BBC (Proposed Cuts)

Debate between Pete Wishart and Alun Cairns

Thursday 1st December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith). I am very much enjoying all this football banter between northern Members of Parliament and finding out about all these broadcasters whom I had not heard of, such as Ali Brownlew and Toby Foster. I am going to have to tune into some local radio services in the north-east. Obviously, they provide a first-class service; we would not expect anything else from local radio in the north-east.

Hon. Members might be surprised to hear that I am not going to speak about local services. I am going to speak about national services, but not those provided by the wonderful Radio 4, Radio 2 and Radio 1. I am going to talk about the impact of the cut on national services in Scotland. We will experience a disproportionate cut compared with that across the United Kingdom. Scotland is not a region—it is a nation, and a nation needs a specific type of broadcasting capability available to it. We have our own national Parliament, which as everybody knows has many significant legislative powers. We have our own civic institutions, we have our own legal system and we provide education and health services entirely differently from the rest of the UK. As everyone knows, we have our own national culture and we require that to be reported in a remarkably different way from any other region in the United Kingdom. That is why it is absolutely critical that we get the correct resources to ensure that our nation is served adequately.

[Alun Cairns]

Does the hon. Gentleman feel that Wales, which is also a nation in its own right, has the same needs as Scotland?

[Pete Wishart]

Yes, is the short answer. I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for turning up today. There are two Welsh Conservative Members of Parliament present and we are hearing from Members from right across the United Kingdom, but is it not unfortunate that other than the hon. Member for Midlothian (Mr Hamilton), who is here on Whip’s duty, there is not one of the 40 Labour Members from Scotland here to debate such an important and significant issue as the BBC in Scotland? It is a real tragedy that they would rather turn up and vote on English issues than discuss issues of real importance for the people of Scotland.

We need a BBC that is properly resourced to cover adequately what is happening in England, but what is happening is that one nation’s BBC services are being protected at the expense of another’s. Lots of people in Scotland like Radio 4, and when I am in London I put the Today programme on, but what we learn from the Today programme is usually about the NHS in England and education in England and Wales. I like hearing about the NHS in England and finding out what is going on within the education services in England and Wales, but that means absolutely nothing to me or my constituents. We are continually served up a diet of UK news that is totally inconsequential to Scotland.

The hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) made this point and it was also pointed out by Anthony King, who produced a very good and detailed report on how the BBC broadcasts in the nations and regions. It still has things absolutely wrong.

[Alun Cairns]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that although the BBC has taken a positive step, partly to respond to Anthony King, by moving to other parts of the UK for broadcasting, nothing replaces the broadcasting of Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish issues on the network as well?

[Pete Wishart]

Absolutely. That was a key feature of the King report. He said that a lot was being lost in relation to Scotland and Wales when it came to national news reporting. Sometimes, we got the funny little story at the end about going up to Loch Ness or Snowdon or somewhere and giving an amusing little anecdote to end the news, but in terms of significant reporting of news concerning Scotland, Wales and even the English regions, there was absolutely nothing.

The King report made another important point, which the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan will recall. Some English journalists had to be sent on devolution training so that they would start to understand the difference between devolved powers and reserved powers and work out how to communicate that to the rest of the nation. They still get it absolutely wrong sometimes. We get it so often that we are becoming a little tired of it in Scotland and, presumably, in Wales and possibly in some of the English regions.

A particular type of approach is required when broadcasting for a nation; we have very different requirements, in terms of how the everyday experiences of the Scottish people are reflected and reported, and how the news agenda is shaped. That is why the cuts will have a disproportionate impact on the people of Scotland. Let me detail what we will experience in Scotland. One in 10 jobs at BBC Scotland is to be lost, and there is to be a reduction of about 16% in the total budget. BBC Scotland’s news operation and support staff will be hit hardest by the cuts. Between 100 and 120 jobs will be lost at the Pacific Quay headquarters in Glasgow by 2016-17. It is feared that production operations, and online and Gaelic services, and perhaps sport, will be cut and hurt. BBC Scotland’s news operation is to lose 30 jobs; 20 jobs will be lost at Radio Scotland. Craft and production will shelve 35 jobs, and operations and support will lose another 30. The whole future of the BBC symphony orchestra is still under review. That is on top of efficiency savings that will cost some 20 jobs.

The future of BBC Scotland’s “Newsnight Scotland” programme—affectionately known as “Newsnicht” down here—is under threat. It is an important feature of the news output and agenda in Scotland. It gives us the only opportunity that we get in the evening to go over, debate, and comment on what has emerged during the day in the Scottish Parliament, elsewhere in Scotland, or down here. I enjoy turning up at 11 o’clock in the evening to contribute to “Newsnicht”.

The problem with “Newsnight Scotland” is that although there has been an assurance from the BBC that it will be maintained, BBC 2 will be making a transition to high-definition television, and there is not the capability or opportunity for opt-outs for the nations or the regions. If the BBC is listening to this, I hope that it will tell us what it will do to ensure that we continue to get “Newsnight Scotland”, because it is a critical feature to so many people who are interested in the daily political and cultural diet in Scotland.

The Broadcasting Entertainment Cinematograph and Theatre Union in Scotland says that the scale of the cuts means that it will be almost impossible to ensure that the job losses will happen through voluntary redundancies; compulsory redundancies are likely. It is so concerned about the scale of the cuts in Scotland that industrial action has been talked about, and might be a feature, unless we get the problem resolved.

People are taking the issue into their own hands in other ways, too. There is a fantastic campaign about “introducing…”, which is a little programme on Radio 1 on a Monday evening, from 10 pm to 12 midnight. There is “introducing…in Northern Ireland”, “introducing…in Wales”, and “introducing…in Scotland”. That is under threat by the BBC. They are great programmes; they give many new artists and bands a radio platform for the first time in their career. They are responsible for the early development of artists such as Paolo Nutini and Calvin Harris. Bands such as Biffy Clyro and Frightened Rabbit sent their first demos to “introducing…”, and they are now to go.

Such is the response to those little programmes on Radio 1 that a petition on the subject has already secured the signature of some 6,000 people—more, per head of population, than the petition to try to save Radio 6. That is how much concern there is about it in Scotland. That is the type of impact that there will be on local services. I am grateful to the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey), who will meet campaigners who are trying to save the programmes. I have not had a response from Mr Thompson; perhaps we could have a discussion about his coming to meet the campaigners, so that he can explain to them why that iconic little programme is to be shelved. The proposal is ridiculous, because it will not save any money; there will still be an “introducing…”; it will just broadcast across the United Kingdom. The individual identities of the programmes, and the opportunity for bands from Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland, will be lost. You know, Madam Deputy Speaker, how passionately I feel about the music industry and opportunity for young artists. I really hope that the BBC thinks again.

I have only a few minutes left and a number of issues to raise. The reason I am so annoyed by, and angry about, the BBC cuts in Scotland is that we do not even get our population share’s-worth back from the BBC. We in Scotland are actually subsidising the BBC; we give more through the licence fee than we get back in services. I am appalled that Scotland has to subsidise the BBC for the rest of the UK, just as we have to subsidise the rest of the UK when it comes to resourcing, and the balance of payments to the Treasury. That is a feature that we have had to put up with. If we have to subsidise the BBC’s television and radio services, let us do what we can to protect the services that we have.

We will need a properly resourced BBC, because there will be a few big issues coming Scotland’s way in the next few years. We will ask the people of Scotland to make one of the most substantial and important choices that the nation has ever had; they will have the opportunity to say yes to becoming a normal, self-governing nation, like those throughout the rest of the world.