S4C and Welsh Identity

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 7th May 2014 Westminster Hall

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

As always, wherever we are, it is a pleasure for me to speak under your always fair chairmanship, Mr Brady.

S4C and its link with cultural identity are hugely important and a matter on which there is a large measure of agreement across all parties and among all Welsh MPs, so I would have liked to have had a lot of Members from other parties present for the debate and a good audience. Unfortunately, however, we clash with the Welsh Grand Committee, which Members must attend because it is an important meeting to discuss the recent Budget, so I fear that we may be short of the sort of numbers that I might have expected. That is not a reflection of the interest of Welsh MPs in the future of S4C, because interest is strong.

My personal interest became much more exaggerated in the 1960s and 1970s, when I became much more aware of my identity and of the person I was, as we do when we get older. That was when I realised I was Welsh to the core; first and foremost, I would always say that I was Welsh. I have looked through lists of my ancestors, and I do not have a single one who was not born in Montgomeryshire, Sir Drefaldwyn. Every single one was a first-language Welsh speaker—I have gone through books that people have written.

In the 1960s, my generation—my five sisters and I—was the first not to speak Welsh; we spoke only English. When I became a Member of the National Assembly for Wales in 1999, the sense of identity was such that I felt that I had to learn to speak Welsh. Since then I have become bilingual, and if anyone were to ask me what I was proudest of doing in my life, one of those things would be becoming bilingual in the language of my nation.

People have asked me why I sought today’s debate. It stemmed from a meeting I had with the chief executive of S4C, in which we talked about the budget and programme development—I will come on to that. It was a chance conversation, three years on from the trauma that we experienced when we broke the inflationary link, in terms of guaranteed funding for S4C. We also changed the arrangements for the funding, so that it came via the BBC Trust, from the licence fee. That change was huge, and it was a sensitive issue, causing a huge amount of trauma in Wales.

Another factor in the timing of the debate is that we have a new Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. There must be something of an induction course for the new Secretary of State, because he will see that the S4C issue is not a quiet one. When it raises its head, it might well be on his desk more than he expects. The issue is important, and he needs to be aware of just how important S4C, the Welsh language and the cultural link between them is to the Welsh people.

S4C is inextricably linked to the language and Welsh identity. More than anything else, it is the Welsh language that makes Wales special. If we look at a nation, we wonder what it is that makes it distinct or special, and the Welsh language is what makes Wales special. As I said, my first interest in Welsh identity, including in the language, developed in the 1960s. At that time—this might come as a shock to my colleagues—I won a bardic chair. I wrote a 20,000-word essay on the future of the Welsh language. It might cause some amusement to hear that my pseudonym was Taurus ap Tomos; make of that what you will.

The conclusion of my essay was pessimistic, although not an unusual one in the 1960s: it was that the Welsh language would disappear as a used language in the long run. We have made a huge advance since then, because that is not something that people would say today. It is easy to forget just how negative we were.

Before 1982, there was a lead-up to the establishment of S4C. Some Welsh language programmes appeared in the 1960s and 1970s on other platforms, such as the BBC and HTV Cymru. Before the 1979 general election, there was a big debate about whether a new Welsh language channel would be created. It was created, although there was a bit of a hoo-hah after the election. The Government of the day were facing a lot of economic and budgetary pressures. There was a lot of support for a new channel; the Welsh community came together and applied pressure as well, as they did three years ago, too. The then Government, led by Mrs Thatcher, created S4C in November 1982, and that was a huge stepping-stone.

Despite the hoo-hah leading up to it, the creation of S4C under a Conservative Government is something that I can look back on as a huge step forward for the language. If we look at the record of the Conservative party, creating S4C was not the only thing it did: the Welsh Language Act 1993 was another huge step forward, and the creation of the Welsh Language Board was another Conservative initiative.

