Jonathan Evans
Main Page: Jonathan Evans (Conservative - Cardiff North)S4C
Jonathan Evans Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)
It is an honour and a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Brooke. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) on securing this timely debate, which has allowed Members to consider the future not only of S4C, but of Welsh language programming and its funding levels. I want to put on the record the Government’s support for Welsh language programming and S4C’s continuing role in it.
Jonathan Evans (Cardiff North) (Con)
On that point, I point out to the Minister that S4C’s headquarters are based in my constituency and that I have met its executives to discuss the situation on a number of occasions. I have advised them to engage with him. I have a copy of a statement made by S4C’s chair:
“I am astounded at the contempt that the London government has shown not just towards S4C, but also towards the Welsh people and indeed the language itself.”
Would the Minister like to deal with that statement?
Mr Vaizey
I will use my hon. Friend’s intervention to make it absolutely clear that my hon. Friends have been assiduous in putting the case for S4C, and they have been not a little successful in doing so. If anyone is to be accused of contempt for S4C, it is certainly not Conservative Members in Wales; as my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy noted, S4C was established by a Conservative Government. I do not want to make the debate any more heated, so I will not comment on the chair’s specific remarks—my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff North will have to forgive me, but discretion is the better part of valour. I will point out, however, that we are not a “London Government” but the Government of the United Kingdom, and we have to make decisions with the interests not only of the Welsh people at heart, but of the people of the whole United Kingdom.