BBC Local Radio

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) on securing the debate, and I praise her compelling and persuasive arguments for keeping daytime output on BBC local radio. She talked about its good value in terms of the cost and the valued output. I would like to give a personal point of view on BBC local radio. I am lucky to have had two main careers. For 10 years, I was a Royal Air Force officer and then I completely changed tack. I decided that I wanted to be a journalist, did a postgraduate course in broadcast journalism and, like many of my fellow students, ended up working in BBC local radio. I did freelance shifts at BBC Radio Cleveland, which is now called BBC Radio Tees, and I also did some shifts at BBC Radio Leeds. I experienced at first hand the importance and the localness of BBC local radio. I was sent off early in the morning in the BBC local radio car, which was a little Fiesta with a wobbly aerial on top, and I would go to the place where something was happening and try to get people to talk about it. It felt so live, so immediate and so local. In the BBC local radio stations where I worked, there was a fantastic mixture of the old hands, the characters whom we have heard about, who had been there for many years, and the young, talented and ambitious people—I did not count myself as one—who have gone on to national broadcasting careers. I have only to think of people on BBC Radio 5 Live, which I listen to a lot now. Richard Bacon and Victoria Derbyshire both started in BBC local radio. I would not dictate to BBC bosses, although I am tempted to, how they should spend their money, but we have to consider the facts and figures. One of the most compelling sets of figures are the most recent listening figures, which show a weekly reach of 7.4 million people in England for BBC local radio. That is an increase of 700,000 listeners on the previous year. Those figures do not surprise me, because I know the value of BBC Radio Leeds in my Colne Valley constituency, on the edge of Huddersfield in West Yorkshire. I must talk about the passionate football coverage. This is an exciting time in West Yorkshire. Leeds United are going for promotion, as are my team, Huddersfield Town. Bradford City are struggling to stay in the league, but that also makes for compelling listening. Only on Saturday afternoon, I was out and about with my children, but I had BBC Radio Leeds on, and Paul ““Oggy”” Ogden was commentating on Huddersfield at Tranmere. He actually lost his voice as he screamed the commentary on the second goal, scored by Novak, at Tranmere, which was another vital win for Huddersfield Town. Ogden is a local lad—he lives down the road from me—and it is that passion that we get from BBC local radio. I must declare an interest: I am regularly on BBC local radio. Recently, I have been on it talking about Libya, Arts Council grants and maternity services in Huddersfield. There is a slot on Friday morning called ““Meet Your MP””. My hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) and I have recently been on it, as have other hon. Members, and I will be on it again in a couple of weeks' time, so local radio is good for local democracy as well.