Sammy Wilson
Main Page: Sammy Wilson (Democratic Unionist Party - East Antrim)
Mr Whittingdale
My hon. Friend makes an important point. One of the BBC’s great assets is its extraordinary history of great programming, which still has value. I know that the BBC is looking into how it might make that available through the BBC archive online, and that is certainly something that has the potential to provide it with an additional source of revenue.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
So long as the BBC is guaranteed a source of income, whether through the licence fee or the proposed household levy, there will be no incentive for it to address its well-documented, massively wasteful expenditure or the issue of bias—whether it is left-wing bias, pro-EU bias or man-made climate change bias—which so annoys millions of people across the United Kingdom. Does the Secretary of State not agree that the only way of giving the BBC an incentive to address those issues is to give people the choice of whether they wish to pay for it or not?
Mr Whittingdale
The hon. Gentleman makes the case for moving towards a subscription model, which, as I have said, in the longer term is an option that should be considered. He will have the opportunity to make that case again in the course of charter renewal. He raised a separate issue about BBC bias. At the moment, complaints about bias are examined by the BBC Trust. Whether that is the right place and whether it should be done externally by an independent are questions that we will want to consider as part of charter renewal.