The National Broadcasting Archive for Wales

Part of 3. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 2:38 pm on 28 November 2018.

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Photo of David Melding David Melding Conservative 2:38, 28 November 2018

Can I add my support to Dai Lloyd, in saying how important this project is? And I am indeed relieved that, in principle, the Welsh Government is still committed to it. I do think it's unfortunate that, at this late stage, we've not really heard some of the substance of the main concerns, and I think all the stakeholders now need to get together and make some sort of statement about how this is going to proceed. Whilst we may not lose the BBC part of the archive, other aspects are potentially more fragile—ITV, and even S4C—and also, the BBC one is going to have to be moved somewhere and is not potentially going to be available until many years in the future if we don't see the transfer to Aberystwyth fairly soon.

Clearly, this acquisition complements the work to digitise the newspapers of Wales—a remarkable achievement, and a resource for all people in Wales, and the academic and cultural communities as well. That resource now could be redoubled by the acquisition and the access that people would have to this broadcast archive. It is so important to our national understanding and to our whole concept of Wales and how we reflect on the decisions we've made and the options we have in the future. I really want to see some answers into how this is going to be sorted, because it's a bit disappointing that we're not here celebrating this wonderful project rather than seeing this major hiccup at a late stage. So, get everyone together and the stakeholders to make a clear statement to us all so that we can then scrutinise and add our support to what, undoubtedly, is a hugely important national project.