Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord McNally for this debate, and also for his role in the Communications Act 2003, when he and others, notably Lord Puttnam, paved the way for the last 20 years. I declare an interest; I was a TV journalist and an executive working for the PSBs—at the BBC, alongside the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, at ITV and at Channel 4. How lucky I was. How lucky the...
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury: I am a third party.
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury: My Lords, I will pick up what the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, just mentioned. One of the most wonderful things that the BBC World Service has provided is “Dars”, aimed at Afghan children aged between 11 and 14 and hosted by a female journalist from the BBC who was evacuated from Afghanistan. It uses BBC Bitesize to supply lessons for those whose education was stopped. The UN...
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury: To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the closure of longwave radio on 31 March on people living in rural areas.
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury: My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Bragg—I hope I can say my noble friend Lord Bragg—for this debate. I draw attention to my interests as declared in the register. All who have spoken, led so eloquently by the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, have expressed a clear sense of the true value of arts and culture, and of the creative industries they support. What is needed, as the noble...
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury: My Lords, we on these Benches have long proposed that the funding process should be taken out of government control and handed to a genuinely independent body. As the noble Lord, Lord Morse, said, does not the Government’s announcement on 7 December, which would deprive the BBC of £400 million over the next four years—and which came, as I understand it, as a surprise to the BBC—make...
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury: My Lords, in 2022, the Government made a firm commitment that, after two years of freezing the licence fee, they would allow it to rise for the following four years according to the rate of inflation. The BBC kept its side of the bargain, despite having to make heavy cuts. The Statement repeated here today makes it clear that the Government have not. The Government’s excuse—that their...
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury: To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact that the United Kingdom’s visa and immigration policies have on the UK creative and cultural industries.
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury: I thank the Minister for his response. As I think he was trying to say, and as the Chancellor recently said, the creative industries are one of the UK’s five high-growth priority sectors. Skills and talent from a global pool are essential to its success, but it is experiencing widespread workforce shortages from both here and abroad—exacerbated, of course, by Brexit. Does the Minister...
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury: My Lords, I also welcome this report. We are an island with a wealth of creative talents, which have shaped and illuminated our history and national identity, and our modern and wonderfully diverse United Kingdom, and we must remain a brilliantly creative nation. However, we cannot be complacent, because the sector is fragile; it needs attention and nurturing to continue to flourish. This is...
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury: To ask His Majesty's Government when they plan to announce a third pathway under the Afghan Citizen Resettlement Scheme; and what that pathway will include both (1) journalists still resident in Afghanistan, and (2) exiled Afghan journalists in Pakistan and Iran, at risk of persecution for their professional activities.
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury: To ask His Majesty's Government how many endangered Afghan journalists have been resettled in UK to date under (1) the Afghan Citizen Resettlement Scheme, or (2) the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy, since the withdrawal of British military forces from that country.
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury: To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the numbers of Afghan journalists currently at risk of persecution in (1) Afghanistan, (2) Pakistan, and (3) Iran, for their professional activities.
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury: To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of social mobility in the creative and cultural sector, and what steps they are taking to improve it.
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury: I thank the Minister for his reply. A recent report looking into social mobility in the creative sector since the 1970s found that there has been shockingly little progress. Last week, in her first speech in the role, the DCMS Secretary of State said about the creative industries that “we need to work together to give people the right skills and awareness from a young age”. Does the...
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury: My Lords, from these Benches, I thank the Minister for the Statement. We are all horrified that Iran International felt the need to close its offices in the UK, and I look forward to hearing his answers to the questions of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker. For many years, I worked as a journalist. Many of my closest friends are journalists. The closest is no longer with us: Marie Colvin—brave,...
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury: My Lords, I too welcome the return of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson. He is like the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson: he goes and he comes back, and it is excellent that we have both of them back on the Front Bench. Given that the Government’s approach has supposedly been driven by their concern for the sustainability of Channel 4, can the Minister tell us what plans the Government have to act...
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury: I thank my noble friend Lord Foster for his characteristically excellent opening speech to this debate and welcome the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, back. Keeping up the “Doctor Who” theme, I see him as the David Tennant of the House of Lords Benches. The origin of the word “broadcast” was “to sow seed widely”, and that is what our PSBs have done, beginning with the BBC and its...