BBC

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Tuesday 21st July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) on securing this urgent question, which goes to the heart of Members’ concerns about cuts to BBC funding, and the breaking of a promise to millions of pensioners and their families. This issue goes back to the charter and licence fee settlement that was made with the Conservative Government in 2015, when the Government made the BBC an offer it could not refuse: “Take on responsibility for paying the licence for the over-75s, or we will slash funding even further and consider removing the licence fee altogether.”

Since then, in this licence period alone, the BBC has lost £800 million in funding, even before bearing the cost of licences for the over -75s. Members may ask why the BBC accepted the settlement. Is it merely a coincidence that the then chair of the BBC Trust, Rona Fairhead, was later elevated to a peerage as the noble Baroness Fairhead, and took the Conservative Whip a short time later?

The Conservatives made a manifesto promise to maintain the licence for the over-75s. They broke it. Instead, they passed responsibility to the BBC, knowing that it would never be able to afford that responsibility. Since then, they have tried to blame the BBC at every turn, for every cut of every service, and for every redundancy. No doubt they will try to blame the BBC when bills start landing on pensioners’ doorsteps in August and September.

The Conservative Government themselves were party to this deal, so does the Minister not accept that the Government should own some of the blame? Can the Minister tell the House, as the hon. Lady asked, why the BBC should be responsible for implementing the Government’s social policy?

Cuts to the BBC, as everyone in this Chamber knows, are not merely about spending; they are about undermining the corporation’s independence. The Conservative Government are, at best, relaxed about reducing the BBC’s budget, because it is the only lever they have to control the BBC’s capacity to ask tough questions on behalf of the British people.

Ministers knew that making the BBC shoulder that responsibility in full would lead to cuts equivalent to the closures of BBC2, BBC4, the news channel, the Scotland channel, Radio 5 live and Sports Extra, and a number of local stations. Indeed, the cuts to BBC news reporting and all the redundancies in local and national news, at a time of national crisis, when the BBC is more valued and essential than ever, are a direct result of the Government’s failure to maintain their election promises.

The Minister will have seen evidence from Age UK, detailing how millions of pensioners have relied on their televisions for company, especially during the pandemic. What advice would he give to a pensioner who will face the heart-breaking choice in the coming months between turning off their TV for good, or forgoing other basics such as food or heating? That is the reality of the Government’s broken promise to 4 million pensioner households.

[Mr Whittingdale]

I remind the hon. Gentleman that at the time of the licence fee settlement in 2015, the Government were still having to put right the mess that they had inherited, due to the financial profligacy of the previous Labour Government. Everybody had to play a part in that, and the BBC was included. It was a tough negotiation. I call tell the hon. Gentleman— I was part of the negotiations—that Baroness Fairhead strongly argued the case for the BBC, and the outcome was satisfactory to the BBC and the Government, as was made clear by the BBC at that time. The manifesto commitment to maintaining the licence fee during the 2015 Parliament was maintained, which is why the exemption is only now being removed in 2020.

Any pensioner on a low income will continue to get a free TV licence if they are in receipt of pension credit. Age UK has rightly drawn attention to the fact that quite a number of pensioners do not receive pension credit, even though they are entitled to do so, and one of the consequences of this move, which the Government would welcome, might be an increase in the take-up of pension credit.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Warman]

My hon. Friend rightly pays tribute to an extraordinary industry. The only thing that I would say in addition is that he clearly deserves a cameo role in that next “Mission: Impossible” film.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

Follow that!

One of the best ways to support the voluntary sector is to listen to it when it calls for a policy change. For example, the petition of Age UK to keep over-75s’ TV licences free has now attracted more than 634,000 signatures, while 93% of the nearly 90,000 pensioners who responded to a survey by the charity said that television had become more important since the pandemic erupted. The BBC is cutting jobs and content to pay for the cost of the licence, which was dumped on it by the Government, and pensioners are forced to choose between eating and watching TV. Will the Government now listen to Age UK and reverse this unfair policy?

Draft Grants to the Churches Conservation Trust Order 2020

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Monday 16th March 2020 General Committees

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Graham, and to see my good friend the Minister on the Government Front Bench. He and I spent many a happy hour together in the Select Committee on Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, so I can confirm that he is well worthy of a position in Government. I pay tribute to him most generously for the promotion.

