BBC Local Radio

That is a fair point. BBC local radio is still the only truly speech-based radio service. The hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge made a point about local sport in her speech. BBC local radio covers local football and cricket matches, and some of the best cricket commentary in the country is provided by John Warnett from BBC Radio Kent, who comments on Kent's county matches at the St Lawrence cricket ground. He would be an asset to ““Test Match Special””—I have suggested that to him, although it would be a great loss to Radio Kent if he were to move to network radio. Those local broadcasters know their local teams, sports and adversaries, and they cover and present a word picture in a way that national broadcasting simply cannot. We will not get that service anywhere else. I am huge admirer of Radio Five Live and think it is a great service that was an enormous and brave innovation. The management of the BBC at the time—I doubt whether today's management would have had the balls to do it—created something very special, and I would not take one iota away from it. However, it is not the local radio service that BBC local radio provides, not only—this is where people get so dismissive—at breakfast time or ““drive time””, but throughout the day. Local radio continues through the phone-ins and the local gossip. It is parish pump radio—coffee shop tittle-tattle for the county, and it matters to people. My final point is that the BBC wastes an enormous amount of money. I have been a BBC producer and director; I have done the job and I know where the money goes. Last August, I was on holiday in France and due to return to the United Kingdom the following day, which was a Saturday. The BBC rang me and asked whether, after sending a taxi for me to Kent, they could fly me from Heathrow to Belfast to spend a night in a hotel, and five minutes on a sofa on Sunday morning to talk about a cat in a dustbin. I worked out that the cost of that exercise would have been over £1,000 for five minutes of broadcasting. I watched the programme—I did not take part—and at the end a screen credit read ““BBC Belfast.”” That was the only thing in the entire programme that had any relevance to Northern Ireland whatever. The programme could have been made just as easily in Hong Kong, and probably more cheaply. The BBC has wasted £1 billion creating MediaCityUK, as it is called, in Salford Quays, and I would like to know why. What is the point of transferring the ““Blue Peter”” garden from White City to a rooftop in Salford?