Alun Cairns
Main Page: Alun Cairns (Conservative - Vale of Glamorgan)Department Debates - View all Alun Cairns's debates with the Leader of the House
(13 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Hunt
I agree with the hon. Lady about the importance of the BBC spending money on high-quality programming. That is what the coalition Government believe is one of the primary roles of the BBC. I also agree with her that one thing that has made British broadcasting some of the highest-quality broadcasting in the world is that we have a mix of funding streams, including the licence fee, advertising-funded programming and subscription-funded programming. That is why we are happy with that structure and intend to continue with it.
Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)
In the context of reducing the licence fee, what consideration has the Secretary of State given to encouraging the BBC to sell off some of its assets, possibly including Radio 1 and some of its other services?
Mr Hunt
We have no plans to ask the BBC to sell off Radio 1. There may be possibilities in the case of some of the BBC’s commercial assets, such as BBC Worldwide, and we await any proposals that the BBC may have. However, we are committed to a publicly funded, publicly owned national broadcaster as a benchmark of quality in the broadcasting system. We believe we are one of the few countries in the world to have competition at the quality end of the broadcasting market as well as the popular end, and we want that to continue.