The next item on the agenda is the debate by individual Members under Standing Order 11.21, the BBC in Wales, and I call on Bethan Jenkins to move the motion.

Motion NDM6027 Bethan Jenkins, Lee Waters, Russell George, Jeremy Miles, Jenny Rathbone, Simon Thomas

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

1. Regrets that the amount of money spent by the BBC on programmes for Wales in English has fallen by 25 per cent in the last decade.

2. Believes BBC Wales has a vital role to play in reflecting the lives, aspirations and challenges of the people of Wales.

3. Notes Lord Hall’s admission that the funding for English language content made in Wales for a Welsh audience has dropped to unsustainable levels, and therefore calls upon the BBC to outline in detail its spending commitments to Wales in the near and further future.

Motion moved.

Thanks. I’m grateful to be opening this debate today. We initiated this debate alongside other Members of the Assembly on a cross-party basis in the context of the BBC charter renewal process, seeking to put on the agenda the importance of our relations with the BBC in this new political term of the Assembly, and to show them that we are not going away and that we will be scrutinising not only them but all broadcast and media provision here in Wales in the near future.

It was interesting, doing the research for this debate, going back over some of the output that BBC Wales has provided to this country down the years. Some of you will know that, although BBC Wales was first established in 1964, in fact, the first broadcast in Wales was much earlier, in 1923, by a radio station called 5WA, which went on to become part of BBC programming. Some of the programmes we found would certainly jar today with our modern values. When we say that something is ‘of its time’, it can also mean that we have a vivid record of how people thought, talked and acted in a certain way in a certain period in Wales in the past. But that goes to the heart of today’s debate—that BBC Wales has a vital role to play in reflecting the lives, aspirations and challenges of the people of Wales. It is our belief that BBC Wales has, and must continue to play, a key role in ensuring that that continues.

There can be little doubt that BBC Wales has retreated from this role, not only in recent times but in many years. That much was admitted by Tony Hall in a speech that he gave some two years ago now in the National Assembly for Wales. The reason this motion came about was primarily so that we as Assembly Members could express our frustration at the lack of action that has been taken in the meantime to address the director general’s observations. In fact, he came to a committee of the last Assembly and said almost the same thing as he did two years ago—yes, there is a lack of portrayal, and, yes, we are going to sort it out. Well, my message today is that you do need to show that you are going to do that now. None of this is to denigrate what BBC Wales currently does, and I think that’s important to say. Some of its work in the past 10 years—‘Sherlock’, ‘Life on Mars’, ‘Ashes to Ashes’, ‘Being Human’—has been successful. But they are not about Wales, fundamentally, nor are they set in Wales. You’ll know this from ‘Doctor Who’. Of course, a show featuring a time-travelling alien as its central character couldn’t be expected to be confined to this side of Offa’s Dyke. But how many times have we sat there watching it and muttered, ‘That's not London; that's Roath’?

I think the senior management of BBC Wales does what it can, but the problem really is at the other end of the M4. We saw that only last week, I think, when the BBC announced that Wales would only have a voice on its board through a director of the nations and regions. This was their set-up before, and they've changed it back to that set-up. I would question whether this is a watering down of our influence on the BBC and whether we should have a non-executive director from Wales, as a public appointment is something that the Institute of Welsh Affairs has most recently raised in their report that we've had as Assembly Members today. As a new committee Chair for the communications committee—a committee with teeth, I hope it’ll be—we've already written to the BBC to ask them for details on this particular appointment and why they’ve made that decision without any consultation with Assembly Members or MPs or Governments, either on a UK level, as far as I understand, or on a Welsh Government level too.

So, is it really BBC Wales's distinctiveness that is in question here? And the question is, following on from that: what can we do about it here in Wales? The key to all of this must be accountability. As with our organisation, as with other non-governmental organisations and charities, they receive public funding, and therefore should be compelled to explain their decisions while mapping out their possible outcomes. Yesterday, as the last annual review of BBC Audience Council Wales was published, both Elan Closs Stephens, BBC national trustee for Wales, and Rhodri Talfan Davies, director of BBC Cymru Wales, said, and I quote, ‘There are significant challenges ahead, and one of these is to ensure that a far higher number of our stories are heard and seen on our screens in Wales, across the UK and beyond. Despite the financial limitations, this must be a priority for the next charter period.’

The role of the BBC in the life of the nation is crucial, and so it is only right and proper that we consider critically its work while defending it with vigour. Now, we must be determined and bold in our vision for its role in serving audiences in Wales in future. So, of course, as Assembly Members, we should welcome these comments as a statement of intent from BBC Wales, but words are not enough; we need to see action now from them. As Chair of the new Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee, I look forward to inviting both the national trustee and Wales director of the BBC to meet with Assembly Members and put some meat on the bones of what they have said. When they came to see us previously, they said that they would like to monitor outcomes and how the portrayal can be analysed and assessed, and I look forward to questioning them on that in future.

So, we need to be asking of them: how will the BBC go about this new task? Will it make itself more accountable to its audiences and to this Assembly? What will they do via the new charter? How will it set up its new governance arrangements? How will it measure their outcomes? Does it aim to react to the views and concerns of its audiences in a real and fundamental way? And how will BBC Wales ensure that its audiences are protected from any potential adverse decision making in London?

