S4C

Debate between Hywel Williams and Siân C. James

Wednesday 19th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Hywel Williams]

I am very grateful for that point, which was very well made. As I said, the Conservatives and certainly the Liberal Democrats should have known better, with honourable exceptions. They should have read up on the history and on the conflict over the location of Welsh language programmes.

[Mrs Siân C. James (Swansea East) (Lab)]

As someone who comes from the same town as Ian Jones, I am looking forward to great things from a Morristonian. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that Governments persist in thinking that S4C and the BBC are not in competition with each other when they are? The idea that they will share producers and directors is of great concern.

[Hywel Williams]

I share the hon. Lady’s concerns, which relate to some of the questions I will ask about the involvement of the BBC in S4C. I am sure that that can be managed with good will on all sides and a proper degree of independence and funding for S4C. I will return to that issue in a moment.

I was talking about the history, the conflict over the location of Welsh language programmes, the long campaign throughout the 1970s and the promise to set up the channel in the first place. That broken promise, the conflict, the arrests, the court cases and the jailings led many thousands of reasonable and normally law-abiding Welsh citizens to break the law and not pay their television licences. That consequence was a matter of regret to us all as parliamentarians. In fact, some people went even further in taking what was always non-violent direct action. The Government could have read up on the social conflict engendered and on Mrs Thatcher’s first U-turn. Clearly they did not and they repeated their mistakes.

I have some questions for the Minister on the decision itself in the first place. What consultations were there with the people in Wales before the decision was made on funding, and subsequently on the inclusion of S4C in the Public Bodies Bill and its relationship with the BBC? Is he satisfied that all the relevant people were able to put their point of view forward? Were they heard, or does he concede, as some, possibly wrongly, suspect, that these decisions were made for reasons of policy here—cutting back public spending and cutting back on the size of the state—that had little to do directly with broadcasting in Wales? Indeed, some people suggest that they were heedless of the consequences to Wales, the Welsh language or the broadcasting industry. I have to tell the Minister that that is how it appeared.