I am therefore proud, not only of the 1982 creation of S4C—there can be debate about how that happened; there was the influence of Gwynfor Evans’s threat to fast to death, and Opposition criticism of the prevarication in introducing the necessary Bill—but of its budget. Ever since the beginning, there has been a good and adequate budget. S4C has been good value. In 1991, the guaranteed link with inflation was introduced, and that funded the channel on a confident basis right up until 2010, when the incoming Government faced a similar position to that of the Government who came to power in 1979: there were huge threats to the economy and a need to cut back on public expenditure, which lead to substantial debate.

There is room for much debate on the impact of the inflationary link. I was pretty nervous about breaking that link, as all of us probably were. In the end, I accepted it. There has been a positive element to the inflation link: S4C had a guaranteed income in a business in which forward commitments need to be made, and independence from Government interference. However, being a statutory link, an element of complacency arose, as it does when there is a guaranteed income. That guaranteed income meant that S4C had to keep thinking not about its market, but about satisfying the people in control of paying it. Breaking the link was important.

It was quite an experience being involved in breaking the link. I served on the Committee that examined the Public Bodies Bill. I had 1,200 e-mails on the issue, which is four times more than on any other subject since I became an MP. After I had spoken—or it might have been my vote that did it—I became something of a target. We even had someone carted out of the Public Gallery, because they were disturbing a debate. There was a huge rumpus in Wales. I was being doorstepped all over the building by various people lobbying. That showed me that the people of Wales really cared about their channel. They were worried that changes would damage it, although over the past three years, things have worked out okay.

There was a second big change: rather than being funded directly from Westminster, the channel is now funded from the licence fee through the BBC Trust, an issue that has raised its head this morning. A lot of people worried about that change at the time, and have been worried since. Their worry is that we need an independent S4C that is not influenced by a paymaster—that is, not influenced by the BBC. I must say that the relationship between S4C and the BBC in Wales is terrific—better than anybody could have expected.

The comments we have heard today are a bit overblown. The director of BBC Cymru Wales has made comments about viewing figures at peak hours, which might be perceived to be about wanting to influence the managerial side of S4C, but I am not sure that that is right. It is crucial that S4C is free and independent—editorially, operationally and managerially. The slightest suggestion that there might be some interference in that has caused a huge hoo-hah. In a sense, I welcome that, as it emphasises just how important that independence is.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

As an Ulster Scot, I am very aware of the need to preserve and encourage identity. In Northern Ireland, 35% of the population see themselves as Ulster Scots—that is 250,000 people from a population of 1.7 million—so I understand the identity that the hon. Gentleman is trying to preserve. The issue is important for us as well. In Northern Ireland, we have BBC channels and programmes that promote our identity. Does the hon. Gentleman see S4C and also the BBC as conduits to enable others to have input into the Welsh identity and language?

[Glyn Davies]

Indeed I do. S4C is particularly important because it is a Welsh language channel, but of course BBC Wales is hugely influential. It is a discrete part of the BBC and is committed to the language. It works closely with S4C, providing programmes, and the relationship is very good. That was not always the case, but it certainly is at the moment.

There is one aspect of the Public Bodies Act 2011 on which I would like a reassurance from the Minister—I am sure he will be happy to give it. Section 31 states that the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport must ensure “sufficient funding” to deliver a Welsh language channel in Wales. That is rather imprecise. However, it is important that it is stated in the Act that the Secretary of State should do that.

My focus today is on the link between S4C and the language, because that is what I think is most important, but to a lot of people, the importance of S4C is about not just the language but the contribution that it makes to the economy. I was involved in economic development for the whole of Wales around the time that S4C was created. There was a blossoming of the creative industries. A huge number of small businesses set up in parts of Wales where there had been depopulation, and to which it was difficult to attract other forms of business. S4C does not produce its own work but commissions it, and a large proportion of those commissions go not to the BBC but to independent companies. Today we have four major companies that produce work for S4C. Those include: Boom Pictures, a successful international company; Tinopolis, a major company that produces “Question Time”; Rondo; and Cwmni Da, a company that has sold programmes to China.

We should not forget, however, that the last thing we want is for S4C to drop into a comfort zone. We need to make certain that it is not just the four established companies with good relationships with S4C that continue to get all the work, and that there is still that blossoming of new, small companies in the more remote parts of Wales where it is still more difficult to develop the economy.