Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nadine Dorries and Rob Butler

Thursday 24th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

3. What recent assessment her Department has made of the contribution of Channel 5 to public service broadcasting.

[The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Ms Nadine Dorries)]

I congratulate Channel 5 on its 25th anniversary, and I was delighted to attend the parliamentary reception this week to celebrate that significant milestone. Channel 5 has played an important and award-winning role in our public service broadcasting system, through its provision of new programming, and its unique focus on children’s television. Thanks to its significant investment in the regions, it is the levelling-up broadcaster, and I look forward to another successful 25 years.

[Rob Butler]

As my right hon. Friend says, Channel 5 is 25 years old this month. I was a news presenter on the channel at the beginning and for the next eight years, and our aim was to make the news more accessible to a wider audience, ensuring that everybody in the country could understand what was going on. Will my right hon. Friend join me in celebrating Channel 5’s team who had the imagination and confidence to do that then, and the current team who continue to bring understandable, relevant, and relatable news to people in all parts of the UK today?

[Ms Dorries]

I will—I congratulate and applaud them. My hon. Friend was there on Channel 5’s opening night, and so were the Spice Girls. Some of us in this House are old enough to remember that evening. Channel 5 does a huge amount for independent production companies, and one fifth of all its commissioning spending goes to those smaller companies. That is a larger spend than the BBC, Channel 4 and ITV. It also does a huge amount in the regions, and it far exceeds its Ofcom quota every year. As I said in my first reply, it is the levelling-up broadcaster, and I think those statistics alone bear that out. I wish it another 25 years, and I congratulate everybody working there.

BBC Funding

Debate between Nadine Dorries and Rob Butler

Monday 17th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ms Dorries]

No.

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

I was proud to spend the first seven years of my career at the BBC, but it is worth remembering that back then, in the 1990s, there were only four main terrestrial TV channels. The Secretary of State is absolutely right to say that the whole landscape has changed fundamentally since then, and I tend to agree with her that the licence fee must therefore be on borrowed time, but does she agree that any new long-term model of funding for the BBC will need to take into account the possible implications and repercussions for the commercial public service broadcasters that currently rely on advertising?

[Ms Dorries]

That is a very important point. Everything needs to be considered in the round: all the elements of the BBC’s reach, everything that it does and everything that it achieves. That is why we have to start the debate now, even though the future funding model would not come in until 2028. We need that time to prepare, to ensure that all the elements that are beneficial to the UK, to the BBC and to producing that great British content will remain.