BBC Local Radio

Julia Lopez Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Julia Lopez)]

Thank you, Mr Twigg, for your chairmanship of this debate. I am grateful to the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell). Passionate views have been expressed in the Chamber, and also across the House in recent months, on these decisions by the BBC. I apologise for missing the Backbench Business debate on the matter. I was unfortunately taken down by covid, though I rather sadly watched it from my sickbed, and listened to all the comments that were made.

Since its first local radio service was launched in the ’60s, the BBC has played a vital role in promoting locally produced radio reporting. In my view, as I have said in the House before, it is that distinctive and precise local content that makes it a true public service broadcaster, with that unique relationship with the public that follows. Important radio appearances by my hon. Friend the Member for Clacton (Giles Watling) about what will be on at the local theatre, along with the local traffic report and so on, are what make an authentic and true public service.

Today, the BBC’s 39 local radio services in England reach 5.8 million listeners a week. They have a huge reach which is incredibly valued by people across our nations. We have heard in this debate how valued those services are. My hon. Friend the Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra) made the point that BBC local radio can be an important incubator for local talent, training those skilled broadcast professionals who go on to feed our creative industries and important broadcasting sector.

I want to recognise at the outset that the BBC’s announcement towards the end of last year of changes to radio services in Northern Ireland has caused concern in Government. It was raised by the hon. Member for Foyle (Colum Eastwood) with the Prime Minister in November last year. More recently, the Mayor of Londonderry and Strabane wrote to the BBC’s director-general Tim Davie to invite him to the city to discuss the BBC’s plans. I am not sure whether that invitation was taken up. I note the request made of me to try to facilitate meetings, and I will happily look into that. Mayor Duffy also wrote to the BBC chairman, Richard Sharp, and stressed the importance of BBC Radio Foyle in the community.

My hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) reiterated to the BBC directly the concerns that have been raised in the Public Accounts Committee.

[Colum Eastwood (Foyle) (SDLP)]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, and thankful to the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) for securing the debate. Tim Davie has offered a number of meetings to some of us. We would like him to come to Derry to see the impact of the cuts, which in my view will end up closing the station.

He will not get to Derry today, because most people in Derry, and even the airport, are totally snowed in. People right across our community have been tuning in to Radio Foyle this morning to find out whether the schools were closed, whether roads were open, and whether they could move around the town and greater area. That would not happen if Radio Foyle did not exist. It is absolutely clear that the intention behind the cuts is to end up without Radio Foyle. Does the Minister agree that without locally connected broadcasters, we will not be able to have the same connection to the BBC and the same valuable public service broadcasting?

[Julia Lopez]

I hope my memory does not fail me, but I think there are something like 650 BBC roles in Northern Ireland, of which 36 will be cut. I understand that some of the concerns are about whether those roles will be disproportionately removed in areas such as Derry. Concerns were raised about the geographical sensitivities of some of the job losses, which I appreciate the hon. Member for East Londonderry does not share, but such issues are deeply sensitive in the context of Northern Ireland, and I do understand them.

The hon. Member for East Londonderry said that there has been a mantra from the Government about the operational decisions made by the BBC. Equally, I understand that there are various levers in our relationship. The BBC is a public service broadcaster, and I assure him I met the director-general and the chairman to raise some concerns that have been brought to my attention by Members of different parties. We have various mechanisms in our relationship with the BBC, one of which is the mid-term review. The way in which the BBC organises its resources across the organisation is not directly within that remit, but we are looking at issues of impartiality and at the extent to which the BBC’s moving into an online presence has an effect on the commercial radio market. All those questions are up for grabs, and we take them seriously.

Last week I met the chairman of Ofcom to discuss this issue and others. Ofcom is the regulator of the BBC and has a role in holding it to account. I do not think it has quite the same level of concern that we in this House have about the changes, but the BBC’s public service essence comes down to how it responds to parts of the market that are not being served by the commercial sector. That is why people support the licence fee: the BBC provides some unique services that would not otherwise be provided, and local content is vital.

The Government want the BBC to succeed as an incredibly important British broadcaster that has a wider impact on the creative industries. In so far as we have an involvement in its “digital first” policy, which is what it wants to move towards—that is part of the justification for the changes to its local radio input—I want to have a wide-ranging conversation with the BBC about that strategy. It is about how we support the BBC to thrive, but also how we ensure that its fundamental public service broadcasting operations, such as those in radio, are not undermined as part of the shift. It is understandable and necessary, but I emphasise that we need to ensure, particularly for those who are served primarily by radio—older listeners and listeners in certain geographies—that people are not neglected in the shift to digital that all broadcasters are having to undertake.