Churches play such an important role not only in our community, but, as the Minister stated, in marking our history and heritage. My church, St Werburgh’s, in Chester, is a fine example of an Edmund Kirby design. We also know that churches are under pressure, because they are historic, to maintain the original structures and design as well as their structural integrity. Our beloved Bishop Rose Hudson-Wilkin, late of this parish, made her name when she held a rooftop protest at her church in east London to highlight the dilapidated state of its roof. The churches I have referred to are in use, but I understand—I am sure the Minister will confirm this—that the order is for churches that have fallen out of use yet still have a role to play in the community.

The Minister mentioned a list of churches. Sadly, he did not mention St Paul’s church in Boughton, in Chester. When a similar Committee meets in a future Session of Parliament, I hope he will be able to list it as one of the churches that has received support. I call on the Committee to picture the scene: it sits high on the bluff above the bend in the River Dee on Barrel Well Hill, looking out over the meadows of Chester. It is a fantastic view and it is a fantastic church, but it is not occupiable at the moment because it is not safe. We have been trying to win some money to make the roof and structure safe so that we can use the church, and that example from my constituency demonstrates just how important the trust is. I join the Minister in thanking CCT for its work, although I am concerned that perhaps it is not funded by as much as it might be, which means that only a few churches a year can benefit. Perhaps the Minister might consider that.

The Churches Conservation Trust carries out crucial work to protect and regenerate beautiful historic churches across the UK, and it is important that we protect and support the heritage and architecture of such churches. For this reason, we will support the statutory instrument. I recognise that historic churches have a role to play at the heart of communities. In my constituency of Chester, there are 200 churches and many of them play a big role in bringing communities together.

Although the trust protects churches that are no longer viable for worship or congregation, these churches still carry a very high historical and heritage value. Indeed, a church is not simply a space designed for religion but a focal point for community and tourism activities. In Chester, the parish church of St John the Baptist is in an historic part of the city. The vicar there will always describe it as the first and original cathedral of Chester—although the clergy and chapter at the current cathedral might disagree—and it attracts visitors from across the country and the world.

Heritage sites are not only intrinsically valuable to a community; they carry economic value as well, contributing to economic growth, regeneration, education and tourism in an area. But there is no denying that funding for heritage projects is chronically lacking, leaving some historic churches, such as St John the Baptist, without adequate funding, and others, such as St Paul’s, empty and sadly a wasted space.

Generally, historic cities such as Chester and York—I see my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter in his place, so I will include Exeter in that list—struggle to protect these valuable historic sites because of the deep central Government cuts to local authorities. Local authorities are being forced to choose between providing basic services for vulnerable people and ensuring that ancient sites remain open and protected for future generations, so although this funding for the conservation trust is welcome, it is time that the Government recognised the urgent need for similar funding for grade I listed ancient sites across the UK, which are gradually suffering because of a lack of investment. Indeed, my own local authority, Cheshire West and Chester Council, has had more than £330 million removed from our budget since 2010, forcing it to prioritise funding for those most in need as opposed to maintaining historic sites in our city.

We will support the SI in the spirit of celebrating and funding heritage. However, may I ask the Minister to clarify two points? First, how is funding through the Churches Conservation Trust disbursed and what is the mechanism for overseeing that disbursement to ensure that it goes to the most deserving cases? Secondly, may I make the case for the Government to reassess their strategy to protect heritage more broadly and to allow local authorities to bid for funding for specific ancient heritage sites, including old former churches that are in desperate need of protection?

Football Association and Bet365

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Adams]

My right hon. Friend has a long history of campaigning on this issue, and he is absolutely correct. On his first point, the Gambling Commission is looking into the matter. As for the financial assistance the Government give the Football Association, I understand the Football Foundation receives about £18 million, and my right hon. Friend will be aware of our manifesto commitment to £500 million for grassroots football. I assure him that that will be on my agenda when I meet the FA next week.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

The betting companies know there is a problem already, because they have undertaken not to advertise during live football matches, but of course that has not yet been implemented. Does the Minister share my concern that if this development is not nipped in the bud we might reach a position where people can watch sport only if they have placed a bet?

