Tom Blenkinsop
Main Page: Tom Blenkinsop (Labour - Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland)
Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)
I thank the long list of Members who have put pressure on a tight time scale to enable us to debate this important issue. In my brief speech I shall highlight, as others have already, the important and valuable local identity and distinctiveness—a phrase to which I shall return time and again—of the BBC’s output. I shall focus on local radio, but I shall also say something about the importance of local investigative journalism on television.
As part of its Delivering Quality First project, BBC local radio is expected to find savings of some 12%, but for some reason BBC Tees, my local radio station, is expected to find savings of 20%. There is no transparency and no rationale for the disproportionate cuts that my local station is expected to absorb, which will pose a severe risk to its link with its listeners and the local identity and distinctiveness that are rightly cherished.
Delivering Quality First states that the BBC Trust wants to
“protect the five editorial priorities that the Director-General has identified: news; children’s programming; UK drama and comedy; knowledge programming; and the coverage of events of national importance.”
I certainly agree that the corporation should concentrate its licence fee expenditure on the output that most people expect from it, but I also believe that local radio is the section of its output that seems most personal to, and most owned by, the licence fee payer. Many people have diligently paid their licence fees year in year out, and do not use other parts of the BBC’s service such as iPlayer or BBC 3. Local listeners feel very close to local presenters, and I think that BBC radio is the best broadcasting example of localism in action. That is certainly true of BBC Tees, as is reflected in its record listening figures and the fact that its audience satisfaction rates are at an all-time high.
I am not sure that the BBC’s actions comply with the trust’s wish to ensure that it
“continues to improve the extent to which its services resonate with all the UK’s nations, regions and communities.”
If anything, its proposals for BBC Tees drive a coach and horses through the special and distinctive service offered by local radio. I see that my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) is present. I must point out, with the greatest respect to my hon. Friend, that communities in Teesside often have little in common with communities in Tyneside and Wearside. I predict that if the cuts go ahead and programming is shared between my area and, for instance, his, the listener engagement and interaction that constitute an important part of any local radio station’s activity will cease.
The corporation has stated that staple programmes such as the breakfast show and the early evening drive-time show will be protected. That seems to suggest that teams, indeed armies, of people are allocated to specific local radio programmes, which is certainly not the case at BBC Tees. I am struck by the amount of multitasking that is involved in producing, presenting, and investigative journalism. It is not unusual for Ali Brownlee, for example, to present a football show on, say, a Tuesday evening, reporting on what is invariably a defeat for Middlesbrough, and then to serve as anchor for the breakfast show a few hours later.
Tom Blenkinsop
I second my hon. Friend’s support for Ali Brownlee. I also pay tribute to Mark Drury, another member of the BBC Tees sport team. However, given the record-setting losing form of Hartlepool this season, I should have thought that my hon. Friend would be much more appreciative of the station’s coverage of Middlesbrough and, indeed, Guisborough Town football clubs.
May I now strike a serious note, and ask my hon. Friend whether it is not rather dangerous that northern BBC stations such as BBC Tees are being subjected to cuts of more than 20% while their southern counterparts are being subjected to cuts in single figures?
Mr Wright
I admire and respect my hon. Friend’s championing of Guisborough Town, of which I understand he is the president, but I should prefer to draw a veil over Hartlepool United’s appalling home record of seven defeats in a row. I think it best not to talk about that.
I agree with my hon. Friend’s point about access to local sport provision. My only criticism of BBC Tees is that it gives far too much coverage to a local non-league team called Darlington.
I am not sure that such practices as the sharing of afternoon or evening shows will ensure that those 20% savings are achieved. The excellent John Foster show, which is broadcast between 2pm and 4pm, benefits from the resources of a presenter and a producer who doubles up as a broadcast assistant. There is hardly a huge amount of fat or inefficiency in BBC local radio, at least in my area. I fear that the loss of jobs and expertise will inevitably result in a deterioration in programme quality, not through the fault of BBC staff, but simply because they will have too much to do. Audiences will decline because they will no longer experience that sense of local identity and distinctiveness.