Channel 4 Privatisation

Debate between Ian Murray and Damian Collins

Tuesday 14th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ian Murray]

Yes, it is the cultural levelling up that Channel 4 has been able to achieve as part of its own agenda.

Analysis by EY—Ernst and Young—which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), estimates that over £1 billion would be lost from the UK’s nations and regions if Channel 4 did not invest in the way that it does now, and that nearly 2,500 jobs in the creative sector would be at risk. That is independent analysis. It is not just those directly employed by the broadcaster who would be impacted, but the entire British creative economy. As my hon. Friend mentioned, it is a creative economy that relies on economies of scale, security of funding and a pipeline of skills.

In its lifetime, Channel 4 has invested—we have heard this already—£12 billion in the independent production sector in this country. Every year, it works with almost 300 production companies, many of which are tiny, as well as medium and large-scale production companies. This proposal does not just impact the big stars in London studios, but the camera operators, the crew runners, the location scouts and everything that makes a production happen in every single region and nation of the UK. The harsh reality is that a privatised Channel 4 would be commercially incentivised to buy in programmes from overseas instead of supporting new and innovative projects in the UK. Why? Because it costs a lot of money to make content and that would hit profits. Look at some of the big loss makers, such as the award-winning Paralympics coverage which has not really been mentioned in this debate. It is a huge loss for Channel 4 in terms of its financial viability, but it does it and it does it incredibly well.

If I could reflect on the contribution made at the end by the right hon. Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), he made a critical point. Not only did he say that there are no options papers on where the future of Channel 4 could be beyond privatisation, but he hit the nail on the head. A lot of the contributions from the Government Benches have been about the headwinds that are just about to hit Channel 4. Those headwinds will hit Channel 4 whether it is in the public sector or private sector. It is hardly a good selling point to say, “We want to privatise one of our national assets to ensure it is not hit with these headwinds,” when a commercial broadcaster would cut the very things that Channel 4 does so well in times of hardship.

[Damian Collins]

The hon. Gentleman implied that commercial companies would look to buy in programmes, rather than make them. Why is it, then, that most TV companies that have their own production studios are massively investing in making more programmes? ITV, BBC, Sky and Netflix are. Everyone recognises that the way to make money in the TV market today is to make programmes to sell, not buy in from other people.

[Ian Murray]

Yes, but Channel 4 puts all those issues on the table in terms of investing directly in production. Channel 4 provides that shop window. If you say to a production company in Scotland which makes “Location, Location, Location”, “Would you like to make that for Channel 4, but you don’t get the IP?” either the costs will shoot up or they will not make it at all. This model works. It is part of the ecosystem. Production in places such as Leeds, Salford and Scotland is working so well at the moment because we have the BBC, ITV studios and Channel 4, all different parts of that ecosystem working together, so we have the economies of scale, the skills and the ability for people to be able to invest, because they know they can make great shows and great films in those places.

Let me reflect on some of the contributions that have been made this afternoon. The Father of the House kicked us off, and was absolutely correct to say that Channel 4 does not want privatisation. The Secretary of State is essentially saying, “We know best, so we will do to Channel 4 what we think is best.” The Father of the House concluded by saying, “stop messing it around”. That is right. Why try to fix something that is not broken?

My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) in his own wonderful style did a superb “Yes Minister” characterisation. Channel 4 does not have a problem to solve, but the Government are trying to find one; he was right to call it “Parliamentary Pointless”.

I will reflect on the impacts on Scotland later in my speech, but the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake) was right to say that privatising Channel 4 will have a huge impact on the Welsh production sector. With the BBC investing in Cardiff and Channel 4 putting productions into the city, the sector in Wales has flourished in a way that it did not before.

The hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) is right to say that Channel 4 is an enabler. We need the big production companies to be able to make programmes in order to seed smaller production companies and the entire industry. If we do not have those productions—the big returning drama shows—it is difficult to maintain a production company in an area, which Channel 4 does so well.

The hon. Member for Aberconwy (Robin Millar) said, “D’oh!”—maybe the first person to mention Homer Simpson in the Chamber, although I am not sure whether he was impersonating Homer Simpson or recalling the motto of Downing Street.

The hon. Member for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt) told us that he watched Channel 4 at night when he was younger, but that he has never watched “Naked Attraction”. Mr Deputy Speaker, he needs to come to the House and correct the record, because nobody believes him! [Laughter.]

My hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) reeled off a list of wonderful television programmes and films that Channel 4 has made over the years, including “Drop the Dead Donkey”, or, as it was rebranded last week, “Vote of No Confidence”.

The hon. Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) also tried to create a problem that does not exist. Along with a number of contributors this afternoon, he said that Channel 4 should be released from its shackles to be able to borrow. Well, it has not borrowed or required to borrow in 40 years. Maybe it will not require to borrow in the next 40.

Let us not forget about film, as this is not just about the impact of privatisation on television. As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central, the broadcaster is the single largest investor in British film through Film4. We can see how wonderful some of those films have been, as they have won BAFTAs every single year and have really put the British film industry on the map. I think that gets to the heart of why so many people are outraged by the Government’s proposals.

Our great nation punches so well above its weight when it comes to our cultural impact on the world. There are few better examples of that than the British stars of screen—big and small. Many of our most famous faces got their big break through Film4 productions, many of which were huge risks to Channel 4, but because of its funding model and way it was set up, it was able to take those risks and some of those productions were hugely successful. I think of Ewan McGregor, Olivia Colman and Dev Patel, who we have heard about already, and film-makers including Danny Boyle and Steve McQueen. It is little wonder that so many stars, film-makers and directors have come out against and condemned the Government’s plans.

What of training, skills and jobs? We have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) on this issue. Let us not beat about the bush: getting into the television and film industry is incredibly difficult for those who are lower down the socioeconomic scale. Channel 4 has been at the forefront of helping young people to get into the industry through 4Skills, which gives 15,000 young people a year opportunities to get into the sector. That costs money and is not the kind of thing that a commercial broadcaster will do. It has an industry-leading production training scheme through its supply chain that focuses solely on social mobility. That is all at risk. Why? Because it is not protected in the White Paper.

The move to sell off Channel 4 will have a particular impact on the Scottish creative economy. Since 2007, Channel 4 has spent more than £220 million on Scottish productions—about £20 million a year in recent years. It is the key commissioner from Scottish independent production companies and other Scottish broadcasters such as Scottish Television. Channel 4’s features and daytime team, its largest creative team, is now based at its Glasgow office. The broadcaster’s emerging indie fund and its indie growth fund have provided support to fantastic Scottish production companies such as Black Camel Pictures, which was responsible for the BAFTA-winning “Sunshine on Leith”.

And who can forget “Location, Location, Location”, one of Channel 4’s most successful shows, which is produced by IWC, a Scottish production company? Maybe the Prime Minister might need Phil and Kirstie’s help in finding a new place soon. I hope so. Even TV’s most famous house hunters might struggle to find a place with a built-in karaoke bar, but that is the challenge

Channel 4’s influence is not just on Scottish television. Film4 has produced memorable Scottish hits—perhaps none more so than “Trainspotting” in my home city, even though it did not portray Edinburgh in the best of lights. Film-making brings in £600 million a year in UK-bound tourism, right across the United Kingdom, although I am not sure that “Trainspotting” did Ladbrokes toilets any good. Channel 4 has given us generation-defining entertainment, and it will again.

I am grateful for the SNP’s support for our motion. The hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (John Nicolson) made an excellent speech, but I must say that Channel 4 is also under threat from the SNP’s plans for independence. It proposes to put an end to Channel 4 in Scotland, because it would be independent, and it set out in 2014 that it would do the same for the BBC. What are its proposals for Channel 4 and the BBC? Governments are attacking our public sector broadcasters because those broadcasters hold the powerful to account, whether they like it or not. They are attacking the very principle of a UK-wide public service broadcaster delivering for diverse audiences all over the country. None the less, we are grateful for the SNP’s support for the motion.

Today, though, it is for Conservatives to make their decision. As we have heard, 91% of respondents to the Government’s own consultation made their opposition to the proposals clear. Those who oppose the proposals include the advertisers that pay for advertising on Channel 4 because of the diverse audiences that it produces, which other broadcasters cannot reach. If the Secretary of State is looking for a “Countdown” of Conservative Members who do not support her proposals, I say to her, “Three from the top, two from the middle and one large one.”

Will Conservative Members vote to sell the broadcaster to a private entity that is likely to centralise creative output in London, or will they vote to continue a model that invests in our creative economy in their very own constituencies? Will they sell a cornerstone of modern British culture to the highest bidder, or will they continue a great British institution that proudly exports our culture around the world?

