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Mike Martin Excerpts(1 week, 2 days ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
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Lisa Nandy
I will say, very candidly, that I am concerned about the cuts that have been announced, too, and I raised those concerns directly with the incoming director general. The charter review process is obviously ongoing, and I would not want to see the BBC dismantling good structures, dismissing good journalists and closing down good programmes at a time when we are seeking to work together constructively to ensure that it is properly and adequately funded going forwards. There are significant pressures on all our public service broadcasters at the moment, and that is one reason why we have to grip this issue of transition, and work together to ensure nobody is left behind.
Mike Martin (Tunbridge Wells) (LD)
My question is in a similar vein to that asked by the hon. Member for West Bromwich (Sarah Coombes). I was really concerned to hear of the cuts at the BBC; “The World Tonight” is going, and “Today” is being cut back. This follows on the heels of cuts at “Newsnight”. It seems that the justification for these cuts is that programmes are being reoriented towards young people, which is obviously a good thing in and of itself. However, when I was 18, I did not listen to any of those programmes; now that I am in my 40s, I listen to them all. Do these cuts not undermine the BBC’s mission to educate and inform, and in this age of disinformation, is it not vital that we keep those programmes?
Lisa Nandy
As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich (Sarah Coombes), the elephant in the room is funding, because the BBC has not been adequately funded for quite some time. The hon. Gentleman will know that fewer and fewer people are paying the licence fee, which is becoming a major challenge for the BBC. We will set out a range of options, through the charter process, that are designed to tackle that, so that we can protect the high-quality programming that he rightly commends.