[Nigel Adams]

I am confident that that will not happen. The hon. Gentleman is correct about the commitment to the ban on in-game advertising, and it is important that we look at the data on that. It has only just kicked in, but we should welcome the fact that the industry has stepped up and introduced that measure. I assure him that we will monitor it extremely carefully.

BBC

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Monday 15th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wilson, and to take part in the debate opened by my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones), who gave an outstanding introduction, as usual. She talked about the “not me, guv” Government, and she is right, because their consistent modus operandi with public services is to slash a public authority’s funding and blame it when it is unable to deliver the service. Alternatively, when the public authority has to put up its prices to compensate for the lack of money from central Government, they will attack it politically for doing so. We have seen that happen with failures of local government services, such as the fire service and the police. The epidemic horror of knife crime is apparently nothing to do with the 20,000 fewer police officers, or the cuts to children’s services. Apparently it is all the fault of the Mayor of London. A similar thing can be seen in the debate about the BBC licence fee. The BBC was presented with huge cuts to its budget and was forced to take the blame when it had to charge the licence fee to over-75s. It is part of a consistent practice by the Government that needs to be exposed and resisted.

[Dame Cheryl Gillan in the Chair]

The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) talked about some of the services that would be affected were the BBC to have to take on the whole amount. In total that could be £700 million a year. That would be the cost of BBC 2, BBC 4, BBC News, BBC Scotland and BBC Radio 5 Live and, crucially, local radio stations. Given the crisis in local newspapers, the BBC is in some areas often the only real provider of the quality local news that binds communities together. It can do that because of the licence fee.

There is what is known as an ecosystem in broadcaster funding. Each broadcaster in the UK is funded differently. ITV is funded largely through advertising, with some production work. Sky has a subscription and some production work and advertising. It all knits together particularly well. I must say that, if we move away from the current model to one where the BBC or parts of it had to either use subscription or enter into advertising, I am pretty sure not only that existing channels would be unhappy but that it would damage their operations. That is not to mention the question how we take on the influence of the global giants based on the west coast of the United States.

I, too, have a problem with the size of some of the salaries paid to BBC presenters. I have a particular problem with the use of the word “talent” to describe on-air performers and presenters, whether on radio or TV, because it suggests that the whole attraction of a particular broadcast is based on the individual who presents it. Make-up artists, production designers and junior producers are all talented, and the quality of the programming is vested in all of them and not simply in the person who is in front of the microphone or the camera.

Why on earth did the BBC accept this cut to its budget and the enforced taking on of the licence for over-75s? The simple truth, as other hon. Members have already mentioned, is that it was forced to do so. If we speak to senior BBC management, we hear that they were left in no doubt that this was being forced on them. My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Paul Farrelly), who was on the Select Committee on Digital, Culture, Media and Sport with me, called it a “drive-by shooting”. A Treasury Minister—I think this was while George Osborne was Chancellor—told the BBC, “This is the way it’s going to be, so make the best of it.” When BBC management said that they were quite happy with the solution, that was not the case—but what else could they say when they had a gun to their head?

There is also another, more sinister reason. I was on the DCMS Committee when Rona Fairhead, the then chair of the BBC Trust, attended a pre-appointment scrutiny session for the position of chair of the new BBC board. Before she appeared before us, we were informed that after her meeting at Downing Street with the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, she had a private meeting with him without any civil servants present. That was put to her, and she admitted that it was the case. As it happened, the Committee declined to confirm her appointment, but the situation does give rise to the question why the BBC governors at the time did not resist the idea of the over-75s licence fee being deposited on them. Coincidentally, Rona Fairhead was shortly afterwards appointed to the House of Lords and made a member of the Government. I am not suggesting that those two incidents are linked—

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

But of course you should be.

[Christian Matheson]

My hon. Friend suggests that I should be. It does not give off a particularly pleasant smell to have a part of the Government giving out favours to get a policy through. It stinks, and it ought not to be allowed. Even the perception that a deal was done—because that is one of the possible perceptions—ought not to be allowed.