The country would be grateful, the industry would be grateful and viewers would be grateful if the Secretary of State scrapped this privatisation. In the words of Mrs Doyle from another of the channel’s famous shows, “Go on, go on, go on.”

First World War Centenary

Debate between Ian Murray and Damian Collins

Wednesday 13th March 2013 Westminster Hall

[Damian Collins]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. The significance of the centenary should not be the celebration of a military victory, for no military victory is final and lasting—certainly not the first world war—but of the sacrifice of millions who fought in the conflict and those who worked on the home front as well, many of whom died. That should challenge us to work and strive not to create the war that will end all wars, but to reach a point where war is no longer necessary. The first world war did not achieve that.

The hon. Gentleman is right: this is not a celebration of victory, but a commemoration of the sacrifice of millions of people. That sacrifice has been written about and debated many times. People have written about the lost generation that was killed during the first world war and about the brilliant lives that were ended. Many Members of Parliament fought and died. The Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, lost his son, Raymond Asquith.

There is the great sacrifice of the pals regiments, many of which were created by people who worked and lived together and joined up, fighting and dying together. The high death toll in certain communities, famously, in pals regiments such as the Accrington pals, which lost so many during the battle of the Somme, meant that during the second world war we no longer recruited in that way, so that communities did not suffer such terrible losses.

There were incredible losses on the home front as the first world war became more mechanised. On 25 May 1917, an air raid in Folkestone was focused on Tontine street, near the harbour. German planes that had hoped but failed to reach London dropped their bombs before re-crossing the channel. In that single air raid, 71 people were killed, 27 of whom were children. We live in a time of war when modern technology makes the most devastating loss possible at the touch of a button, but such a loss of life on one day at home, away from the battlefield, was a truly shocking occurrence for people who lived through it.

When considering the first world war centenary, we should also remember that this was a global war. The conflict was not isolated in the western front, massive though the losses were in the trenches of France and Belgium. British and Commonwealth armed forces also served at Gallipoli and in Palestine, and we should remember the great role of troops drawn from the empire, particularly the British Indian Army, which sent many hundreds of thousands of men to fight for the British empire, across the world and particularly on the western front. Their stories, which are in many ways protected and preserved by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission around the world, are an important part of the centenary.

I see something every year in my constituency that brings home the sacrifices of the first world war for future generations, today. At the military cemetery at Shorncliffe, on Canada day, school children from local primary schools sit by and place flowers on the graves of the many Canadian soldiers buried there, marking a commitment made by the town at the end of the first world war to the families of those troops to tend their graves. It is touching to see young people only 10 or 11 years old sitting by the grave of someone who was perhaps only 18 when they were killed. That is a great way of bringing home to young people today the sacrifices that people made.

[Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate. I refer hon. Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

The hon. Gentleman rightly talks about the commemorative role that many organisations play. Will he join me in commending the McCraes Battalion Trust in Edinburgh, which built Edinburgh’s only war memorial on the Somme, at Contalmaison? The trust now takes groups of children out there, to ensure that the sacrifice that people in Edinburgh made during the great war is never forgotten.

[Damian Collins]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. The project that he mentions sounds excellent, and it touches on an important aspect of the first world war centenary—namely, the work that can be done to preserve memorials. The Government are making funds available, through the Heritage Lottery Fund and English Heritage, to support the restoration of war memorials. In Dover, adjacent to my constituency, there was an excellent project called the Dover war memorial project, in which volunteers, students and children conducted research into the lives of people named on the war memorial. That gave them a real sense of connection and helped them to see that the names carved in the stone belonged to real, living people.

The project led to the rediscovery of Walter Tull, who was born in Folkestone and is commemorated on the Dover memorial. He had the distinction of being the first black officer to be commissioned in the British Army. He was commissioned in the field during the first world war, having previously been the first black outfield player to play professional football in Britain. His story had been forgotten, and it was rediscovered through the project. Such projects are an important way to mark the centenary.

