Speeches by Nandy.

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

“I have discussed this with some of the staff at the BBC. It is not just the challenge around rights; there are also challenges around the BBC’s current archiving system, which needs to be upgraded, and even around just finding the right footage and the right programming. When you have the funding challenges that the BB…”

“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.””

“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…”

“We are modelling that at the moment. We do not have certainty about any of these options at the moment.”

“There are a couple of things on this. First, I was interested in the discussion that you had with the BBC about the role of iPlayer and whether it can be broadened to reflect more public service media content. We have already seen a really positive agreement struck with S4C to ensure that more of its content is seen on…”

“I followed the discussion about “Scooby-Doo”—I think it was Natasha who started it—which took up a fair chunk of the Committee’s evidence session. There are fair challenges to the BBC about when it should be competing with commercial broadcasters and whether that is a good use of public money. Instinctively, I am where…”

“We are looking at a whole range of options at the moment. The director general’s view is that a household levy is much simpler, and it is much simpler, but it is also potentially more regressive. At a time when the cost of living is biting for a lot of people, I think a new tax on households is too challenging to ask m…”

“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 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…”

“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…”

“Because I was asked about it several months ago, and I was concerned that not to be clear about this would deter investment into the UK. Something quite magical is happening in the UK at the moment. Some of the biggest streaming companies in the world are here, investing in very large numbers not just in London and the…”

“Yes. The streamers can speak for themselves, but I think they would be reluctant to see additional charges on their consumers and additional charges on their businesses.”

“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…”

“Yes, I do, but I think it is a challenge. It is a fair challenge to the Government, and it is also a challenge for us to meet this moment, but I have been really clear that we are determined to do it. The BBC is in a challenging position at the moment. I watched your session with the chair and the new director general …”

“The Treasury and I have had a number of discussions about this, some of which have been very pleasant and some of which have been slightly more robust. I think there is a shared belief across Government, including the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, that the BBC is one of the most important institutions in this coun…”

“We very deliberately took an approach in the Green Paper that was as open as possible and that closed off as few options as possible. I believe that the BBC belongs to the whole nation, and people have to feel that level of ownership. We have just touched on the falling numbers of people who are paying the licence fee.…”

“That is one of the options under consideration. You will remember that we committed in the Green Paper to retaining a reformed licence fee. We ruled out a new tax on households, because of the cost of living crisis; we ruled out general taxation, because of the risk of political interference; and we said that there wou…”

“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…”

“No. You obviously have commercial parts of the BBC that operate in a different way. I share with the BBC leadership a caution around extending advertising across the board to BBC programming, for all the reasons I gave and because of the impact on the ecosystem. I talked earlier about the need to bring the public with …”