Diolch, Llywydd, and I shan’t follow the example of my colleagues in heaping praise upon the work of our own committee—that’s for others to form an opinion. It’s worth reminding ourselves why we set about this piece of work and the rather dismal backdrop when we began our work. There’s been, over the last 10 years, a 22 per cent cut in the number of hours of English language programming broadcast by BBC Wales, a 24 per cent cut in the funding of S4C and a 40 per cent cut in ITV Wales output in 2009. Throw in the turmoil and the changing landscape in the print and online media and, as many others have commented, Wales is not well served. Even though broadcasting is not a devolved subject, it profoundly impacts, not only in allowing people to make informed decisions about how our nation is run, but also telling stories to ourselves about our own communities and to the wider world, which is essential, I think, for any country’s cultural fabric.

My colleagues have commented deftly on the main thrust of the report, so I shan’t dwell on that. I wanted to focus primarily on one area. We do rather well at kicking the BBC and holding them to account, which I think is entirely right, but one of the things that was important about this report was that it put the spotlight on the other public service broadcasters too, who I think for too long have gotten away with too little scrutiny of Welsh politics, and that needs to change. And this report, I hope, sends a signal that it will do.

Channel 5, for example, a public service broadcaster that benefits from the airwaves granted by the people of this country: we could find no discernible content about Wales. Channel 4, just 2 per cent—2 per cent—of their first-run programming originated in Wales. And ITV. I should declare an interest as a former employee of ITV, and someone with a great fondness for the organisation and respect for the work they should do. This is not a criticism of ITV Wales, but it is a challenge to ITV plc, who cried wolf, I think, back in 2007 when advertising revenues did look perilous. It is fair to say that the impact that the Ofcom regulations had on them meant that were they not lessened, they would walk away from broadcasting public service programmes in Wales, but that call was listened to by politicians and regulators, and their requirements were dramatically reduced—as I mentioned earlier, a 40 per cent reduction. They’re now only required to broadcast four hours of news every week, and 90 minutes of non-news. The amount of money they spend is about £7 million a year—even though they don’t publish these figures, that’s what they confirmed to the committee was broadly right—a figure that has been, as they put it, broadly flat since 2008. So, since they’ve had their obligations cut by 40 per cent, they’ve spent no extra money on Wales, although they have been able to release some funding from technological advances. But I don’t think this is good enough.

When you look at the profit of ITV plc, in 2007 it stood at £137 million, and last year it stood at £448 million. So, a staggering rise in profits by the parent company in exchange for a sharply reduced commitment to Wales. They told us that there’s no surplus value in the public service broadcasting licences, which again is the same tactic they tried in 2007—not a terribly subtle hint that if we asked them to do too much, they would simply walk away and we’d be left the poorer for it. And we would be the poorer without the presence of ITV Wales, because they do bring a plurality to the coverage in Wales. They bring a different tone and a different focus to BBC Wales, and we value that, but I think we are entitled to ask more of them in the way that they cover Wales.

Now, they do point to their BAFTA success this year, and we congratulate them for their excellent programme on Aberfan. But beyond that, ITV as a network—and, again, I must make a distinction between ITV Wales and ITV as a network—pays very little attention to Wales. There is very little programming for the whole of the UK about Wales. The last example they would give us was in 2014 when the programme about Dylan Thomas was aired, and they’re going to struggle in the future because we don’t have many significant anniversaries coming up. They do really need to broaden their imagination. They’ve said that there are no barriers per se; it is a meritocracy, they suggested—there aren’t good enough ideas coming from Welsh commissioners. Well, this argument has been proven to be bogus with the BBC, where they failed to deliver for Wales for a long time, and we’ve now, through the new licence, required them to do more. And I think we need to require ITV to do more too, because clearly left to themselves we’ll get more of the same. So, the committee has recommended that Ofcom review the ITV licence at the mid-point to ask them to deliver more for Wales. That’s our message, Llywydd, to all the public service broadcasters, not just the BBC—we’ll be coming back to them shortly: we expect better. Diolch.