UK Parliament / Open data

BBC Local Radio

Proceeding contribution from Lord Austin of Dudley (Labour) in the House of Commons on Tuesday, 5 April 2011. It occurred during Adjournment debate on BBC Local Radio.
The hon. Lady makes an important point, and I will expand on it in a minute. The BBC also has a duty to provide a range of outputs, including original content, to meet the needs of the different nations, regions and communities of the UK. As the hon. Lady has said, the BBC's English local radio network also represents value for money. The BBC's total spend in 2012 was £3.5 billion, of which BBC local radio in England spent £137 million. The service costs just 3.2p per user per hour, which is less than half the cost of BBC Radio Scotland and a fraction of the cost of the Welsh language service. As the hon. Lady has said, the BBC makes an important contribution to the economies and cultural lives of the English regions with networked programming outside London supporting 7,000 jobs in Glasgow, Cardiff and Bristol, which is worth around £200 million to the economy of those areas each year. The BBC's economic impact study shows that every pound of licence fee generates £2 of value to the licence fee payer. I am worried that the money that is spent on production would be jeopardised if the local and regional radio network was undermined as part of the current discussions. The point about cost and benefits is really important. The benefit of the licence fee should be felt by all licence fee payers and all citizens in all parts of the UK. This morning, Government and Opposition Members have celebrated the BBC's work and the important role that it plays at a local and regional level. None the less, many of us are concerned about what impact the savings will have on its work. Of course, savings and efficiencies should be made where it is possible—no one disagrees with that. Like all broadcasters and other media organisations, the BBC constantly has to adapt and modernise its service to reflect the introduction of digital services and other technological advances. Many hon. Members are worried that the scale of the savings that the BBC has been asked to find will be difficult to achieve without compromising the important functions that have been discussed this morning. I have a number of questions for the Minister about the impact that the cuts will have on the BBC over the next four years. How confident is the Minister that the duties set out in the royal charter will not be jeopardised by the savings that have to be made? How does he think that the savings should be shared between national, regional and local services? What criteria should be applied to where the cuts will fall? How does he think that those criteria might affect programme quality? What guarantees has he sought about the impact on the diversity and quality of regional and local services? Based on his discussions with BBC management, can he tell us how many jobs might be jeopardised by the process? To what extent does he believe that the users of the BBC's local and regional services should be consulted about any changes? I will finish there in the hope that the Minister will address some of those questions in his response.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
526 c217-8WH 
Session
2010-12
Chamber / Committee
Westminster Hall
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