BBC Local Radio

Giles Watling Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I have an interest to declare as I worked for the BBC for many years and am occasionally in receipt of very small cheques from said organisation.

I am an ardent supporter of the BBC and, probably uniquely in this place, have visited the studios of most BBC local radio stations. As I toured the country, I went to those wonderful places where local people reported on local news and, more importantly, told local people that I was coming to their town in a show very soon. It was important that they understood exactly why I was there, what I was doing and how important it was for the local community.

I believe that the BBC should not become entrenched inside the M25. We need the BBC to have local reporters in local towns—people who grew up there and understand the community. The BBC is the flagship of the UK’s news and media, and it is in charge of local reporting, importantly doing so with honesty, clarity and, above all, impartiality. It has a unique position and it directly affects and improves local people’s lives.

I thank the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) for securing this important debate. As has been mentioned, people become isolated, but with BBC local radio they feel connected. They feel they have a friend coming through the speaker, talking to them about issues around them, such as snowfall or the inability to cross the Severn.

Plans to cut the BBC locally have been fought with outrage in my part of the world. I have been contacted by many constituents who listen to reporters from different brands of local radio. Even a local respected Member cannot understand the current proposals and completely opposes them. The national BBC does a very fine job reporting as impartially as it can, but it does not hit home in the same way as my local BBC radio station, BBC Radio Essex, which people hear and understand. They say, “How would I know about the traffic queues on the A12 if it was not for local radio?” The A12 is frequently at a standstill and we all need to know about that. I make this appeal to the BBC: do not cut those services, find a way to keep it local. Centralisation is a cut, in a sense. There will be fewer reporters on the ground to cover local stories, especially as we have a problem with local newspapers at the moment. They are dying and their staff are being reduced. Local reporting is becoming increasingly important, and radio is the last bastion of honest, local news media.

[Mr Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an important point about the supply of the next generation of national journalists. They typically start their career in local journalism, whether that is the local newspaper or local radio station. As someone who has been on BBC Radio Essex, as my hon. Friend will know, whenever I have been on it has always been very local-centric. When I was a councillor, it was useful to go on that radio programme to talk about local issues, because I knew it would all be relevant to the listeners.

[Giles Watling]

I take my hon. Friend’s point absolutely. BBC local radio is a training ground for our national reporters, as in the old days repertory theatre was for the likes of me. The loss of local radio stations is a damaging decision from the BBC. We know that the BBC is operationally and editorially independent from Government, as we are so often reminded, but that does not mean that Government can just be quiet and allow that to happen. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments and hope that the BBC reconsiders its position.

--- Later in debate ---

[Giles Watling]

I appreciate the sentiment about independence, and the point about commercial pressures being removed by the licence fee being part of the BBC’s set-up. Most importantly, I would have thought that the BBC would be talking to older people, who may not be able to access digital things. Older people in my constituency—I include myself—would be pleased to know they would still have mainstream online BBC services.

[Julia Lopez]

It is necessary to ensure that the BBC is uniquely able to access audiences who may not be moving online in quite the same way as the majority of audiences. That is a key role for the BBC. The charter requires the BBC to provide distinct content that reflects and represents people and communities in all corners of the UK, and that extends to all socioeconomic groups and age groups. We believe that local content that is relevant to audiences is incredibly important in the BBC’s public service remit. Again, it is the public service remit by which we hold the BBC to account, and it is part of the discussions when it comes to deciding the licence fee and so.

The BBC has an “Across the UK” strategy that includes important content production commitments, such as a pledge to increase the BBC’s out-of-London spend for both radio and music to 50%. In May 2022 we embedded that target in our framework agreement, requiring 50% of expenditure on network radio and BBC Sounds programmes to be made out of London by the end of the charter period. I hope the communities that Members represent will start to see that benefit.

The charter requires the BBC to work collaboratively and partner with other organisations in the creative economy; we see that in things such as the local news partnerships, which have been raised by the DCMS Committee. The BBC supports Two Lochs Radio, Britain’s smallest commercial radio station, which produces public interest journalism in the Gairloch and Loch Ewe areas of Wester Ross in Scotland. That is the kind of unique thing the BBC can do with its spending power and reach, which is reflected in the kind of content produced in Members’ constituencies.

As of July, 180 media organisations were supported by the BBC as part of local news partnerships, and that collaboration is incredibly important. I have made it clear that I am disappointed that the BBC is planning to reduce that local radio output. I have also made clear my disappointment at the proposed changes to the output in Northern Ireland, including cuts to BBC Radio Foyle. As the hon. Member for East Londonderry will be aware, BBC Radio Ulster—including Foyle—reaches nearly a third of radio listeners in Northern Ireland, and it is an incredibly important part of that media landscape.

I met the BBC’s leadership at the end of last year and expressed everybody’s concerns, and that meeting has been built on; following the issue being raised in Prime Minister’s questions, the Prime Minister met the director-general and the chairman of the BBC. The Secretary of State has also written to the BBC to remind it of its responsibilities under the charter and to express our concern that we received notification of the changes only on the date they were made, rather than receiving any advance notice; that makes an urgent question rather difficult to respond to.

The DCMS Committee has been looking carefully at the BBC and its planned changes to local radio. I always appreciate the work of the Committee and its valuable contributions. I have asked the BBC for advice on how it will manage major local incidents that require a dedicated rolling news service, given its important responsibilities under the charter to support emergency broadcasting; the weather has been referenced in the debate, and providing that information is a valuable part of what the BBC does.

Beyond the BBC’s role in promoting locally produced radio reporting, there is its role in the wider local media ecosystem. Local commercial radio stations, such as Radio Clyde and Downtown Radio, reach 43% of adults every week, and most have licence obligations to provide local news in peak hours, which again provides trusted content. When I raised the issues about cuts to broadcasting with the BBC, I was told that it would protect the local news bulletins and the distinct content for each of the stations in question. I wrote to hon. Members who had spoken in the UQ to set out some of the BBC’s response to me; I hope they received those letters.

We want to ensure that everything we do supports community radio stations, and various provisions in the media Bill—which I know everybody is keen to see—will support the wider radio ecology. I hope to be able to provide further details on that Bill in due course. We are providing financial support for technical trials of small DAB broadcasting technology and to license small-scale DAB networks. I hope that that assures hon. Members that not only do we support the BBC in what it does in local radio, but we are looking at how we can have a thriving grassroots commercial and voluntary radio sector at the same time, so that the withdrawal of the BBC does not lead to a large gap in local content.

We all agree that the BBC is a national asset; its centenary year has allowed us to reflect on just how much it has contributed to lives on both a local and national level, and how much it is truly valued by our constituents; the reaction to these radio changes really underlines that point. We want the BBC to continue to succeed for the next century, and that requires it to change, but not at the cost of some of its fundamental public service broadcasting responsibilities. I reassure hon. Members that I have been consistently making that point to the BBC’s leadership, and I want to work with them to ensure that, as the BBC moves into new broadcasting challenges, it does not lose its very essence and the public support that underpins its funding model.

Question put and agreed to.