John McDonnell

I will be brief. I want to address the main points made by the right hon. Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale). First, the issue of funding is critical, but it is not just about the decline in the number of licence fee payees; some of the damage has been inflicted by recent agreements around the funding. Those of us who were around for the previous renewal of the charter and the related discussions should remind others that Government decisions have inflicted a 30% cut on the BBC. Year after year, decisions have led to below-inflation settlements. We had the imposition of the over-75s licence, and then the imposition of funding the World Service. A lot of the financial crisis has been generated by Government, although I agree that there needs to be a longer debate. I preferred the idea of the household levy, which was a good idea on which the Select Committee did good work, and I regret that the Government are not considering it. I understand that some would argue it is just another level of taxation, but the same argument is made about the licence fee anyway. Secondly, the right hon. Gentleman raised the issue of governance. I have heard many Members introduce speeches on a whole range of different issues by saying that we are living in a politically dangerous moment. I agree with that. The danger is that we now have a politics in which some politicians—not just in this country, but elsewhere, in particular—cannot determine between truth and fiction, or truth and a lie, so we need an independent source of information, and it is certainly not social media.