Speeches by Nandy.

“This is something that I discussed with BBC staff. As well as the meetings that I have had with Bect and NUJ reps, I had discussion groups with BBC staff in different parts of the UK, asking them specifically how we can help. I got a very clear message that there is a challenge getting into the industry, and we will co…”

“When I went to the annual TV conference last September, that was something I urged the public service broadcasters to do. They all face challenges. They still produce top-quality content, whether it is children’s regional news or distinctly British content that very few other providers are able to match, but the advert…”

“I think that would be an either/or. For example, we could add an additional amount on to a streaming subscription, or we could say to people who have a streaming subscription, “You need to pay the licence fee.””

“You could still have exemptions, yes, but one of the things that that would catch is that you would have an older person who lives alone and is on a very low income paying the same as a family where you have two very high-income earners and several people watching. I do not think it is the same. Essentially, the proble…”

“I guess that part of the confusion about this is that different people in this debate seem to use the same terms to mean different things. We have ruled out three things: a levy on streaming companies, which I talked about; general taxation, which I think we are clear about; and a new tax on households. That would esse…”

“We are still discussing this with the BBC and others, but I will share with you my initial thinking on this. It is right that the Government continue to appoint the chair, because there has to be some level of accountability through Government back to Parliament. It is not lost on me that, in the many crises that the B…”

“As I said, there are two main places where that has to happen. First, if we are changing the system through the charter and asking people who were not previously in scope of the licence fee to come within it, it is our responsibility to go out, make the case and win the argument. The second group of people who are resp…”

“It is perfectly possible for a future Government to come in and cause enormous vandalism to the BBC, but that is the nature of democracy, frankly. It is not for this Government to determine what a future Government or Parliament decide.”

“I think the director general put it very well when he talked about the hammer blow that the BBC’s moving into advertising would strike to other public service broadcasters, and I share that view—the words “hammer blow” are mine, not his, but that is my view. Advertising revenues are falling. Our public service broadcas…”

“I won’t relitigate the issues around Gaza, Glastonbury, the “Panorama” documentary or the BAFTAs, except to say that it was not a particularly comfortable position for me to be in as Secretary of State: to have to challenge the BBC very publicly on some of those things. I would not have done it if they had not, as a le…”

“We have made no decisions about how we are going to fund the BBC, apart from ruling out those options. I think I did reference on Radio 4 the fact that we had ruled out some options, but I am not sure I was explicit about what they were. But the position that we outlined in the Green Paper remains. We have ruled out th…”

“Of course it would be, but that is for future Governments and Parliaments to decide. As a Government, we are certainly not proposing to do that. Damian, you have to recognise that this is an historical anomaly. The BBC came into existence 100 years ago to ensure that Britain was at the forefront of a new form of techno…”

“Except that you get different households, don’t you? You then would be in a situation where—”

“I have no role in that process at all. It is for the chair of the board to select and for the board itself to approve. The chair is obviously free to discuss it with me, and we had conversations over the course of that appointment, but I appoint the chair of the board; I do not have any role in appointing the director …”

“I am not sure that it does. What we do not want to do is to charge households more for the BBC across the board, through what you could call a new tax or levy. We do not want to do that—we ruled that out specifically—because we are in a cost of living crisis and we think that would be too difficult. The difference betw…”

“On the first question about the concessions, I want to be crystal clear with the Committee that we are not going to remove the over-75s concession. That is currently funded by the BBC. We do not have an alternative way of paying for that from Government, so that responsibility will remain with the BBC, to be found out …”

“Yes, I have recently met the Bectu and NUJ leaderships, as well as their workplace reps across the BBC. I am concerned about the cuts that were announced, and I have raised those concerns directly with the director general—although, admittedly, they were made and decided before he took up his post. I find it somewhat s…”

“The hon. Gentleman makes a similar point to the Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee. He is right to push us to think about how we can very rapidly adapt to this very rapidly changing landscape. There is a question for the whole House as to how much oversight the House will want to have and how much scrutiny…”

“As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton earlier, during the Southport riots, there was an increase in people going to the BBC and the Liverpool Echo to get information; we saw something similar after the Manchester Arena bombing, when people sought out the Manchester Evening News as a truste…”

“That is partly what this TV Green Paper is designed to address, although, as I said earlier, it is one part of the whole. Getting regulation online right, getting the enforcement of that regulation right, and being far more proactive through Ofcom in enforcing the existing law, are essential parts of this, as well as t…”