This week the BBC Audience Council Wales says, and I quote:

‘the BBC should be obliged to report to both the public in Wales and the National Assembly for Wales on an annual basis on the way in which all its services, both Network and BBC Cymru Wales, have fulfilled the BBC Public Purposes in Wales during the preceding year.’

This is something that I and other AMs have called for time and again for quite some time, and I'm sure we'll be doing it now in future. So, I'm hoping for a renewed focus from BBC Wales management and that this will lead to new innovations.

It has been suggested to me that there should be, potentially, something like a Welsh ‘The One Show’, or perhaps it could be an English equivalent of ‘Golwg 360’, because ‘Golwg 360’ has given us bespoke and unique news about Wales through the medium of Welsh. Both suggestions could increase audience participation in Welsh in public life.

This is a crucial time for BBC Wales to step up. There is no doubt in my mind that the preference for London-based newspapers in Wales over an indigenous media of questionable strength played a part in the referendum outcome. The result, as we can see, is that everyone who led us into this mess has deserted the sinking ship for the rest of us to patch up, bail out and keep sailing.

Would you like to give way?

Yes.

Just on the point she's making around the relationship between the press and the BBC, she knows that the BBC has said, as part of the charter process, that it's interested in supporting local press by sharing of journalism, sharing of stories and so forth. Is that something that she has looked at with—? The new committee has only just started, I know, but is that something that’s of interest to the committee or of interest more widely, and has she got any views on how that might be taken forward now, particularly given the fact that we’re losing journalists from this place, for example, that are covering politics in Wales?

I obviously don’t want to be speaking as some sort of dictator at the moment; we’re going to be talking as a committee. I’m sure people wouldn’t want to think that I would just tell everybody now what we’re going to be doing as a committee, but it’s something that—well, you know, power could go to my head—. It’s something we will be considering as a committee together. Because, of course, this was something that I read in the BBC consultation before this Assembly term. What I am concerned about, however, is the resources of the BBC then being shared too thinly, and whether the BBC could cope with that, and whether then it would be an excuse for some media organisations who I won’t name to then remove services because they say, ‘Well, the BBC are filling the gap there, so we don’t need to be there anymore’. [Interruption.] Okay.

Just on that point, for information, when I raised this matter, the matter of the ‘Daily Post’ journalist here, the response from the ‘Daily Post’ was, ‘Oh, we’re looking to share with the BBC’.

Well, you’ve proved that point exactly, then.

Nid oeddwn i eisiau gorffen heb sôn am S4C yn y funud sydd gyda fi i orffen. Rhaid hefyd sôn am y ffaith eu bod nhw eisiau bod yn rhan o siartr y BBC a’u bod nhw’n credu y dylai fod cymal yn y siartr newydd yn sôn am eu hannibyniaeth o ran gweithredu ac yn sôn am yr hyn y maen nhw yn ei wneud. Yn ôl beth rwy’n clywed gan S4C, efallai nad yw Llywodraeth San Steffan 100 y cant o blaid hyn, ond os ydy S4C yn mynd, am y tymor byr o leiaf, i gael ei ariannu gan y ffi drwydded, pam nad ydyn nhw’n cael S4C fel rhan o’r siartr newydd honno? Rwy’n credu ei bod yn bwysig i sefydlu beth yw ei statws yn y dyfodol, beth yw cynllun gwaith S4C i’r dyfodol, ac efallai bod y Gweinidog yn cael ateb ar hyn, neu’n gallu siarad gyda S4C a DCMS am sefyllfa strategol S4C i’r dyfodol er mwyn sicrhau eu bod nhw’n cael y gefnogaeth y maen nhw’n ei haeddu. Diolch yn fawr.

Diolch, Lywydd. Can I pay tribute to Bethan Jenkins for the interest she’s shown in this area over recent years? I’m very pleased that this Assembly has now established a committee with communication specifically within its remit, and I’m very pleased to be serving on it, and look forward to serving with her.

As the motion notes, in the last 10 years the amount of money invested in making programmes for Wales in English has been cut by a quarter, as has the number of hours broadcast. At a time when Wales as a nation has never been more clearly defined, the sources of information for debate and scrutiny about our country are drying up. This is serious.

The director general of the BBC, Tony Hall, has acknowledged that this is an unsustainable situation. Two years ago, in April 2014, I attended his speech at the Pierhead when he conceded that there are some aspects of national life in Wales that are not sufficiently captured by the BBC, including comedy, entertainment and culture. This, he said, inhibited our creative potential and our ability to harness our diverse talents.

Fast forward two years and Tony Hall has done nothing to remedy those deficiencies he identified. On 12 May this year he wrote to the First Minister to let him know how he was getting on, and again he identified deficiencies, that, as he put it, the full diversity of the UK’s cultures and communities are not properly reflected on the BBC—these are big statements for a director general to make—and that funding for English-language content made in Wales has dropped to, quote, ‘unsustainable levels’. But, still, no detail on how this will be remedied. Now, let’s put this into context. Senior BBC executives have form. Six years ago, Joanna Bennett, then director of vision—a title straight out of ‘W1A’—said that the Roath Lock drama village would deliver a

‘creative benefit in terms of the voices we hear, the stories we tell, the pictures we paint’.

