Speeches by Hinds.

“Finally, to Colin, do you think there is consumer appetite in the free category world for a halfway house? Rather than the BBC having its own content on iPlayer, ITV having ITVX and Channel 4 having All 4 and so on, you could have, either instead of or possibly as well as those separate platforms, a common PSB-type pla…”

“If you can get everything over here, and some things over there, and you are looking for something, what is the motivation to start over here rather than over there? By the way, in the long term it may not be YouTube—there could be a thing on your telly whereby you can just access anybody’s programme on absolutely anyt…”

“I am showing my age. Hands up who remembers the BBC Micro.”

“So you are saying a permanent charter is not temporary.”

“Permanent is continuing—thank you. Hannah, can I come back to what you said in response to Cameron’s questions? You said something about how—I cannot remember the exact phrase—the licence fee should cover not just the BBC. You said something about how critical infrastructure underpins information and democracy, and so …”

“If you are. Do we have evidence that audiences are being acquired on YouTube and then converting to iPlayer?”

“Are you talking about the BBC Micro?”

“You are obviously not talking about the BBC Micro, so what do you mean? Give us a couple of “for instances” of these emerging technologies.”

“Forgive me. All those are important, but none of them is a tangible thing, like an amount of money, a physical location, the scope of which channels you appear on, the media that you cover or the geographical extent of what you do.”

“I wanted to follow up on this. We keep hearing about a permanent charter—it’s the phrase of the year. Everybody says all the things that you have just said. You were talking about a sword of Damocles moment and saying you shouldn’t have that. Of course, you would still need to review performance, as Colin said, and of …”

“I am asking a simpler question. I am trying to understand if, in a world where on Netflix and on other platforms there is plenty of BBC content, and on YouTube there is more and more BBC content, why would iPlayer survive? Sorry—I have just put in very straightforward terms.”

“Hannah, this question is to you again. We have a marketplace now where you have the BBC and a few other public service broadcasters, who all have their own content on a platform—in the BBC’s case, iPlayer. Then you have another set of players who host their own content and some other content, including content from the…”

“All those things—the mission and so on—are very important, but in terms of IRL, crunchy stuff, what is permanent?”

“I welcome this morning’s announcement. The platforms are not now off the hook: the Online Safety Act 2023 operates until the age of 18, which is the age to which the Children Act 1989 requires protection to be in place. On the announcement, what is the net effect of exempting messaging services but blocking communicati…”

“Further to the Minister’s answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), will he take the opportunity of the new NPPF to make it absolutely clear that if someone wilfully ignores—not inadvertently, but deliberately and wilfully—the need for planning consent, they will not subsequently…”

“”

“It is a pleasure to see you in the chair, Dr Murrison. I congratulate and thank my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston (Neil O’Brien) for securing this important debate. It was also a pleasure to hear from everybody’s honourable friend, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). It is not the fi…”

“Half a billion pounds?”

“”

“Very briefly, Iain, I wanted to come back to what you were saying about iPlayer and whether it should host other PSB content. You rightly said, “Why would the BBC host competitors’ content?” That is probably fair. You could also say, “Why would competitors want to be effectively subsumed into the BBC’s platform?” We ha…”