Huw Merriman
Main Page: Huw Merriman (Conservative - Bexhill and Battle)
Mr Whittingdale
Having visited Torbay as part of the tourism inquiry that the Select Committee conducted in the previous Parliament, I am delighted that although “Fawlty Towers” may have been based on a hotel at one time, Torbay hotels today bear no resemblance to Fawlty Towers. The series is an example of creative comedy, which the BBC excels at. It is important that the BBC should continue to make productions all across the United Kingdom. In Cornwall “Poldark” has been extremely successful, and I hope that the south-west will continue to benefit from BBC investment in production, which, as we said earlier, drives growth and creates a large number of jobs.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
I welcome the White Paper and congratulate the Secretary of State. It is very much what I had in mind when I filled in the consultation exercise. May we have a little more detail about the health check? As stated on page 58, matters that can be changed are
“Future funding issues, including an assessment of the BBC’s commercial income and activities”.
What cannot be changed is
“the fundamental mission, purposes, and licence fee model”.
Will there be an opportunity for Parliament to scrutinise further the exact language? I believe that the devil will be in the detail, and the clause will have great importance in the unlikely event that a Government are elected in 2020 who are not as supportive of the BBC as this Government—they have clearly demonstrated that support today.
Mr Whittingdale
We have sought to reassure the BBC that there is no intention of reopening some of the fundamental decisions that have been taken for the next charter. It is a health check, as I said earlier—an opportunity to ensure that the reforms that we are putting in place are working as we intended and that the BBC is taking account of any changes that have happened over the period. As I have said, this is an area where the technology is changing very fast. We cannot bind another Government. However, we are trying to ensure that the charter is fit for purpose for the next 10 years. Having set out our proposals for the new charter, we certainly have no intention of revisiting those fundamental principles until the next one.