Lord Wills
Main Page: Lord Wills (Labour - Life peer)
Lord Wills (Lab)
My Lords, I have been waiting a very long time to get in. I want to return the Minister to one of these devil details: the public service content fund. She addressed the question asked by my noble friend Lord Collins but she did not answer it. I therefore ask her again: will she give a guarantee that that will not be used to salami-slice the licence fee? That guarantee is particularly important in view of the grudging acceptance in the Statement of the licence fee and the fulsome praise she gave for that public service content fund. Does the Minister accept that the licence fee is the foundation for the excellence of the BBC as the world’s most outstanding national broadcaster?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I have now lost the thread of the noble Lord’s question.
Lord Wills
Will the Minister give a guarantee that that fund will not be increased in future to salami-slice the licence fee from the BBC?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
That is certainly not our plan. I have explained that it is a £20 million fund, that we are looking at what it can do and that we are consulting on it.