

We still have regional quotas for all the public service broadcasters. When I talk to independent production companies in the north-east, they are keen to impress on me the importance of those quotas in ensuring that programmes are commissioned around the country.

The hon. Member for Darlington (Mrs Chapman) is now yawning, and the clock is flashing, showing that the debate is about to end. Those are strong signals that I have made the points I need to make and that it is time for me to sit down and conclude the debate.