Tom Pursglove
Main Page: Tom Pursglove (Conservative - Corby)
Mr Whittingdale
My hon. Friend is absolutely right; there is a huge gulf between expenditure on BBC local radio—I know from my county of Essex that in the local radio station the paint is sometimes peeling off the walls and it can barely afford a coffee maker—and some of the very substantial remuneration packages enjoyed by certain individuals. Although they may be extremely talented, that is one of the reasons the Government felt that the public have a right to know who they are.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
I was very interested to hear what the Secretary of State had to say about diversifying the BBC’s revenue streams, particularly by providing new services and reaching viewers outside this country. When can we expect to hear more on that?
Mr Whittingdale
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw attention to that. At the moment, as he will be aware, it is not legally possible to access BBC content through the iPlayer from overseas. We have two objectives in changing that. First, we believe very strongly that UK citizens who have already paid the licence fee should be able to enjoy content even if they happen to be on holiday on the continent of Europe. That is the portability requirement that we are looking to the BBC to put in place, as indeed we will ask other broadcasters to do. Secondly, there is a substantial amount of piracy going on, with people who have not paid the licence fee using virtual private networks or getting around the geo-block in order to access BBC content. That demonstrates that there is a demand for that content, so we are keen to encourage the BBC to make it available legally and ask people to pay for it.