Media Bill

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 30th January 2024 Commons Chamber

I worry about the relatively low interest from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport in this matter. The Bill gives the Secretary of State further decision-making powers, but if successive Ministers refuse to meet the chair of S4C, as has happened, I worry that they cannot be trusted to make the right decisions in respect of that broadcaster.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

My hon. Friend is making a compelling case, and the events of the past week involving the commission vindicate the position he has taken. The recent difficulties in S4C have been very damaging for the channel. My firm view is that if the matter had been in the hands of Welsh Government Ministers and the Senedd, which can provide scrutiny and accountability, we would not have got to the damaging state we are in.

[Hywel Williams]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point, with which I entirely agree. Even Welsh Conservative Members concede that the arguments for reserving powers over broadcasting have been undermined by what has happened, and by the Department’s actions—or inactions. We are concerned about S4C, and its funding has plummeted since 2010. The decision to fund it through the licence fee led to a 40% reduction in staff. In 2015, its chief executive officer, Ian Jones, warned about the effects of huge funding cuts and called for “tegwch” or fair play. That was a valuable contribution from him.

S4C’s independence is clearly at stake. We need to remember that there was a substantial and hard-fought campaign during the 1970s to establish the channel. Indeed, we had a discussion about that in Committee, in which the right hon. Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) made some interesting points. I had the opportunity in the interim to consult the Cabinet papers, which I obtained from The National Archives. They show how the threat by the then Plaid Cymru leader Gwynfor Evans to go on a hunger strike was integral to the then Prime Minister’s decision to change course and allow the people of Wales our own channel. The Cabinet papers are very interesting to read, and I hope you will indulge my quoting briefly from them, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Hywel Williams]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point; that is what I am coming on to. However, a further argument arises from that unhappy episode, as I will show by quoting from the Cabinet papers. They state that the then Home Secretary, the late Willie Whitelaw, said that the Government

“would withdraw its plans to share Welsh language programmes between two television channels. Instead the programmes would, for an experimental period of three years, be broadcast on one channel as had been proposed in the Party Manifesto.”

That is the point that the hon. Gentleman was making.

What is more interesting is that the papers say that Willie Whitelaw

“still thought that the previous plans were preferable but he had agreed to change them in response to representations, put to him by Lord Cledwyn and others, of the views of informed and responsible people in Wales.”

The interesting point is the reference to

“the views of informed and responsible people in Wales.”

In fact, in the same Cabinet meeting, the Secretary of State for Wales said:

“Gwynfor Evans, the leader of Plaid Cymru, was threatening to go on what he called a ‘hunger strike’”,

before going on to say that there could be

“much tension and unpleasantness in Wales later in the year, if he persisted in this intention, and there would be a danger that Plaid Cymru would fall into the hands of extreme left wing leaders”,

mentioning no names. However, later on in the Cabinet papers, the Secretary of State for Wales said that it had been made clear in the press that the change been made in response to

“moderate opinion following very wide consultation in Wales.”

That is the point I want to make. The argument I am making for a Welsh broadcasting authority reflects settled and responsible opinion in Wales. As I said, the constitutional convention has met and taken evidence very widely over two years, and has come to the conclusion that broadcasting should be devolved to Wales.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way and for giving us a history lesson on the hard work of Gwynfor Evans. Anybody who is interested in this period in the history of Wales should watch the great drama that S4C recently commissioned on the life of Gwynfor Evans, and this campaign in particular. I was at Crymych rugby club at the weekend with Rhodri John, the actor who portrayed Gwynfor in the drama.

[Hywel Williams]

I can indeed recommend that production for anybody to have a look at; it is very interesting. I can also recommend the biography of Gwynfor Evans, which makes similar points.

The media industry in Wales is more than S4C. We have fantastic production companies, including Cwmni Da in my constituency, news outlets and radio—all kinds of things. The proposed authority would unite the media landscape in Wales under one regulatory roof and safeguard it from harms, including from large conglomerates. It would also focus on areas that are important to the people of Wales. The Labour Welsh Government’s expert panel on a shadow broadcasting and communications authority for Wales proposed that public interest journalism, sports and children’s media be areas of specific focus due to their cultural significance, position in relation to Welsh language ambitions and impact on long-term sustainability, among other reasons. The Welsh Government therefore propose a shadow broadcasting and communications authority for Wales. I look to those on the Labour Front Bench, as potentially the next Government, to give us reassurance that it is their intention to establish that authority, as well as the intention of the Welsh Labour Government in Cardiff.

Wales needs to have a say on its own media landscape to ensure that what works for us is what we get. Prominent commentators such as Professor Tom O’Malley and Mike Birtwistle have said that S4C should be built on shared principles of social partnership, public interest and democratic pluralism; that is, as they say, the Welsh political tradition. An independent regulator for Wales would be better equipped to regulate, defend and promote our national broadcasting and media industry in Wales and ensure that those values are represented. That is my argument in favour of a broadcasting authority.

I will say a few words on the prominence of S4C on the selection services—a point that I also raised in Committee. S4C’s content must be readily discoverable and prominent on television services, but I seek assurances that the “appropriate degree of prominence” will not lead to the limiting of S4C’s coverage to specific audiences, thereby depriving people of a wide range of broadcasts. This language matches that of the electronic programme guides code, which allowed S4C to be on channel 166 on Virgin Media in Wales until 2021. The Government should provide clear principles to guide Ofcom in drawing up the new prominence code, so that public service broadcasters’ designated internet programming services appear prominently and are easily discoverable on screens.