BBC Funding

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

Working people listening to the Secretary of State’s pitiful comments on support with the cost of living are not fooled. They see exactly what this is. We have had weak, mealy-mouthed platitudes that will make no material difference to their lives.

Thirty-three pence a month per household is what I understand to be the difference between today’s announcement and the deal the Government had already agreed to. That is not nothing, but does the Secretary of State really think that it will even touch the sides? Are she and the Prime Minister so out of touch that they think that will get people through the Tory cost of living crisis? They crashed the economy, sending mortgages and rents sky-high. They hiked taxes on working people. They have presided over 13 years of stagnant economic growth.

What is the cost of the Government’s announcement? The creative industries are one of the best sources of economic growth and quality jobs in the country, and the BBC is the biggest commissioner of work in the creative industries. Has the Secretary of State worked out the impact that choosing that particular inflationary measure will have on economic growth and jobs? Has she worked out the effect that it will have on the other creative businesses the BBC commissions and their supply chains? Has she worked out what difference it will make to the BBC’s crucial role as our soft-power superpower, promoting brand Britain around the world? Has she worked out what the impact will be on democracy, given the BBC’s role as the most trusted source of news anywhere in the world?

When it comes to the funding model review, I understand that the terms of reference are overtly focused on the commercial side of the BBC. I did not hear a word about the public service element of the BBC. The Secretary of State mentions an expert panel. Can she tell us who will be on it? What timetable will it work to? Where will the public service element feature in the Government’s terms of reference? Have the Government actually given up on the BBC as a public service broadcaster?

I am afraid to say that it all sounds like yet more broken Tory promises. This is no way to treat one of our great institutions, and no way to treat the millions of people who work at the BBC, their partners and the people around the country who value them so much. Let us not forget that this comes on the back of a two- year freeze that has already had a damaging impact.

This is just the latest sign of chaotic decision making by a flailing, failing Government led by a Prime Minister who is too weak to control his own party and by Ministers who make working people pay for their mistakes. It is a sign of the disdain that the Tories have for the role that there have been 12 Secretaries of State for DCMS in 13 years; it tops the reshuffle charts, bringing instability to a Department for economic growth.

Our great institutions, our public services and working people just cannot take any more of this chaos. Labour backs the BBC. We will grow our creative industries and spread the benefits across the country. A general election cannot come a moment too soon.

[Lucy Frazer]

I think the shadow Secretary of State needs to live in the real world like the rest of us. People are struggling with the cost of living, and the Government have continued to take steps to protect them. She needs to live in the real world, in which the media landscape is changing. It is totally inappropriate just to sit still and do nothing, because that would destroy the BBC and make it unable to live in this changing world, and it would do nothing to protect licence fee payers. If that is the Labour plan, I do not want see it.

The shadow Secretary of State talked about what we are doing for working families. She knows that this is not the only step that we are taking. We have spent £97 billion supporting families across the country, saving a typical family about £3,300, and cut inflation by half.

The hon. Lady mentions the creative industries. She might have forgotten that since I have been in this role, I have used tax reliefs to support the creative industries. The Labour party voted against that. In fact, the Conservative party has brought in tax reliefs for the creative industries year on year for 10 years, and they were voted down by the Opposition on every single occasion.

Labour does not support the creative industries. The shadow Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson), said that we should be spending more money in schools not on the creative industries, but on others. Under this Conservative Government, the creative industries are growing at double the rate of the rest of the economy and employing 2 million people.

I will happily update the shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport on other details relating to the panel. The timetable is that the report will come into play, to me, by the autumn of 2024.