Beautifully crafted words—seductive empathy. But, as this week’s valedictory report from the Audience Council Wales shows, six years on, these are hollow words. Six years on, the audience council says, this week, that there is a:

‘Paucity of portrayal of Wales in Network TV and Radio output’, particularly in terms of drama and comedy. Indeed, it says that hardly any regional drama and comedy programmes have been produced in Wales in the last year. Last month, two thirds of the Members of this National Assembly wrote to Lord Hall to call on him to follow through his words with actions. His response? Last week, he dropped the directors of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland from the corporation’s executive team. A reversal of the decision to give them seats at the top table only in 2008, which was at the time—I quote—designed to

‘bring together the nations and regions of the UK.’

Does he think we’re daft? As the BBC never tire of telling us, Welsh audiences are their most loyal. The Beeb matters to us, but BBC executives are not doing a convincing job of showing that Wales matters to them. They are taking us for granted. The BBC management has so far shown itself tone deaf to the changing shape of the UK. There needs to be a strong Welsh voice on the new BBC board; an independent voice not appointed by the UK Government, as their White Paper suggests, and the House of Commons Welsh Affairs Committee sadly and unwisely endorsed, but, as the IWA’s respected media policy group recommends today, through the normal public appointments process, with the names submitted to the Welsh Government for approval and, I would add, subject to pre-appointment scrutiny by the Assembly’s new Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee.

This is, as they have said, an unsustainable situation. As they have said, the BBC matters to Wales disproportionately. They acknowledge that, but words are no longer enough. Diolch.

I’m pleased to take part in this co-sponsored debate today regarding the BBC’s role in Wales as a broadcaster, which has a unique role in reflecting the lives of the people of Wales both in English and Welsh on television, radio and online. I sound a bit like a radio jingle saying that. I do very much agree with the words of Bethan Jenkins and Lee Waters today. I’m very pleased that we have a committee set up dedicated to broadcasting and I’m delighted to have seen that agreement reached. Although I’m not on the committee, I’ll take a great interest in the committee’s work.

I’d like to focus my contribution on the way in which the BBC, as Wales’s only public service broadcaster, has a role in not only bringing audiences across the UK together, but in reflecting the diversity of Wales to itself and to the rest of the country. Yesterday, the BBC Audience Council Wales published its annual review, which summed up the challenges confronting the broadcaster. On the one hand, the BBC makes a significant contribution to Wales’s network production through programmes, as Bethan’s mentioned, such as ‘Doctor Who’, ‘Casualty’, ‘War and Peace’ and ‘Sherlock’; all award-winning programmes I think we should be immensely proud of. But it’s clear that network production should not be a substitute for programming made specifically for viewers in Wales, especially in the context of increased devolution, a weak paper press, a weak commercial radio sector and generally a reduction in plurality of viewpoint.

Given the BBC’s dominance in Wales and the unsustainable—I agree with Lee Waters—the 25 per cent cut in funding for English-language programmes for Wales over the last decade, to which Lord Hall, as has been alluded, has previously referred, it has the potential to have, or is having, a disproportionate impact on Wales given the lack of plurality compared to other areas of the UK such as London, which has a large amount of media sources and news and non-news programming.

The audience council also recognised that the BBC must do more to reflect modern Wales and the lives of its people in the next charter period. It must do more to address the lack of portrayal of contemporary Wales on network tv and radio output and in non-news tv programming such as drama and, in particular, comedy as well.

It must be acknowledged that BBC journalism has improved significantly since the publication of the King report, recognising that the different nations of the UK and the way in which non-news programming has reflected all parts of the UK has been, I think, sometimes lacking. But, listening to Radio 2 news last week, when I was in the car, I could hear reporting on Wales’s football success, and it was all a very positive news story, but it was done as if Wales was a third party—it was worded in that way. The news reporter worded it in that sense. If it had been the other way around, it would have been worded very differently. Indeed, the commitment of a commissioning editor responsible for television drama in each nation, with portrayal objectives, is, I think, a positive step in ensuring that all network programming accurately reflects the cultural diversity of all the nations of the UK.

It is encouraging that the BBC has made an explicit commitment to adopt the recommendations, including a stronger voice for Wales in the new unitary board, and a national licence for Wales, which would underpin the accountability for services provided in each nation. The corporation’s recent proposals to spend proportionately more on dedicated services in each nation and to spend more on English-language programming in Wales is, of course, welcome, but I fully agree with the views of Lee Waters and Bethan Jenkins that words are not enough. There needs to be action, and there needs to be a concrete financial commitment.

The licence fee is not perfect, but it’s better than anything else that anybody else has proposed, because it’s absolutely vital that the BBC remains independent of government of all kinds, because one of its key roles is to hold politicians and Government to account, and it cannot be fettered by the idea that, because the BBC is robust in uncovering things that are untoward, they might get their licence fee slashed. In recent times, there have been lots of risks of that happening.

I think that it’s underplayed just how important the BBC is as an institution in our public life. Professor Brian Cox, who has done more for popular understanding of science than perhaps anybody else in recent memory, described the BBC as a public institution first, and a media company second, and I completely agree with that. We have to understand that those three letters—BBC—are probably the best recognised logo anywhere in the world, and we should dismantle it at our risk. They may not be as effective at selling the Wales brand as getting into the semi-finals of a major sporting competition, but there’s no doubt that the way in which the BBC both projects Wales to the wider world and projects back onto our own understanding of our own Welshness is seriously important.