The Heritage Lottery Fund is making funds available for community projects across the country to support remembrance and the education of new generations about the sacrifices of the war. The Prime Minister said in his speech last year at the Imperial War museum that funds were being made available to support schools to send tour parties to the battlefields, so that children could see for themselves the sights of the war. Giving people the opportunity to walk in the soldiers’ footsteps and to gain some understanding of their lives and the sacrifices that they made is an important part of the commemoration process. It is incredible not only that the battlefield tours continue to this day—the battlefields of the western front receive about 500,000 visitors a year from around the world, a great number of whom come from this country—but that they are growing in popularity. Visits to the Menin gate to hear the last post being played and visits to the Somme memorial at Thiepval are growing in number, which shows the huge appetite for them.

I want to talk briefly about the Step Short project in my constituency. Folkestone was a focal point in the war effort, and 10 million servicemen passed through the town during the first world war. It was the major port of embarkation to, and debarkation from, the trenches of the western front. It was home to tens of thousands of refugees from Belgium and tens of thousands more servicemen from Canada, who were based at Shorncliffe barracks just outside the town. Most families in the country will have an ancestor who was in Folkestone at some point during the war.

Some of those people are recorded in the visitors’ books that were kept by two sisters who operated a temporary canteen on the harbour arm, from which they gave free cups of tea and bits of cake to men who boarded the boats. Lloyd George, Churchill, Haig and private soldiers in the Army signed the books, which provide a great living memory of those men’s stories and give us a date, time and place, so that we know where they were at that point during the war. For some men, signing those books may have been their last act on English soil, to which they would never return because they would make the supreme sacrifice in the trenches.

After the first world war, Slope road in Folkestone, which ran from the Leas on the cliff tops in the town down to the harbour, was renamed the road of Remembrance, because it was the road down which so many men marched. As they marched down the steep road with heavy packs on their backs, the command of “step short” was given, which told them to break their steps. Marching downhill on the cobbles, wearing boots and carrying heavy packs must have been quite an exercise even on a dry day, but the soldiers managed it. Folkestone was the last stage in the journey that they made to the trenches.

In the inter-war period, a memorial arch was constructed over the road around the time of the coronation of George VI. On it was written simply, “In our rejoicing, we still remember them.” That sentiment is an important part of the remembrance process, and it reminds us that future generations have an obligation to remember the sacrifices that people made.

Many people had forgotten the story of Folkestone during the first world war, and the community have got together to tell it once more. For the centenary of the outbreak of the war in August 2014, they want to invite the country to Folkestone to be part of that story again. For the past two or three years, we have organised a memorial march along the route that the soldiers took down the road of Remembrance into the harbour. We hold that march on the first Sunday of August each year, close to the anniversary of the outbreak of the war, to remember the story of the men’s departure. People go to the battlefields of France and Flanders to walk in the soldiers’ footsteps, and they can also do that by taking part in the march in Folkestone.

The Prime Minister wrote an article on Remembrance Sunday for The Sunday Telegraph, in which he set out some of the Government’s plans to mark the centenary. Those plans include the great investment in the Imperial War museum, where new first world war galleries will be opening. He also noted that there would be “big outdoor commemorations” to mark the outbreak of the war. In particular, he mentioned the large outdoor event that we are planning in Folkestone, which, he noted, is

“the port where so many left for France.”

We look forward to welcoming people to Folkestone on 4 August 2014. Folkestone is fundraising to place a new memorial arch at the top of the Leas, at the start of the road of Remembrance. People can walk under the arch and remember the soldiers’ journey. That is an important part of the first world war remembrance process. We are also raising money for a visitor centre to tell that story. It is important for future generations to be able to understand that ordinary people—people like them from all over the country, and people from around the world who came to this country to fight on our behalf—made incredible sacrifices during the first world war. It is a story that future generations must tell, and we must give them all the chance to participate in it.

I mentioned earlier the expression “the lost generation”, which is often used to refer to the sacrifice people made during the first world war. I believe that Gertrude Stein originally coined the expression; certainly, Ernest Hemingway credited her with having done so. He used it at the beginning of his book “The Sun Also Rises”, which was published in the early 1920s. In it, he quoted from Ecclesiastes, which in some ways touches on the point made by the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn):

“One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth forever… The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to the place where he arose.”

That reminds us that, in our remembrance, we must also look forward; that each generation has an obligation to defend the freedoms that were fought for in the first world war and to seek peace in the world; and that each is challenged to do that in its own way.

I look forward to hearing from the Minister more about the Government’s plans for the centenary. During the first world war centenary, as we look back and remember, we should also look forward, learning from that terrible period in our history, to how we can work to secure a more peaceful world for future generations.