Speeches by Waugh.

“To Rupa’s point earlier, is there a way of making this film safe so that it can be seen by everyone and they can make their own minds up? From what I have seen, there is an 11-year-old, Zakaria, who helps paramedics at al-Aqsa hospital in this film, and does that rather than staying with his family because his family d…”

“Can we shift to local radio stations? You have had major cuts to local radio stations to make savings in recent years. Do you have an up-to-date assessment of the impact of that transition in local services from radio to online?”

“I want to press you a little further on that. The local democracy reporting service has been a success in many ways, and it fills the gaps where a lot of local newspapers have sadly died—I say this as someone who used to work on a local newspaper. You have filled the gap. However, there is an increasing demand for that…”

“Okay, but within that there will be some who do not feel safe, I imagine. You pointed to the Tim Westwood review, which was produced last week, at a cost of £3 million, I might point out—a long, in-depth review. One of the most worrying findings in that independent report was that those who were effectively on the wron…”

“Sure. Director general, I accept that you suggest that reporting processes have improved, but you did talk about that 30% who still perhaps do not feel safe working for the BBC, which you are rightly worried about.”

“Dr Shah, you started by saying that one thing you were not expecting when you took over as chair of the BBC was to have a year full of successive allegations about workplace misconduct by men. Where have you been for several years if that was not your expectation?”

“I get that.”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John. I thank the right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) for securing this important debate. Last month, I was with the Father of the House as part of a cross-party group of MPs who visited the occupied west bank and Israel. While in southern Israel,…”

“Have you done any modelling on what a progressive licence fee would look like in terms of keeping the same income for the BBC? Dr Shah, you mentioned that you are tempted by a more progressive model. Have you looked at how much more that would generate? I assume that you would charge wealthier people more at the higher…”

“I warmly welcome today’s announcement of £20 million in community regeneration partnership money for Rochdale. This money will further revitalise our town centre and the area around our train station, as well as expanding our brilliant Hopwood Hall college. Does this prove what can happen when we have a Labour Governme…”

“Along with several other Members, I visited Israel and the occupied west bank last week, but there was no access to Gaza for us. In fact, the closest we got to it was viewing the utter devastation of Gaza City through a telescope. Over the last year during the war, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at …”

“Colleagues will be aware that I am a former journalist. Old habits die hard, so I have some breaking news to announce: Rochdale has this morning been announced as Greater Manchester’s town of culture for 2025-26. Starting from April, the year of events will celebrate our international reputation as the birthplace of co…”

“You are then putting a huge onus on two or three amateurs who moderate each of those groups, which have tens of thousands of members. You are putting the onus on those individual admins as gatekeepers to see whether or not that content is or is not libellous or harmful.”

“I know that companies like Google often resort to tech jargon, but I point out that you referred earlier in the context of the Southport attacks to your own post mortem. I think that is a singularly inappropriate use of the word, given the actual, real-life post mortems that took place after that attack.”

“But at the moment, you cannot guarantee that Google does not profit from all that hate?”

“Is it not the case that Google, as it stands, cannot guarantee that it does not profit from such websites, from misinformation or from hate speech? You simply cannot say that, can you?”

“Even if it is just two or three dollars on a sickening child abuse website, that is appalling.”

“You have mentioned that it is very damaging to the advertisers, but ultimately it is very damaging to Google, isn’t it?”

“Mr Law, shortly after the Southport attack TikTok’s Others Searched For bar spread misleading content, such as an incorrect name for the attacker. Why did that happen? What have you done to make sure that does not happen again?”

“A lot of advertisers still think it is too opaque and that there is not enough transparency. Are you taking any fresh steps to reassure them?”