BBC Funding

Matt Western Excerpts

Monday 17th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ms Dorries]

I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for his question. Impartiality and the licence fee are two entirely separate things. The Serota review made its recommendations, and the leadership of the BBC fully agreed with those recommendations and agreed to implement them. We now want transparency, to see what difference those implementations make, but they are a completely different issue from the settlement of the licence fees.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

I am very proud of the BBC—it is the best of British, and it is recognised and respected around the world. It is also the best of value. Its fee works out as two thirds of the price of a pink of milk per day—I happen to know the price of a pint of milk. Is the simple truth not that the Prime Minister, unlike previous Prime Ministers such as Margaret Thatcher and many others, is frightened of the BBC and of being scrutinised? Margaret Thatcher actually phoned in to Radio 4’s “Today” programme. This Prime Minister would prefer to hide in the fridge.

[Ms Dorries]

The Prime Minister is a huge fan of the BBC and of “Today”. The discussions that we are having are to help protect the BBC, because if anyone sitting here thinks that we could go to households in 2028 and expect them to pay the licence fee—with fear of prosecution if they do not—in order to watch the television that they have bought and put in their house, they are, frankly, a dinosaur. We in this House have a responsibility to protect the BBC. As part of that responsibility, we have to look forward and think how we can change the BBC and fund it in a changing digital landscape.