Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:03 pm on 15 February 2017.
May I congratulate Bethan Jenkins, first of all, on her robust chairing of the committee and a clear leadership on a way forward? I recall, because I’m an old man now, in previous Assemblies, trying to get to grips with this whole issue of discussing broadcasting and the press and so on and their portrayal of Wales generally, and it was very difficult to get a debate of any kind at one point, because it was a non-devolved issue. So, I congratulate Bethan, who has succeeded to push the boat out, so to speak, and enabled us to have a broad-ranging debate. We’ve had the BBC, ITV and S4C before the committee, and we have published this wonderful report—the first here in Wales in its field. The background to all of this is the poor portrayal of Wales, generally speaking, both within Wales and from Wales to the rest of the UK.
Therefore, my first question is: do we as a committee intend to regularly scrutinise the activities of BBC and ITV? We know that Tony Hall will return to the committee, but should we anticipate some comprehensive programme, which would mean that the BBC, ITV and S4C would appear regularly before our committee in the first place?
Also, the other question is on the future of S4C. There is now a review ongoing in other places, of course, but specifically, as some of us are eager to ultimately see the devolution of funding and powers over S4C to this place in their entirety, what work is going to take place as part of any inquiry into the workings of S4C—that aspiration within Wales and among the people of Wales to see S4C devolved to this Assembly? Thank you.