I do not have the power to direct the BBC on where it places its resources, but these points are all elements of broader conversations I have with the organisation as a Minister. I try to reflect the sentiments, feelings and strong passions of this place when I have my conversations with the BBC.

[Giles Watling]

I appreciate the sentiment about independence, and the point about commercial pressures being removed by the licence fee being part of the BBC’s set-up. Most importantly, I would have thought that the BBC would be talking to older people, who may not be able to access digital things. Older people in my constituency—I include myself—would be pleased to know they would still have mainstream online BBC services.

[Julia Lopez]

It is necessary to ensure that the BBC is uniquely able to access audiences who may not be moving online in quite the same way as the majority of audiences. That is a key role for the BBC. The charter requires the BBC to provide distinct content that reflects and represents people and communities in all corners of the UK, and that extends to all socioeconomic groups and age groups. We believe that local content that is relevant to audiences is incredibly important in the BBC’s public service remit. Again, it is the public service remit by which we hold the BBC to account, and it is part of the discussions when it comes to deciding the licence fee and so.

The BBC has an “Across the UK” strategy that includes important content production commitments, such as a pledge to increase the BBC’s out-of-London spend for both radio and music to 50%. In May 2022 we embedded that target in our framework agreement, requiring 50% of expenditure on network radio and BBC Sounds programmes to be made out of London by the end of the charter period. I hope the communities that Members represent will start to see that benefit.

The charter requires the BBC to work collaboratively and partner with other organisations in the creative economy; we see that in things such as the local news partnerships, which have been raised by the DCMS Committee. The BBC supports Two Lochs Radio, Britain’s smallest commercial radio station, which produces public interest journalism in the Gairloch and Loch Ewe areas of Wester Ross in Scotland. That is the kind of unique thing the BBC can do with its spending power and reach, which is reflected in the kind of content produced in Members’ constituencies.

As of July, 180 media organisations were supported by the BBC as part of local news partnerships, and that collaboration is incredibly important. I have made it clear that I am disappointed that the BBC is planning to reduce that local radio output. I have also made clear my disappointment at the proposed changes to the output in Northern Ireland, including cuts to BBC Radio Foyle. As the hon. Member for East Londonderry will be aware, BBC Radio Ulster—including Foyle—reaches nearly a third of radio listeners in Northern Ireland, and it is an incredibly important part of that media landscape.

I met the BBC’s leadership at the end of last year and expressed everybody’s concerns, and that meeting has been built on; following the issue being raised in Prime Minister’s questions, the Prime Minister met the director-general and the chairman of the BBC. The Secretary of State has also written to the BBC to remind it of its responsibilities under the charter and to express our concern that we received notification of the changes only on the date they were made, rather than receiving any advance notice; that makes an urgent question rather difficult to respond to.

The DCMS Committee has been looking carefully at the BBC and its planned changes to local radio. I always appreciate the work of the Committee and its valuable contributions. I have asked the BBC for advice on how it will manage major local incidents that require a dedicated rolling news service, given its important responsibilities under the charter to support emergency broadcasting; the weather has been referenced in the debate, and providing that information is a valuable part of what the BBC does.

Beyond the BBC’s role in promoting locally produced radio reporting, there is its role in the wider local media ecosystem. Local commercial radio stations, such as Radio Clyde and Downtown Radio, reach 43% of adults every week, and most have licence obligations to provide local news in peak hours, which again provides trusted content. When I raised the issues about cuts to broadcasting with the BBC, I was told that it would protect the local news bulletins and the distinct content for each of the stations in question. I wrote to hon. Members who had spoken in the UQ to set out some of the BBC’s response to me; I hope they received those letters.

We want to ensure that everything we do supports community radio stations, and various provisions in the media Bill—which I know everybody is keen to see—will support the wider radio ecology. I hope to be able to provide further details on that Bill in due course. We are providing financial support for technical trials of small DAB broadcasting technology and to license small-scale DAB networks. I hope that that assures hon. Members that not only do we support the BBC in what it does in local radio, but we are looking at how we can have a thriving grassroots commercial and voluntary radio sector at the same time, so that the withdrawal of the BBC does not lead to a large gap in local content.

We all agree that the BBC is a national asset; its centenary year has allowed us to reflect on just how much it has contributed to lives on both a local and national level, and how much it is truly valued by our constituents; the reaction to these radio changes really underlines that point. We want the BBC to continue to succeed for the next century, and that requires it to change, but not at the cost of some of its fundamental public service broadcasting responsibilities. I reassure hon. Members that I have been consistently making that point to the BBC’s leadership, and I want to work with them to ensure that, as the BBC moves into new broadcasting challenges, it does not lose its very essence and the public support that underpins its funding model.

Question put and agreed to.