Speeches by Irons.

“But when is a platform not a platform? If the algorithm editorialises what content is there, it is deciding what it is monetising. It is not just surfacing it; it is driving editorial.”

“I understand your cautiousness about a levy, but in this case, from the evidence we have heard, there is a value extraction from the public service content that goes on to these platforms. There is not an equal value exchange, because they have to put up a lot of the up-front costs to make this content. The value is ex…”

“That is a particularly vulnerable age, as you are going into that pre-teen—”

“Finally, if you had a magic wand and you could reverse the high fat and sugar content block on kids’ stuff—obviously, I do not advocate advertising that stuff to kids—maybe investing that revenue directly into kids’ content and lifestyle things would be a better way of—”

“You mentioned earlier that, if you are sponsored, you do not get much money because it is marked as “made for kids”. Please could you explain that categorisation and what happens to your content?”

“I am going to come to you, Maddie—because you are one of the first digital native brands, essentially; you have had to go cross-platform—to talk about how you make an income. I just want to understand a little bit more about this. We were talking about Bagpuss and all the brands that we remember, growing up. I don’t th…”

“Is there something more that could be said about how YouTube is monetising and compensating the BBC for its content? A unique ecosystem is being created. Your views are being driven by the BBC because it is giving you a platform, but then the content on the BBC is getting more views because it is being surfaced on YouT…”

“SeeSaw, or Project Kangaroo?”

“YouTube are trying to bring up their own standards; they are talking about their own policy. If the kitemark includes adhering to that policy, you would think the content would surface higher up in the algorithm than other things.”

“Is there some sort of kitemark or something that we could come up with for British content?”

“On that, Oli, you have talked about having a UK hub of content, a platform that brings it together, and you mentioned earlier your parenting choices and saying, “Go and watch iPlayer.” I do the same thing. I have said to my youngest son, “You have to watch iPlayer,” or even Netflix, which I feel is a better choice than…”

“Q This question is for Mr Guest. What legitimate reasons might a body have for not complying with the duty of candour? Can you think of any examples? Tom Guest: That is one of the tests that we have tried to look at when we have been looking at the draft provisions. First of all, there is not a freestanding defence to …”

“Q Thank you so much for your testimony and your courage and for fighting for so long. It is a privilege to be on this Committee and to hear from you—and I apologise for our train system. I understand it has been a long journey and it has taken a long time to get here, but my question is: what will success look like in …”

“Yes, but it was more about the public’s perception—how they feel about charities, including when things have gone wrong. With the investigation into the Captain Tom Foundation by the Charity Commission, even though things did go wrong, the Commission picked up that as you said, trust in charities remained stable throug…”

“We have touched already on the issue of trust, and how it manages to stay with the charitable sector. You have been in this sector for quite a while and have a lot of experience. Have you seen any changes to the public’s attitude to the charitable sector in that time?”

“Do you think that there are any areas in which the Commission can improve its public standing? Even though it has managed to stay quite stable, do you think that even greater work could improve it?”

“I want to come back to the memo and the leaking. Sir Robbie, were you aware that it was going to leak?”

“But there are issues here, aren’t there? We are looking now at how this all works and it has taken quite some time to get there. That is why I asked the question.”

“The Serota report, which you worked on, referred consistently to a “culture of defensiveness” at the BBC. Do you think that has changed since then?”

“Where do we go from here? What are the next steps for the board?”