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.