BBC Local Radio

Debate between Mike Penning and Robin Walker

Thursday 8th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

My right hon. Friend makes a crucial point. Of course, our local councils are a vital part of local democracy. Without local radio journalists covering and attending those meetings into the evening, we will not have the quality of democratic debate and discourse that we can and should have in this country.

I was struck by the point of the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington about the BBC chasing a younger audience with its move to digital. We have to ask why, because that younger audience is much more savvy and focused on a wide range of media, and does not necessarily rely on local radio in the same way that the older audience does. It is not just about the older audience, however—although we have heard from many hon. Members on both sides of the House about the importance of local radio to the elderly and isolated, which is right—people who drive for a living also value what local radio does. It gives detailed information about road closures that it would not be possible to get at regional level and that commercial stations can rarely provide. Reaching the audience that local radio reaches—the millions of people up and down the country who benefit from and rely on it—is important.

A good thing about the BBC’s proposals is that they talk about investing in investigative journalism, which all hon. Members would support. If that investigative journalism is taking place at a local level, however, it needs an outlet and regular opportunities to report and feed into programmes.

[Sir Mike Penning]

My hon. Friend is making an exceptionally good point. One problem with the redundancies is that those who have not lost their jobs will no longer be local reporters; they will be regional reporters. Some of the award-winning reporters in our constituencies and on our local radio will be smothered around the country and we will lose that expertise. I do not believe that that is what the BBC is looking for.

[Mr Walker]

I entirely agree, and I would also say that investigative reporting needs to be done a local level in our communities. My hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier), who has just had to step out of the Chamber, recently had a debate about nitrous oxide misuse, and that really important issue was highlighted by a local journalist working for BBC Hereford & Worcester, based on stories that emerged locally.

At Education questions a week or so ago, I raised the case of Rhys, a boy from Worcestershire who has been unable to get a place in a special school and was not able to get a local placement. Such cases are brought up by the high-quality journalism taking place in our BBC local radio. The coverage we have had of the situation at the Worcester Warriors, which has been very worrying for many of my constituents—not just on the sport side, which I am glad to say the BBC wants to protect, but on what was going on behind the scenes and the business story of what went wrong at a premiership rugby club that has been driven into administration—could not have happened without the brilliant investigate work of Felicity Kvesic from BBC Hereford & Worcester.

For all these reasons, I think the BBC needs to rethink these proposals. I am very grateful for the constructive way in which the NUJ has been engaging on this—I think we have all had a useful briefing from it. It has shown that it agrees with parts of what is being proposed, but it disagrees with the fundamental move against localism. For local identity and for the vital public service that this provides, I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to keep on pressing the BBC on these issues and to get it to rethink.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mike Penning and Robin Walker

Monday 13th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

T7. I welcome the new Policing Minister to his post. Will he join me in praising the proactive work of the West Mercia police, who, in Operation Fuchsia, have taken the fight against burglary and drug dealing into the homes of the perpetrators?

[Mike Penning]

I congratulate West Mercia police, not only in general, but on their recent operation, in which I believe they used chainsaws to get into certain premises and reach villains who had thought that they could get away with it. Also, I praise the West Mercia police for a 17% reduction in crime since 2010, and a 3% reduction this year alone.