Lord Storey (LD)

My Lords, this was Jeremy Hunt’s big idea 10 years ago, when he said that Birmingham in the USA had several local TV stations and Birmingham in the UK had none. BBC licence fee money was used—I think it was £25 million—to establish local television, and there was an ongoing budget of £5 million a year. Jeremy Hunt’s idea of 34 local TV stations, from Manchester to Maidstone and Bristol to Belfast, was given a prime spot on Freeview TV, but, of course, the stations soon struggled financially, not least because of Covid, as all media outlets did. Now we see a sector which is not local television; there is no way in the world that having repeats of old films and travelogues is local television. Yes, there is some local news—10 minutes on weekdays—but, in fact, on many occasions, they run next to each other so that they have more time to put on repeats of old films. I welcome the fact that we are going to extend the current licence for 12 months to give Ofcom the time to set this all up, but, during that period, I hope that we look and make a proper, realistic and honest appraisal of what local television should be. To me, local television is not a syndicated 10-minute news bulletin with hardly any, if any, local television programming. The only thing I think is true is the point that the Minister makes that it gives people an opportunity to develop skills in that particular media field, but I would like some research on this. For example, I wonder how many local people are involved in Local TV Liverpool. I think it is no longer called that—what is it called now? I think it is called That’s TV, because the same programme is syndicated across different cities of the UK. If we are serious about Jeremy Hunt’s original idea of local television, then let us explore whether that model works financially. If it does not, then the money—if there is any still going—would be better spent on extending other local provision, whether in local newspapers or radio. Over the years, we have seen a sort of pretence that we need to support local news. We have seen local commercial radio stations syndicated in London, with all the skills and the same programmes being developed in London. We have seen local journalism decline and decline, and we have seen the BBC’s local radio stations have their budgets cut as well. It has always seemed bizarre to me that, on the one hand, the BBC and the licence payers are paying for local democratic reporters, which are given to national newspapers, for example, yet at the same time we are seeing local radio cut to the bone. The time has come now to be really honest about this, and this extension will give us time to properly explore that.