I take issue with Bethan Jenkins on one issue, which is that we cannot explain the Brexit vote based on the fact that all the newspapers were published in London, because obviously London, in the main, voted to remain. I think it’s much more complicated than that, but it’s certainly the case that, because the majority of newspapers—and there’s a declining readership of newspapers—are produced in London, the coverage of Wales is miniscule and extremely impoverished. So, that is why it is doubly important that we have a very strong broadcasting element in Wales in order to enable people to understand the world that we live in and the politics that we operate in.

We have to recall that, in the days before the Broadcasting Act 1990, the ITV companies, too, were obliged to have regional content, and that helped reinforce the vigour and rigour with which the BBC undertook its obligations. Since the disappearance of the regional ITV companies under Mrs Thatcher’s slashing, really, we’ve got an entirely impoverished ITV regionally, and it has enabled this withering on the vine of the BBC radio and television coverage. It’s almost surprising that they manage to do as much as they do with the little that they have, but it’s absolutely vital to the public discourse about what it is that makes up our public realm that we do have radio and television, because with 25 per cent of our population functionally illiterate, that is the way the majority of people receive their information and their understanding of the world. And it is extremely dangerous when we go out campaigning and we listen to people telling us, ‘We’re not voting Labour any longer because of the cuts you’ve made to the disabled’. It takes your breath away, but that is the level of misunderstanding about what is going on in the world, and who is making decisions on people’s behalf, that it got us to where we were on the referendum.

There was an excellent website provided by the BBC to try and deconstruct the claims and counterclaims of the ‘leave’ and ‘remain’ teams, but I very much doubt whether most people who were struggling to understand what this complicated referendum was about ever got there, and it would have been so much better if we had addressed some of the counterintuitive inspirations for why people were voting ‘leave’, which were mainly from people who lived in areas where there were very few immigrants, and yet people were inspired to vote ‘leave’ on the grounds that it was going to put a stop to immigration. There would have been plenty of programmes that could have explored that contradiction, and might have enabled people to have a better understanding of what was at stake.

But I think we have to go back to the fact that the Reithian role for the BBC to inform, educate and entertain has to be kept as one, and we cannot have the BBC fragmented into only doing serious programmes and not doing popular ones. So, I think it’s absolutely vital that this new board is, in the main, done by a public appointments process. I understand that the Government will need to appoint the chair, but the rest of the board, including the representative for Wales, need to be appointed by the public appointments process.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to contribute to this discussion. I rise as a former member of staff of the BBC, and I have direct experience of working in this area in Wales. I know that BBC Wales itself is very eager to make programmes about and for Wales, but BBC Wales is very small, of course, within the wider regime of the BBC throughout the UK. We hear very often the right words being said by the heads of the BBC in London, and the same is true this time with the promise of additional funding for English-language programmes for audiences in Wales. But words are one thing, and action is another. The next thing then is to see the genuine effect of that action being taken.

I don’t doubt that the BBC will keep to its word in giving additional funding for English-language programmes in Wales. We don’t know how much funding there this, and we also have to remember that that additional funding will come at a time when there will be an expectation for the BBC to make significant savings. So, we can’t allow that funding to be nothing more than mitigating funds when we’ve heard already that English-language budgets have fallen around a quarter over the past decade.

To produce real programmes you need real budgets. Of course, there are savings that are possible to be made. It’s worth congratulating S4C for that—for having succeeded in making such amazing, incredible savings during a very difficult time over the past three years. They’ve succeeded to produce excellent programmes on very small budgets. I know because I have presented many of them, and it’s very good to see significant increases and progress being made in audience figures for S4C recently across different platforms in broadcasting in the UK over the past year.

But a great deal of that success in producing good programmes cheaply has happened because of the commitment of excellent staff to Welsh language broadcasting but also to the broadcasting industry in Wales. But we can’t continue to expect that commitment to make up for the shortfall in funding. The pressure can’t be endless, and if we want to see programmes with good content that look good, that have the ability to draw in an audience in any language, then we need investment.

Another matter is the practical barriers, of course, as budgets decrease. The number of broadcasting slots in Wales has also decreased for Welsh-based programmes. So, as well as the funding, we need the platform to broadcast those programmes. We’ve spoken in the Chamber before about BBC 2W. There were wide-ranging peak hours available in the English language in Wales. Those days have gone, but we do have to find other ways of putting on these programmes.

But another matter is the concern about changes to the management board of the BBC that’s already been mentioned where—as we already heard from Lee waters—Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland were represented on that upper level of management. It’s a retrograde step that we only have one controller for the nations and the regions. It weakens Wales’s voice and I’m very concerned about the implications that it pushes Wales aside. There’s no doubt about that.

Now, the BBC has a name, unfortunately, for being a body where the centre is king. Yes, of course, a great deal of drama is produced in Cardiff. There has been growth in the presence of the BBC in Manchester, but that’s not all that’s important. The BBC has to develop a much more devolved attitude, respecting independence within these islands and empowering the nations, the centre sharing drama with Cardiff. That’s an economic factor that’s to be welcomed, of course, but we need something more than that. I’m looking for something more where the BBC empowers BBC Cymru Wales so that it can serve its audiences.

I do wish the new committee well. It has communication as part of its title. It has very difficult and important work to be done where broadcasting hasn’t been devolved. But we here—to conclude—need to reflect the interests and the views of the people who have elected us that the BBC should be able to reach its potential of being the real national broadcaster of Wales because, at present, despite the talent and the commitment of excellent staff, it’s falling short.