The BBC licence fee, as we have heard, represents so much more than simply a broadcasting service for older people in particular. I simply ask: if we do not provide the service and social isolation continues, what is the cost then of having to look after more people with more advanced dementia? What is the cost of having to provide social services elsewhere for older people whose quality of life is deteriorating? There are hidden costs involved, and we find once again that the BBC licence fee gives huge value for money in a much broader context than that of simply listening to the radio or watching television.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

Yes. My right hon. Friend will be aware of the Law Commission’s work in this area, and we are looking at the issue carefully. May I take this opportunity to pay tribute to her, as she has played a significant part in the development of the law in this area? Whether on upskirting or revenge pornography, she and other Members have done a great deal to put the law in a better place.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

Bearing in mind the dwindling pipeline of musical talent coming through from state schools, does the Minister agree with the chair of UK Music that music education should be seen as an intrinsic good, just as sporting education is?

[Margot James]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that the Government take music and other creative arts education very seriously. The Minister for School Standards has introduced a hub scheme across the country, with substantial funding to enable state school pupils to access music, as they deserve.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Thursday 31st January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Margot James]

I congratulate the university in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency on its great work. The Government have invested £50 million in AI fellowships and £100 million in 1,000 new PhD places, of which I hope his local institution will be able to take advantage.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

12. What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Education on the provision of music education in schools.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Michael Ellis)]

Giving young people opportunities to participate in art, drama and music at school can be transformative for their self-confidence, mental health and life chances, which is why the Government are investing £500 million in cultural education between 2016 and 2020.

[Christian Matheson]

Fifty per cent. of children in independent schools receive sustained music tuition, but the proportion is only 15% in state schools. Does the Minister agree with UK Music that there is a growing crisis in music education in the state sector that will pose a threat to the talent pipeline?

[Michael Ellis]

It is important to have music in schools—I absolutely recognise that—and I am working closely with colleagues at the Department for Education. I have meetings with the Minister for School Standards and am pleased to be hosting a roundtable with him next week on the provision of music in schools.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney General]

The Crown Prosecution Service this year recovered between £80 million and £100 million of illicit assets. Organised crime and the illicit financing of terrorism is one of the Government’s priorities. It is being co-ordinated by the National Crime Agency. It is being met with a range of new tools, including unexplained wealth orders, which we will be using as hard and as impactfully as we can in future months.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

8. What plans he has to undertake a review of the effectiveness of prosecutions under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

[The Solicitor General (Robert Buckland)]

Dealing with illicit finance through the prosecution of money laundering offences is a priority for the Crown Prosecution Service and the Serious Fraud Office. Prosecutors have not identified any specific concerns regarding the effectiveness of prosecutions under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. We continue to use the Act, as it has evolved, to good effect.

[Christian Matheson]

I have a constituent who has been convicted, I believe wrongly, for fraud. Despite the prosecution accepting that he made no financial gain whatever from the allegations, the SFO went after him and his wife, who is entirely unconnected. Does the Solicitor General think that is fair and what possible avenues for redress do I have for my constituents?

[The Solicitor General]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising the case. It would be invidious of me to comment on a particular case. I will simply say that there are different mechanisms within the Act that allow the pursuance of criminal proceeds. It might well be that in that case another mechanism is being used, but I will be happy to look at it further and write to him.



Royal Assent

Blagging: Leveson Inquiry

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Wednesday 7th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

It is very hard to add anything more to the fact that there will be an investigation if the police deem the allegations of what appears to be criminal behaviour to be criminal behaviour. The point is that that is a matter for the police in this country, not for Ministers.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State talks about these being historical events, but of course the victims of the latest hack found out about it only yesterday, and may not even know about it at the moment, so that is not very historical. Sir Brian Leveson wrote a letter to the Secretary of State saying that matters had not yet been fully considered and that we needed the second part of the inquiry. Why does he think he knows better than Sir Brian Leveson?

[Matt Hancock]

I have of course considered all the relevant evidence, including the representations from Sir Brian, and my judgment is that we need to concentrate on making sure we have sustainable, high-quality journalism in the future. The hon. Gentleman says that these matters are current, not historical, but the activities alleged in newspapers and by the BBC this morning are ones that they say ended in 2010, which means they are indeed historical.

TV Licence Fee

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Monday 20th November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

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]

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]

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.

[Helen Jones]

It was “Bill and Ben” in my day.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christian Matheson]

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.