Channel 4 Relocation

Richard Burden Excerpts

Thursday 10th May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) on securing this Backbench debate.

When launching “4 All the UK”, the chief executive of Channel 4, Alex Mahon, said:

“As a public service broadcaster with diversity in its DNA, Channel 4 has a unique ability to reflect our society. This is a significant and exciting moment of change for Channel 4 as we evolve to ensure we are best suited to serve all of the UK. With this new strategy we will go even further to make sure that people right across the UK are represented on screen and in the make up of our own organisation–and it will also build on what we already do to support creative businesses, jobs and economies in the nations and regions.”

Today we have an opportunity to debate what that means and how Channel 4 can achieve that objective in practice with three new creative hubs and a new national headquarters outside London.

As we have already heard, the criteria that Channel 4 has set for its new national headquarters are that the new location should have a working population of at least 200,000, travel time to London of up to three hours, and a high level of physical and digital connectivity and infrastructure. In addition, Channel 4 has listed five considerations that it has identified to support the evaluation of submissions that will be undertaken by Channel 4 and its advisers. The considerations are economic, demographic, diversity and environmental factors; the existing availability of talent and a future pipeline, including educational links; local connectivity and broader infrastructure; ease and speed of travel for Channel 4 employees and partners between the different creative hubs; and effectiveness and efficiency of available office space. I want to argue today that the west midlands should be the choice for Channel 4 to meet those criteria.

Why do I say that? First, as a region we easily meet the physical criteria set by Channel 4. We have a population of 2.8 million. Birmingham alone has a population of 1.5 million people. Our travel time to London by rail is 85 minutes and will be even less after the arrival of HS2. Some 86% of properties in Birmingham achieved ultrafast broadband in 2017. On the availability of office space and other physical facilities, the west midlands has those in abundance at a fraction of the price in London.

To give just two examples from Birmingham, Digbeth has established a real reputation as a creative quarter close to the HS2 station that will be coming and is close to the BBC’s base at the Mailbox. Longbridge in my own constituency is undergoing a massive transformation. It has direct rail connections to central Birmingham and beyond. It is close to the M42 and the M5 motorways and is just down the road from the BBC’s drama village in Birmingham, Selly Oak. Birmingham has many studio and production spaces at various locations, as does Coventry, a city that has already shown its potential by winning the accolade of the UK’s city of culture 2021. It, too, has a great deal to offer Channel 4.

Those are all reasons why in many ways the west midlands would be the least disruptive option for Channel 4. But if Channel 4’s vision, as set out by Alex Mahon, is to be realised, it has to be more than about physical location. It has to be about people. That is where the west midlands is the most disruptive choice for Channel 4, and that means it is also the right choice if Channel 4 is serious about diversity being in its DNA, because diversity is in the DNA of my region, the west midlands.

Research from five years ago showed that there were people from 187 different national backgrounds living in Birmingham. We have 108 languages spoken in the city. We are the youngest city in Europe, with nearly 45% of our people under the age of 25. Already, the west midlands is showing itself to be a pioneer in the disruptive technologies that are transforming what media mean in the modern age. We are home to the gaming industry. We are pioneering new content, new platforms and new forms of production. That is why the BBC has chosen Birmingham as the home for BBC Three; it is trying to tap into a generation that knows that access to media content as and when they want it is digital, and for whom the future is online. All that is connected to the needs of a young and diverse population.

If Channel 4 wants to reflect the United Kingdom of tomorrow, it should look at the west midlands today and get closer to it. Our young and diverse population is a massive reservoir of talent on which Channel 4 can build. Indeed, one of Channel 4’s criteria for its new headquarters talks about needing not only a reservoir of existing talent, but a pipeline of talent for the future. Eight universities across our region are a part of that pipeline. Channel 4 itself can be a part of building that pipeline by the choices it makes. It has the opportunity not only to harness talent, but to help to transform lives and make social mobility a reality for people—whether it be minority ethnic communities or white working class young people growing up on the outskirts of our cities—to whom it seems as though opportunities are always there for someone else,

The heritage of the west midlands has always been about making things, and it still is. Innovation has always been at the heart of successful manufacturing, and our region is now the meeting point of the industrial makers, storytellers and artistic innovators. All those things have been brought closer together in the west midlands. By choosing the west midlands for its new headquarters, Channel 4 can get closer to it, too.

[Sir Graham Brady (in the Chair)]

A number of Members wish to participate and I hope to avoid a time limit. If Members keep to about five minutes per contribution, I might be able to avoid that.