BBC

Debate between Helen Jones and Stephanie Peacock

Monday 15th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Helen Jones]

I agree. The reason for the BBC’s popularity is that we maintain the model of public service broadcasting. People who want to get rid of the licence fee ought to remember that a public service broadcaster is free of commercial and sponsorship influence in its news, and that it provides a far wider range of channels and radio stations than that provided by broadcasters that aim at niche markets. In fact, the BBC’s output has to cater for a whole range of tastes, including minority interests.

There is no doubt that the decision to end free TV licences for the over-75s, and to restrict them to people in receipt of pension credit, has damaged hugely the BBC’s reputation. The decision has been met with almost universal condemnation. In fact, only the Taxpayers Alliance, which seems to get a lot of its funding from people who do not pay British tax, is in favour of it. Nevertheless, the real villain of the piece is not the BBC, but the Government. In 2017 they fought an election on a manifesto that promised to maintain free TV licences for the duration of this Parliament, knowing full well that in 2015 they had entered into an agreement with the BBC that made it impossible.

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that people are rightly outraged by that decision? They voted for the Conservative party because it had that promise in its manifesto. More than 4,000 pensioners in Barnsley are due to lose their TV licences, and a huge number of people have got in touch with me about the issue.

[Helen Jones]

My hon. Friend is right. The BBC was very foolish to accept that agreement with the Government, who did what we have seen them do so often: devolve the blame for their cuts. We have seen that time and again, particularly in relation to older people. The Government say they want a good system of adult social care, but they have consistently cut the funding for councils to pay for it, especially in the poorest areas and in those with the longest legacy of industrial diseases and ill health.

Fireworks: Public Sales

Debate between Helen Jones and Stephanie Peacock

Monday 26th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend mentions our laws about fireworks. Although those laws are often enforced, cuts to local authority budgets have meant that the staffing levels necessary to enforce them have fallen by more than half in the past few years. Does she agree that that makes it a lot harder to regulate the use of fireworks?

[Helen Jones]

My hon. Friend is right, and she anticipates a point that I will make later.

The Fireworks Regulations 2004 introduced a lot of rules about the sale, possession and use of fireworks. They introduced a licensing system for those who sell fireworks all year round, limited the sale by other suppliers to dates around 5 November, new year, Chinese new year and Diwali, imposed a maximum decibel level of 120, and forbade the possession of adult fireworks—those in the F2 and F3 categories—in a public place by anyone under 18. F4 fireworks, which are the most explosive, can be possessed only by fireworks professionals.