I just want to contribute very briefly to today’s individual Member debate, a debate that brings forward a number of key issues that relate to broadcasting in Wales, and focus on one aspect of the motion that the National Assembly for Wales

‘Believes BBC Wales has a vital role to play in reflecting the lives, aspirations and challenges of the people of Wales.’

When we speak of reflecting the lives, aspirations and challenges of the people of Wales, this must be all the people of Wales regardless of where we live or work. Unfortunately, time and time again on the doorstep and in the community in Delyn, people in Delyn have raised concerns with me that the news output of our public service broadcaster seems all too often to focus on events and people within a restrictive radius of our capital city. Whilst I recognise there might be constraints on resources, many of my constituents quite rightly believe that the BBC has a democratic duty not just to achieve political balance in their output but also better geographical balance as well.

On a positive note, as colleagues have alluded to, we can be proud of the BBC Wales brand exporting excellence throughout the world. I know, from a north Wales perspective, we have moved on from the days when, in the house I grew up in, upstairs you might have got BBC Wales and downstairs you got ‘BBC North West Tonight’. That’s largely thanks to the opportunities that have come through with the advent of digital television. But, clearly, more remains to be done to make sure our BBC reaches out across our country and is both reflected and relevant to our diverse nation.

Let us be in no doubt that the BBC is held in high regard by the Welsh public. In its final annual review of BBC Wales’s output, Audience Council Wales—the ACW—stated that three in five people, which is 62 per cent, in Wales,

‘feel the TV licence fee offers value for money, while more than four in five people in Wales would miss the BBC if it was not there’.

That is 83 per cent. So, today I rise to speak in this debate, as I know my colleagues have, out of a shared desire to see the BBC achieve its full potential in twenty-first century, post-industrial devolution in Wales.

Today, if you stand on the Members’ balcony, as I did earlier, of the Assembly, your eyes will take in the sweep of the magnificent BBC Wales studios at Porth Teigr. It is a true Welsh creative dream factory that is home to the much-loved ‘Casualty’, ‘Doctor Who’ and ‘Pobol y Cwm’ television shows that are iconic and are beamed across the UK, and, indeed, the world.

In the centre of Cardiff, in the shadow of Cardiff Central station and the Principality Stadium, slowly arising is the new headquarters for BBC Wales. These are truly wonderful assets of which we in Wales and the BBC are justifiably proud. But we cannot let that blind us to the obvious and worrying deficiencies that are indeed striking and obvious, as has been outlined.

As the devolution settlement in Wales matures and advances with the Wales Bill—the latest stage in that long journey—we see here in this institution the effects of UK cutbacks to funding in the BBC in Wales. The presentation, for instance, of the ‘am.pm’ programme, covering proceedings here in this Chamber, has to be shot in the Llandaf studios, where once they filmed on the fourth floor of Tŷ Hywel. To me, this is symbolic evidence that, whilst Assembly Members have urged for better representation of Wales by the BBC, financial considerations have meant actual retreat in reality.

I was once a member of the British Broadcasting Council of Wales, so I will be unashamedly saying that the BBC is in my blood as well. A well-resourced and well-equipped BBC Wales is imperative and vital for our nation in the years ahead. I will also be one of its greatest advocates, but, equally, this does not mean that I will be afraid to be a critical friend.

Elan Closs Stephens, BBC national trustee for Wales and Audience Council of Wales chairwoman, said in her preface to the report that the message from the Welsh audiences was very clear in that they want the BBC to do more to reflect modern Wales and the lives of its people. She said:

‘As we come to the end of the current Charter, and look ahead to the BBC of the next decade, that is a challenge the BBC must meet.’

The report also said that there was a—and I’ll repeat a phrase that my colleague Lee Waters has already used—

‘Paucity of portrayal of Wales in Network TV and Radio output’.

I’ll also mention a particular friend of mine, Max Boyce, one of the creative geniuses of our land, and it was good to see that ‘Max’s World Cup Warm-Up’, starring the Welsh entertainer himself, was the most popular English language TV series on BBC Wales, attracting 322,000 viewers. But, Max Boyce’s first experience of exposure was on the BBC’s ‘Opportunity Knocks’ in the early 1970s. Forty-five years later, what opportunities are knocking for our Welsh men and women? What stage is the BBC offering them to depict the modern Wales of now?

One of my favourite and iconic Max Boyce’s songs is entitled ‘Rhondda Grey’ and I’m sure many will know it speaks of an industrial past; a coal-mining community past of a grey valley home; a boy who came home to play with paints and coloured pencils and his homework for the day, ‘We’ve got to paint the valley, mam, for Mrs Davies Art. What colour is the valley, mam, and will you help me start?’ So, today, there is a paucity of portrayal in Wales. What canvass is the BBC giving all of our communities to paint the colour of modern post-industrial devolution in Wales?

My predecessor and good friend, former Assembly Member for Islwyn, Gwyn Price was proud to serve on the Communities, Equality and Local Government Committee, and I’m also delighted that I now sit on that committee. Our Chair, John Griffiths will be pleased to know that I’ve also been reading up. The committee’s inquiry into the BBC charter review is required reading and it concluded in March of this year and made a series of recommendations that have already been referred to, so I will refer directly to recommendation 6, where the committee supported the consistent call from Carwyn Jones, the First Minister of Wales, that the BBC must address a funding gap in Wales. He said:

‘We support the Welsh Government’s call for the BBC to invest an additional £30 million into the services it provides for Wales. We believe that this investment is crucial for high-quality content for Wales’.

