BBC: Funding
Debate between Rebecca Long Bailey and Julia Lopez(5 days, 18 hours ago)
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Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford) (Ind)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I thank the right hon. Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) for securing this very important debate and for his thoughtful comments. I should make colleagues aware that I am a co-chair of the National Union of Journalists’ parliamentary group.
The BBC has been at the heart of the UK’s national life for over 100 years, and it is at the heart of my constituency of Salford. Its mission to inform, educate and entertain is underpinned by its funding model, which ensures that it is universal, independent and never at the whim of vested business interests or advertisers. It is there for the people of Britain, not for profit. It has a more important function than just entertaining us; it reaches out to every community in the UK and gives them a voice. It is an intrinsic part of political accountability, holding local and national politicians to account. It strives to provide content in the public interest, not just sensational headlines that offer the best clickbait. From educational resources produced by the BBC that are relied on in schools to fact-checking services that cut through misinformation, local radio and local democracy journalism, it is clear that the BBC’s impact on our communities is profound.
Julia Lopez
Does the hon. Lady agree that the BBC’s unique currency is trust, and that one of the challenges in recent years is that people have lost faith in the BBC as an organisation that produces impartial news? One challenge that I saw in the last Parliament was that the BBC was reducing local and regional journalism, even while protecting some very large salaries for its biggest stars. That is one of the reasons why people are losing faith that the BBC is investing in journalism in the way that it should and in the way that people expect from a public service broadcaster.