TV Licence Fee

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Monday 20th November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Christian Matheson]

The hon. Gentleman has an excellent and an excellent nose and an excellent face. I am a big fan of Radio 6 Music. I know that politicians are supposed to listen to the “Today” programme, but I do not; I listen to Shaun Keaveny on the breakfast show on Radio 6. The BBC’s flagship programme at the moment is “Blue Planet”. I want to address the point made by my hon. Friend the Chair of the Petitions Committee about the ability to invest in programmes such as “Blue Planet”. There was a remarkable scene a couple of episodes back that involved filming a huge shoal of millions of groupers that were about to spawn, with sharks circling to eat the groupers as they gathered. The film crew went down, but the groupers had not spawned; they went down the next day, and the groupers had spawned and left. So what did the BBC film crew do? They waited a year, and then they came back to a similar area the next year. That level of commitment, investment and astonishing quality would not be possible without the security and certainty that the licence fee gives.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

Thank you for allowing me to speak, Mrs Moon; I have been in a Delegated Legislation Committee as an Opposition Whip. My hon. Friend is talking about “Blue Planet”, of which I am an avid fan, as I am of Radio 5 Live. Does he agree with what my hon. Friend the Chair of the Committee said about expert regional developments in broadcasting? That is true not only at a UK level, with programmes such as “Doctor Who” and “Casualty”, but in relation to S4C, which is funded by the licence fee. It is a very specific Welsh-language service that includes the great soap opera “Pobol y Cwm” and allows us to deliver regional and country-wide services that benefit Welsh broadcasters and viewers.

[Christian Matheson]

Living as I do in the Welsh border area, I have seen “Pobol y Cwm” a couple of times, although I do not claim to understand it.

My hon. Friend brings me to my next point, about the ecology of the broadcasting system. The licence fee underpins not simply the BBC—and S4C, as my hon. Friend mentioned—but much of the ecology of the UK broadcasting and creative industries. It provides training and career development that is then used by other broadcasters. The BBC is particularly instrumental in developing our music sector. When I was much younger, I listened avidly to the late and long-lamented John Peel, who gave so much to the development of new musical acts throughout the UK.

Many music acts that depended on the BBC for their launch now contribute through the UK’s successful music sector, which is not only a greatly successful creative sector but a huge earner for us globally. That is down to the BBC. If anyone went to the UK music sector to talk about diminishing the BBC’s ability to support it, I suspect that there would be consternation. The BBC underpins a huge amount of the UK’s creative culture, particularly in terms of the risk-taking that my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North discussed, through the licence fee.

Let us be clear: there is a problem with collecting the licence fee, as my good friend the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun mentioned. However, that is not entirely down to the BBC. I remind hon. Members that Capita now has responsibility for collecting the licence fee. I challenge any hon. Member to find an area where Capita is doing well delivering any services for which it is responsible. My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North did not mention the importance of children’s and educational programmes, from “Trumpton” in my day to “In the Night Garden” in my children’s days.