Speeches by Nandy.

“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…”

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

“The BBC has done some really good research on this. There are certain audiences that it does not reach in particularly large numbers, who do not see themselves reflected in that story—most obviously, young people. By that, I do not mean that young people do not watch or engage with the BBC: I have an 11-year-old who wa…”

“There are rightly different views in our democracy. The new leadership team is very keen to do more to reach and to make good programming for young people, and to work with other public service broadcasters, such as Channel 4 and Channel 5, which already do this very well. For me, the most stark challenge for us in thi…”

“I have long thought that it should shift north. That would be one of those moments where the BBC showed itself to be the first mover, a bit like the work that was done at MediaCity all those years ago, which really has been a catalyst for a completely different broadcasting ecosystem, with opportunities opening up for …”

“I would be very keen to see the centre of gravity in the BBC move to MediaCity, and I cannot really see any compelling reason why not.”

“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.…”

“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…”

“We have ongoing conversations with the Treasury about tax incentives. In fairness to my colleagues in the Treasury, they are very alive to the tax credits regime; we were one of the first, if not the first in the world, to implement that. It is what has helped both the film and TV industry to flourish. That is why we m…”

“I think the director general talked quite a bit about this, given his background—about the need for the BBC to innovate to be able to reach wider audiences and collaborate more. I think he talked about developing the iPlayer so that it can host more public service content. I have talked already about the use of the arc…”

“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…”

“Culture change takes time. I think that it has shown leadership over recent months with the efforts made around workplace culture, supporting whistleblowers, zero tolerance and taking action in a number of cases. Based on my observations, there is still a challenge in two areas. One is around the commissioning of third…”

“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…”

“It is too early to say. I think that the appointment of a deputy director general is a positive step forward and that the leadership is very sincere about getting this right. The incoming director general told me, and I think he said this publicly, that it was his absolute first and No.1 priority, and I believe him in …”

“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 …”

“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 …”

“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…”

“This is something that the new director general is taking incredibly seriously. I think he hinted, when he came in front of the Select Committee, that he thinks this is an area of weakness that needs to be addressed, and I would support him in that. You will have seen that, as part of the charter process, we are keen t…”

“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…”

“As a Government, we have been looking at how we can open up access to good-quality newspapers from different political standpoints—of which we have many in this country—to young people from a much earlier age in order to encourage more young people.”