Monday 20th November 2017

(6 years, 4 months ago)

Westminster Hall
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Christian Matheson Portrait Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
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It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mrs Moon. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones), the Chair of the Petitions Committee, on introducing the debate. Her speech was comprehensive and extremely well delivered.

I rise to support the BBC and the licence fee, which are often seen as interchangeable by their opponents. The licence fee is often used as a proxy to attack the BBC. The BBC is under attack, whether by the SNP, which is still smarting from the result of the Scottish independence referendum and looking for someone to blame; by activists on the far left, including their deplorable condemnation of Laura Kuenssberg, putting out fake news that she would speak at an event at the Tory party conference; or by those on the right of the political spectrum who say that the BBC is full of lefties—if only it was.

The BBC has to be defended. The hon. Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson), who is not in his place, talked about the licence fee being the least worst option. In a similar, semi-humorous way, I might suggest that if the BBC is being attacked politically from all sides, perhaps it is getting something right.

I have to say to my good friend, the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown), that he is missing out. He cannot watch everything, because the volume of output from the BBC, across all its channels and radio stations, is so great. There must be something on that he could enjoy and take something from. He is a good friend of mine, but he is cutting off his nose to spite his face. By not watching the BBC, he is missing out. He puts me in mind of the families who cut themselves off from the electricity grid in the 1970s and ’80s, because they did not want electricity generated by nuclear power. They would sit around a candle. I say to him, “Come back. Give the BBC a chance,” because there is some really good stuff on there.

Alan Brown Portrait Alan Brown
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When I last checked, I still had my nose, so I have not cut my nose off to spite my face. It is good of the hon. Gentleman to do the BBC’s bidding and implore me to come back, but I made a conscious choice and truthfully, I do not miss watching live TV. It is interesting that he says there is so much choice, but I do not miss that.

Christian Matheson Portrait Christian Matheson
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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 Portrait Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
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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 Portrait Christian Matheson
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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.

Helen Jones Portrait Helen Jones
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It was “Bill and Ben” in my day.

--- Later in debate ---
Christian Matheson Portrait Christian Matheson
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It was “Bill and Ben” in my day as well. I reflect as we have these conversations that we all have our favourites, as the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) observed. We are all laughing and remembering the effect that those programmes had on us in earlier days. That is the importance of the BBC, not just to individuals but to the national life: it brings the country together. If I were a marketing man, I would charge the BBC with using the phrase “Bringing Britain Closer”. It plays a role in bringing us together through the common basis of the licence fee.

In closing, there is a debate about individualism versus collectivism and whether it is right that everyone should pay for a service, and at the same rate; my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North said that it was regressive, and she is right. The benefits that we get from having a collective service and the contribution that it makes to our education, learning, entertainment and economic, cultural and social national life are great, and I do not think that they are measurable. It would be a crying shame and extremely damaging if we were to move away from the licence fee.