He also stated in his letter to the BBC director general, Tony Hall last year:

‘This would allow Welsh audiences to have a credible national television station that could provide quality content in English, including drama, comedy and also potentially network contributions’.

So, for an urban valley constituency, such as mine in Islwyn, it is imperative that the English-speaking Welsh community have their lives reflected onscreen for themselves and, potentially, for an entire UK audience. We have the skills to do this. We take great pride in this place that we reflect the bilingual nature of Wales, then it is also beholden on us to ensure that our television and radio output also reflects the equal importance of the two main mother tongues of Wales. The time for warm words, as has been said, has long passed. As this committee also recommended, it is now time for the BBC to develop specific and measurable targets for the portrayal of Wales in its network programming. Now is the time to decentralise commissioning, as has been stated, to ensure that network commissioners for the nations are based in those very nations. And now is the time that the BBC reports annually to this Assembly on its output and operations that are relevant to Wales.

Finally, the BBC Wales website proudly proclaims that the BBC has provided a mirror held up to society in Wales on radio, television and on a variety of digital platforms. So, let us collectively make sure that this mirror provides a true reflection, that it is sparkling and available to all of our communities, which make up the wonderful tapestry of Welsh life. So, therefore, I do support this motion. Diolch.

I’m very pleased to support this motion and speak in this very important debate, because I think the BBC plays an absolutely vital role in our country, and it is absolutely essential the BBC communicates with the public and gives all the information and the issues about policies and developments here in the Assembly. Both tv and radio have a very important role to play in that. With the Assembly now in its fifth term, I still get questions on the doorstep—‘Oh, do you deal with health, and isn’t it dreadful about the junior doctors’ strike? What are you doing about it?’—illustrating what others have said: that there isn’t the knowledge amongst the public about what is actually happening in Wales and what is happening in this Assembly. I think the BBC, as a public service broadcaster, has a duty to extend its reach to the 40 per cent of people, I believe, who watch programmes where there is no Welsh news or Welsh context. I see that as one of the prime objectives that the BBC should have, and, certainly, we have had a commitment to that, but we want to see it happen.

I also think that this did have an effect in the EU referendum: that those people, that 40 per cent of the public in Wales who watch programmes with no Welsh context, did not have the information about how the EU has particularly benefited Wales. I do think that has an effect.

The other points I wanted to make—Bethan Jenkins, I think, raised the important point about the partnership between S4C and the BBC, and whether S4C should have a stake in the charter, and I think she asked the Minister to respond to that. I want to use the opportunity of this debate to pay tribute, as Rhun ap Iorwerth did, to the commitment to the Welsh language broadcasting of the staff of S4C, but also to express my regret that S4C is soon to be leaving its base in Llanishen, where I’ve had contact with them for many years, moving out of Cardiff. I do regret that very much, but, of course, some of the S4C staff will be moving to the new BBC building where there will be joint transmitting. So, that, in fact, will save a lot of money, but I do regret that they’re moving.

The other point I wanted to make was—I know Jenny Rathbone talked about the public appointments process. Well, I just want to say: why shouldn’t the chair be appointed by a public appointments process? Because a chair that is appointed by the Government—can that chair ever be totally independent? I just think that is something that we should look at.

Finally, I wanted to talk about the context of the general weak media in Wales, which most of the speakers have raised, and how important it is the BBC, other broadcasters and the print media do not, as it stands, provide a plurality of cover in Wales. If you look at the print media, dominated by Trinity Mirror, it’s been actually decimated by job cuts going back over more than a decade. I think we probably all know that Media Wales moved into its new building, I think it was nearly 10 years ago—I’m sure many of us have been in there—and it occupied five floors of that six-storey building, and it’s now on just one floor, which shows the reduction in the number of journalists working on the national newspaper for Wales and on the ‘South Wales Echo’. Of course, local offices for the ‘Echo’ and ‘Western Mail’ in Neath, Ebbw Vale, Merthyr Tydfil and Pontypridd have also closed, so the newspapers are not close to their communities as they have been in the past.

So, I think that is a matter of great regret, and we know how few journalists are actually here to report on what’s actually happening here in the Senedd and informing the public across Wales. They are spread so thinly to do a real, proper job scrutinising what we do here. Do we ever really feel that those journalists are actually calling us to account? I don’t think there’s the strength there in all the media. Of course, we’ve noted here in this Chamber the fact that, in north Wales, the ‘Daily Post’ is losing its Senedd correspondent. I should think it’s only a matter of time before ‘Wales Online’ and the ‘Western Mail’ may follow suit. So, I think it is, you know, a fairly grim picture in terms of the media in Wales. So, I think it’s absolutely essential that the BBC follows what it says and what its intent is, and makes sure that it does increase the amount of money and the effort it puts in to Wales.

I call on the Minister for Lifelong Learning and Welsh Language, Alun Davies.

Diolch yn fawr, Lywydd. I think we’ve enjoyed a very rich debate this afternoon, discussing not only the BBC itself, but also the contribution it makes to public life and its contribution to the culture of Wales and the United Kingdom. I should start my remarks by welcoming Bethan to her role as Chair of the committee. You certainly succeeded where I failed. I very much support—. [Interruption.] [Laughter.] I will finish the sentence. I very much welcome the news that the Assembly is to create a committee—a permanent committee on this occasion—that will look at these matters. I think it’s a very timely thing to do, and I think it will soon become very important, and a committee that will speak with authority, not only on behalf of this place but of the people of Wales as well. I think the voice that we have heard this afternoon from all sides of the Chamber—and it’s good to see unanimous support for these matters on all sides of the Chamber—will be heard more strongly as a consequence of the Assembly itself having this ability to take these decisions. So, it’s something that the Government welcomes very much, and also the thoughtful way in which Members have structured their contributions.

