Digital Britain

As a former BBC employee, I agree with my right hon. Friend. The BBC is the best broadcasting organisation in the world, and it is one of this country's institutions, along with the national health service, of which the British people are most proud—in all surveys, whenever they are asked. However, I sincerely suggest to my right hon. Friend that the BBC has a far stronger argument for retaining the licence fee in the long run if it is prepared to share it with organisations and to help us address the problem, which many Members from all parts of the House have raised, about the non-viability of any plurality in local and regional news coverage without that level of support. If my right hon. Friend is worried about a principle being broken, he could have made that argument three years ago, when we decided to use a portion of the licence fee to help fund digital switchover. The BBC did not fight a battle over that; it was a very sensible thing for us to do, and Members from all parties signed up to it. I do not accept my right hon. Friend's argument, but I am a great defender of the BBC. It is in the BBC's interests to share some of the licence fee and to see itself as an enabler, rather than to feel that it and only it should have exclusive recourse to the licence fee.