BBC Funding

Baroness Blackstone Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, this is not part of any political discussion, other than the politics of ensuring, in the short term, that people are assisted with the rising cost of living and, in the long term, ensuring that the BBC has a sustainable model to continue to produce the excellent output that it does, both at home and around the world. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State paid tribute to it in her Statement and we all continue to do so. It is because we want to see it thrive that we want to make sure that it has the best sustainable model for the long term.

[Baroness Blackstone (Ind Lab)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware of just how much the BBC licence fee payer gets for his or her relatively low outlay on the licence fee? Let me just list the services: 10 TV services; 10 national radio services; 40 local radio stations; BBC iPlayer; BBC education programmes; the World Service; the BBC website and much more. Why are the Government jeopardising the quality of these many, varied services by their mean-spirited decision to freeze the licence fee for two years, thereby leading to a real-terms cut in BBC revenue? The explanation given in the Statement and implied by what the Minister said earlier—that the Government want to put more money into hard-pressed households’ pockets—just does not make sense, given the trivial amount entailed per household. If that is really what the Government want to do, I am sure the Minister will agree that abandoning their increase in national insurance payments, which really would make a difference, would be a better approach.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I do not think a settlement of more than £23 billion can be called mean-spirited. The noble Baroness is right to point to the wide range of things that the BBC does, but it is right, as we decide what the cost to the licence fee payer should be, that we look at those services in the context of the changing landscape and the other ways that people are consuming their news content and their entertainment provision and make sure that the BBC continues to be funded in a way that maintains its excellence and is fair to the people who pay for it.