Can I say, first and foremost, that it’s important that the BBC does recognise that if it is to deliver on the promises that it makes—and I think Lee Waters explained a number of promises over a number of years that I and others have heard—it needs to have a structure that will deliver on those promises? That means structures of management, governance and accountability that all ensure that the voice of Wales is heard. I share Members’ concerns about the recent structural changes to the board of management of the BBC—the executive board—and I look forward to the BBC explaining how that will strengthen Wales’s voice, how that will ensure that Wales’s voice is heard when all decisions are taken, and how that ensures that Wales is a part of all the decisions taken by the executive board of the BBC. I will expect the BBC, in giving us this explanation, to ensure that the voice of Wales is always heard wherever these decisions are taken.

The points that have been made by different Members at different times all relate to a culture within the BBC—and I think that Rhun ap Iorwerth explained this very well—where there is not simply a metropolitan bias in terms of management decisions, but in terms of the thinking and the culture behind those decisions, which is rooted not in the needs of the United Kingdom as a whole, but rooted in the comfortable thoughts and prejudices sometimes of people taking those decisions. That is something that needs to be challenged. I can assure all Members that the Welsh Government is not only engaged in the process of charter renewal, but is ensuring that the voice of Wales is heard in terms of those decisions.

I want to respond to the debate this afternoon by looking at some of the matters that Members have raised. Let me first of all start with that of funding and resources. It’s absolutely correct that we’ve seen BBC investment in Wales reduced at a time when its investment in Scotland, Northern Ireland and key English regions has increased. This is unacceptable, and it’s unacceptable not only that those decisions were taken, it’s unacceptable that the governance and accountability structures enabled and allowed those decisions to be taken, and what we need in the future are structures of accountability that will not allow this situation to arise again. It is very, very clear that the BBC needs to invest additional funding into the services it provides for Wales, and I agree very much with the points that Lee Waters has said. I have no interest in receiving further letters or hearing further speeches without a commitment to additional resources to deliver the services that the BBC themselves have said that Wales needs and deserves, and I look forward to hearing the BBC’s proposals on that.

And when we talk about resources and funding, we are talking about net resources and net funding. We are not interested in resources being given with one hand, being told that we’re going to have these additional funds in order to make additional programmes, to provide additional services, and then be told on the other hand that efficiency savings mean that half of those resources are not actually going to arrive into the BBC in Wales. So, we are looking for a real commitment, and not a commitment that passes muster in a press release, and we will be ensuring that that happens. And, at the same time, we have heard on many occasions that Lord Hall has made commitments to improve the BBC’s portrayal of Wales on network television and to ensure that we have the programme making here in Wales that we would anticipate and expect.

Let me also say this: we know that there are changes being made to the way that the BBC is structuring studios and programme-making divisions. Those matters are rightly and properly a matter for the BBC. However, it is right and proper that we also hold the BBC to account in ensuring that that does not lead to a reduction in programme making for the network from Wales and does not lead to a reduction in studio facilities in Wales. It is a matter for the BBC management how they structure and how they manage the organisation, and it is right and proper that management have the authority to do that, but we need to ensure that the BBC’s structures ensure that its commitments are delivered for all parts of the United Kingdom. And, in doing so, I refer again to Rhun ap Iorwerth’s comments about the levels of authority being provided to the director of BBC Wales. It is absolutely essential that the director of BBC Wales does have the levels of power and responsibility to deliver a coherent service across all the different services available to the BBC in Wales, and that means levels of authority over all of the scheduling and production and commissioning of programmes. That is certainly something that I and, I think, many others will be looking for.

In terms of the accountability, I agree with what has been said by Members this afternoon, that accountability of the BBC should rest here at the National Assembly and not simply in Government. I’m an old-fashioned type, sometimes, and I do believe that a public service broadcaster is different to a state broadcaster and that a public service broadcaster should be accountable to this place, to the parliamentary body, and not simply to Government and to a Minister. I agree very much with what Julie Morgan said about the appointment of members of the BBC unitary board, and I would certainly want to see that endorsed in some way or done through a public process through this place, and not simply through Government and decisions taken by Ministers.

In terms of where we go from here—and I’m aware that time is moving on, Presiding Officer—I met with Rhodri Talfan Davies yesterday to discuss the latest developments in terms of the restructuring of the BBC and charter renewal. I also met with the chair and chief executive of S4C last week to discuss the latest developments in relation to the charter and the forthcoming review of S4C, which is due in 2017. I can assure Members that we will continue to be fully engaged with all of these processes.

My officials have continued to hold regular meetings with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and other devolved administrations to discuss the charter review, and these meetings will continue over the summer. I can say that there’s been positive progress on a number of issues, but we’re still aware that there are points to be resolved. I will be meeting, I hope, with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport next week to discuss broadcasting. I wrote to the Secretary of State earlier with a transcript of the oral statement I made here some weeks ago and the subsequent contributions of Members. I’ve highlighted the importance of the cross-party agreement in the Assembly on the majority of broadcasting issues, and I can assure Members that, in my meeting next week, I will also reflect upon the points that have been raised by Members here today.

