Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Economy – in the Senedd at 1:50 pm on 16 February 2022.

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Photo of Dawn Bowden Dawn Bowden Labour 1:50, 16 February 2022

I have to say I absolutely share the Member's concerns about the current position with the licence fee. I've met both with BBC Cymru Wales and with S4C and discussed the fee settlement, and my concern—I think when you raised this question at the time—then was the direct impact that this would have on Welsh language programming. We know that the BBC provides a lot of input for S4C as well, and although S4C's settlement was slightly more generous than the BBC's, the overall impact on Welsh programming and production I don't think can be underestimated. And I have written to the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to highlight the Welsh Government's concerns regarding the settlement and the review of the BBC's funding model. And that letter reinforces the need for the UK to work with devolved administrations as part of any decisions on the future funding framework.

So, I think we need to continue those conversations with the BBC and S4C to see what the real impact of that is going to be, but I would absolutely give you my commitment that, from the Welsh Government's point of view, we are still committed to meeting those objectives of a million Welsh speakers by 2050 and we will do whatever we can to ensure that that happens, whether that is with the support of the BBC, S4C and any other media outlets.