Rural Phone and Broadband Connectivity

Debate between Lord Vaizey of Didcot and Daniel Kawczynski

Tuesday 3rd February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman) for his excellent speech, eloquently making points about matters affecting his constituents in rural parts of Herefordshire. Needless to say, many villages in Shropshire are facing similar problems. Let me highlight the village of Pontesbury, the largest village in my constituency. As Members of Parliament are inviting the Minister to go all over the UK, let me invite him to the village of Pontesbury, an important and large village just to the south of Shrewsbury, where it is extremely difficult to get any mobile phone coverage. We have mentioned local businesses, schools and children needing to do homework and other things on computers, and this problem really is holding this village back significantly, so I am pleased to hear about the progress the Government are making.

[Mr Vaizey]

Perhaps I should clarify that when I am accepting invitations for meetings from colleagues I am happy to have them in the House. Let me also say that I hope that my hon. Friend will acknowledge the £28 million invested in superfast broadband in Shropshire, covering at least 50,000 premises—20,000 have already been reached.

BBC

Debate between Lord Vaizey of Didcot and Daniel Kawczynski

Tuesday 10th July 2012 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Kawczynski]

Yes, that is a reasonable and sensible point, but I am trying to get my hon. Friend the Minister to understand and take on board the wishes of those citizens, like myself, who do not want to watch the BBC or pay a licence fee of £145.50. At the moment, I do not believe that the BBC is as good as other channels on television. He may say that it is impossible—“You cannot detach yourself from this additional tax. You have to pay it and you have no alternative.”—but in this era we should think differently. I cannot believe that I am the only British citizen who does not want to watch the BBC and does not want to pay the licence fee.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

My hon. Friend puts his case forcefully; his reputation precedes him. Perhaps he could move on to more positive elements of the BBC, such as BBC Radio Shropshire, of which I know he is an enormous fan. That is paid for by the licence fee.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

My hon. Friend the Minister knows that I would not miss an opportunity to refer to BBC Radio Shropshire. It is a gem—the one glimmer of light in the whole organisation. I will come on to BBC Radio Shropshire shortly.

I have a serious point about the lack of foreign news on the domestic BBC. I am always amazed at how much trivial information is given out by the BBC in its news bulletins. There is very little about what is happening in parts of the world such as Latin America. For example, an extraordinary coup took place in Paraguay just the other week, and, of course, there was no coverage of it on the BBC. I could mention all sorts of interesting political developments in Africa, Latin America, the far east and eastern Europe that the BBC simply does not cover. It is difficult for people to understand what is happening across the world if the BBC constantly focuses on celebrity gossip and the UK to the exclusion of important and detailed constitutional changes taking place around the world.

I heavily criticise the fact that the BBC does not show foreign films. The reason why people speak such eloquent English in other European countries is that they are constantly watching English films with subtitles. It is a wonderful way for people, particularly the young, to learn another language. They watch a foreign programme and, particularly if it is a series that they like and watch weekly, listen to the audio, but read the subtitles in their own language. I challenge anybody in the room to say how often they see foreign films shown on the BBC with subtitles. It is a very rare occurrence and I would like it to happen more often.

I would also like to challenge the interview style of certain interviewers. I refer particularly to Mr Paxman. I do not know what problem this man has got; perhaps he is not getting enough exercise or something. There is something wrong with this man—something fundamentally, emotionally wrong with the way in which he interviews people. Most politicians who are interviewed by him immediately clam up and seize up, and the interview is not very conducive to finding out what they think. They are guarded and do not want to interact fully, engage or explain what they are pursuing, due to the sheer aggression and patronising tone that this man always brings to interviews. When the Economic Secretary to the Treasury was interviewed recently, I was appalled at the way he treated her: the derisory contempt and the patronising tone—highly aggressive and highly rude.

I suppose that some people might get some form of titillation from watching such a combative interview style, but they must ask themselves, where does it get the audience? Are they any closer to understanding what the Minister seeks to say or the policy of the person being interviewed? I rather suspect that the answers are a mystery to the person watching, because the focus has been on the aggression. I have asked the BBC how much money it spends on anger management courses, but I have yet to receive an answer. It should put some of these people on anger management courses, because they really need to get a grip.

I am not asking for interviews in the style of communist Romania, with sycophants interviewing communist apparatchiks in easy interviews. Interviewers should not accommodate politicians, but there are countries where the relationship between the interviewer and the politician is much healthier and focused on the questions, rather than the conduct of the interviewer.

Of course, I also have complaints about John Humphrys, by whom I have been interviewed on the “Today” programme. He is extremely patronising and arrogant, and does not let one answer any questions. That is in huge contrast to when I was interviewed on the BBC by Mr Andrew Marr. I wrote a biography of Colonel Gaddafi and was invited in not as a politician but as an author. It was fascinating that the tone of the interview was completely different. Mr Marr was interested in what I had to say and asked probing questions in a manner conducive to starting a communication. I felt that the listener was interested in the interaction we were having. Being interviewed at the BBC as an author is, in my experience, different from being interviewed as a politician.

Of course, I am coming to the one ray of light in the BBC world, which is, as my hon. Friend the Minister pointed out, Radio Shropshire, a wonderful organisation run by Mr Tim Beech. It is important to me because it is meaningful; it is where the BBC works. Because it is focused on Shropshire and has local presenters, who talk about local issues affecting my constituents and the community where I live, it is, for me and my constituents, a meaningful body. I admire it greatly. However, again, the BBC focuses just on inner-city areas and neglects rural parts of the country. For example, there is no television camera at BBC Radio Shropshire, in Shrewsbury. Someone who happens to live in Shropshire, the largest land-locked county in England, cannot be interviewed by the BBC. On Saturday, the BBC telephoned me for an interview about the elections in Libya, and bombarded me with telephone calls. I said, “Look, I’m sorry, I can’t do it, because there is no television camera here in Shrewsbury.” The BBC said, “We’ll have to take you to the nearest station, which is Birmingham.” I am not going to do a 90-mile round trip on a Saturday afternoon, when I am with my family, to do a five-minute interview about elections in Libya. The point I am making is not just that politicians in Shropshire must travel 90 miles to do television interviews. There are many charities and important voluntary sector organisations in Shropshire that would like to take such opportunities, but it is impossible for them because the nearest television camera is in Birmingham, which is a 92-mile round trip from Shrewsbury.