Given events in Westminster at present, we are unsure whether the UK Government will be in a position to go ahead with the publication of a draft charter before summer recess, but even if it does not, we would expect that draft charter to be published very quickly after Parliament returns in the autumn. I will seek to schedule a debate here in the National Assembly in September to give all Members an opportunity to have a more detailed discussion on the content of the draft charter. I hope I can reassure Members that I will continue to remain engaged fully in these matters, both in terms of the debates and the discussions with the BBC itself, and also the DCMS, to ensure that the voice of Wales is heard at all times.

I look forward to the work of the committee that is being established here. I look forward to the work of the committee speaking for the National Assembly and speaking for Wales. I hope that the consensus that we have in the Chamber today on all these issues is one that will remain with us as we go through this period of charter renewal. Thank you very much.

I call on Jeremy Miles to reply to the debate.

Diolch, Lywydd. Thank you for the opportunity of winding up this important, and, as the Minister said, rich debate. Part of the reason why it is so important is, as Bethan Jenkins outlined in her opening remarks, the value that we attach to the BBC as an asset, a national asset, for us in here in Wales and across the UK generally. Jenny Rathbone referred to the strength of the BBC brand, and I think that brings with it a set of values that we would all wish to endorse here, I am sure, in this Chamber.

I’m pleased to be a member of the committee that Bethan Jenkins has, I can confirm, managed to chair in a very undictatorial way, as you said, so far. So, I look forward to further discussions as part of that committee.

The debate goes to the heart of our sense of ourselves as a nation and how we see ourselves reflected back at us in the media. That’s another reason why it’s so important. There’s also the issue of the economic impact of the BBC within Wales. Rhianon Passmore talked about the property investments in Wales, which are substantial, and Russell George spoke about the scale of network production in Wales, but neither of those meets the challenge that we’re trying to address in this debate today. That challenge is the question of investment in programming that reflects Wales back at us.

Rhianon spoke about the £30 million a year shortfall that the First Minister has identified, and it’s worth, in terms of scale, bearing in mind that, in 2013, the BBC executive board wrote off a project that it recognised had wasted £98 million over the course of three years, which neatly equates, broadly, to what English-language programming in Wales could frankly do with. That’s a result, as Lee Waters pointed out, of a cut by a quarter in the budget over the last 10 years. Lee, Bethan and many speakers spoke about what is a really tiresome gap between the language that the BBC is prepared to concede on this and the reality of the gap in the funding. And I reflect what the Minister said about not wanting to receive any more letters that acknowledge the scale of the gap without suggesting a solution to it.

Rhun ap Iorwerth said that to make real programmes you need real budgets, which really takes us to the question of the genre mix, which suffers as a consequence of this lack of investment. News is good and is popular, but we also need drama, comedy, entertainment and culture programmes, which, as Lee said, were not sufficiently captured by the current settlement. Jenny Rathbone spoke about the Reithian values of Wales-specific documentary, and my favourite of all the comments in this area was Rhianon Passmore’s reference to my constituent Max Boyce. I’m sure he will have heard those comments very pleasingly.

This brings us back to the question of not just variety and value for money but representation and the points of reference of Welsh culture and how our perspective is represented, I guess, on television. Russell George spoke of the importance of television reflecting the diversity of modern Wales. Many speakers spoke about the concern about the BBC retreating from that role of representing not just us to ourselves but us to the world, beyond the shores of the UK, which is a very important aspect of this debate.

Julie Morgan and others put it in the context of the limited print media that we have in Wales, and that underlines the importance of a vibrant and well-funded English-language programming service. The question of geography and geographic representation: Hannah Blythyn spoke about the experience on the doorsteps in Delyn of people’s concerns that representation was skewed excessively towards Cardiff. For those of us who live outside Cardiff, that’s a familiar refrain. You referred to the democratic duty to achieve a geographic balance as well as a political balance. I don’t think any of us in this Chamber would disagree with that.

Many speakers focused on the question of accountability and governance, which is at the heart of this debate. The Government White Paper, as the Minister indicated, has very little to say, in fact, about accountability to audiences in Wales. Many speakers spoke about the contribution the IWA has made today specifically addressing that point.

More than one speaker lamented the dropping of the individual nations’ directors from the executive team, and both Bethan Jenkins and Lee Waters in particular called for a strong Welsh voice on the BBC board, appointed independently of Government.

The question of our role here as an Assembly has been highlighted by many speakers and Bethan Jenkins spoke about the hope and, indeed, I think, expectation that the committee would have the opportunity of scrutinising and no doubt interrogating the BBC executives in relation to some of the commitments that have been made. I welcome also the reference that you made to the question of S4C independence and that being reflected within the charter also.

I hope I’ve done justice to the range of contributions that have been made today. Just to close, viewing of BBC One in particular is higher in Wales than in any other part of the UK, and the early evening news bulletin in particular has a higher proportion of viewers in Wales than in any other part of the UK. So, ‘Wales loves the BBC’ is the message that I take from that. It then doesn’t seem to be right in return to reciprocate that affection with a service that, in the BBC’s own admission, is unsustainably underfunded and, in the words of the Audience Council Wales, has brought BBC Wales to the cliff edge. Diolch yn fawr.

The proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? No objection. Therefore, the motion is agreed.

Motion agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.