Julie Elliott
Main Page: Julie Elliott (Labour - Sunderland Central)
Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) on securing, with help from the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) and the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald), this interesting and important debate. The British public’s love of, interest in, and concern about the BBC is an issue that crosses party lines.
Since joining the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport in October last year, I have spent much of my time reading written submissions from the BBC and attending oral evidence sessions on BBC charter renewal. I am therefore pleased to have this opportunity to speak on an issue I feel strongly about: regional diversity and fair funding at the BBC. I acknowledge all the issues raised about the diversity agenda, and I am sure I will agree with other such issues raised in the course of the debate. That is one of the points about this debate: it is so wide-ranging. It is not a narrow area of diversity we are concerned about but a very broad one.
I pay tribute to the BBC. It is not perfect—I will shortly make some constructive criticisms about things it is not getting right and some suggested improvements—but it is worth reiterating that I and many of my constituents feel a deep well of affection for the BBC and its unique position in British society. Arts Council England was right when it described the BBC as
“an invaluable cultural asset to the UK, it is an internationally recognised example of what British creativity and commitment can achieve”.
The BBC charter, which runs until the end of the year, is clear in stating the BBC’s public purposes, which include representing the nations, regions and communities of the UK. At present, it is falling short on this commitment. There are two central issues at stake: one is financial, and the other—more intangible but no less important—is reflecting diverse experiences. I will start with the financials. At £873 million, the north of England’s contribution to the BBC licence fee is the second highest in the country, yet the north comes last when it comes to the BBC’s spending per region, with just £48 million. This compares with £150 million for Wales and £2.5 billion for London.
The migration of BBC services, production and output to Salford has been successful in somewhat rebalancing the concentration of BBC services away from London, but just as London is not the UK, so Salford is not the north—or rather it is not where the north ends. The north extends all the way to Sunderland and beyond. It is a misplaced belief that if the BBC places staff and commissioning services in Salford, it can tick off the north from its checklist; that is not the case. There is certainly no lack of talent outside London and Salford. The University of Sunderland, in my constituency, has one of the best journalism courses in the country in its outstanding faculty of art, design and media. The BBC has a role in working with these types of young, talented, enthusiastic people to support them in building their careers.
As a major player, the BBC has enormous spending power and provides a major stream of capital to the UK’s creative industries. In 2013, the BBC spent £2.4 billion across television, radio and online, making it the single largest source of funding for original content, excluding sport. For every pound of the licence fee the BBC spends, it generates £2 of economic activity. By failing to spend money in all areas of the country, the BBC is denying regions such as the north-east the economic benefits that licence fee spending can bring.
The BBC has been making progress. The north of England accounts for just under a quarter of the UK’s population, and programming spending has increased from just over 10% in 2007 to over 17% in 2013. This improvement is welcome, but clearly there is further to go. I understand that the BBC is under pressure to reduce costs and that there is a danger of it spreading investment too thinly, but it must be possible for a national broadcaster at least to have commissioning bases in all the major regional centres, and to develop a fair commissioning and business strategy that encourages production across all parts of the country.
My second point is about the representation of regions such as the north-east on BBC television, radio and online. Perhaps the greatest strength of the BBC is that it is a truly national organisation, engendering shared experiences and making our imagined community a little more real, but this will begin to break down if people do not feel that their experiences are being reflected in the BBC’s output. Figures from the BBC Trust in 2014 showed that only 52% of UK adults believed that the BBC performed well in representing their nation or region.
We must not underestimate the impact on a young child’s life and development when they see and hear someone on the television, be it in drama or newsrooms, who looks and sounds like them. It gives them the reassurance that their life experience is not a lonely one, and that people like them are going through many of the same issues. In children’s television, my region has a history of success, with programmes such as “Byker Grove”, “The Story of Tracy Beaker” and “The Dumping Ground”. I think also of Byker Grove’s very own Ant and Dec, probably two of the most successful people in television today. [Hon. Members: “They’re from Newcastle!”] I’ll let them off being from Newcastle. There is diverse talent, reflecting different experiences, geographies, cultures, cuisines and accents.
We expect a lot from the BBC, both as licence fee payers and as viewers. We expect BBC output to be high quality, original, innovative, challenging, engaging and trustworthy; to reflect the diverse British experience; and to be widely available. Every region and country has the right to see itself represented by the national broadcaster. At present, the BBC falls short on this commitment, and I look forward to working with it, as a constituency MP and a member of the Select Committee, to ensure that this commitment is met, and to help make the BBC even better.