Charitable and Voluntary Sector

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Thursday 30th April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, on 27 March the Welsh Government announced an initial fund of £24 million to support Wales’s voluntary sector in response to the pandemic. The fund will support three distinct areas of activity: helping charities and third sector organisations financially through the crisis by providing direct financial support; helping more people volunteer; and helping volunteering services by supporting third sector organisations as well as strengthening essential third sector infrastructure, including the Volunteering Wales platform.

The primary issue for charities, however, is survival. After 10 years of austerity, they had already been cut to the very bone before this situation hit. Sickness levels of staff in charities have gone up, while organisations have seen an increased need for services, and calls for mediation and safeguarding are rising exponentially. Charities are also having to spend vast sums on PPE and sanitation products.

The charity Llamau works with young homeless people in Wales, and its chief executive, Frances Beecher, recently told me that her staff, who are working with vulnerable and already traumatised young homeless people struggling with lockdown, need all the expertise, resources and help to support them. The other big issue she raised was the lack of fundraising opportunities to bridge the gap between the income that charities receive and the cost of delivering services. It has been decimated: Llamau will lose over £600,000 this year.

Charities started as people were falling through the net of statutory support. The safety nets are now mainly with charities; it is where the knowledge and expertise are left. Many charities, especially regional and service delivery ones, will go to the wall. The fight to end youth homelessness or to combat domestic abuse will be stalled; the human cost will be huge. However, the financial costs will also be huge for statutory services, the criminal justice system and, indeed, mental health services. More support must be leveraged into the charity sector to prevent it being decimated. The Welsh Government have implemented measures, but they too need more funding. Can the Minister ensure that the UK Government also support charities and the voluntary sector with extra funding during these extraordinary times in which we live?

BBC and Public Service Broadcasting

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, I also thank my noble friend Lord Young for bringing this timely debate to the Chamber today. For almost two decades I taught media studies and the media industries, at GCSE and Advanced Level. At the core of every syllabus, at every level, was a deep analysis and evaluation of the British Broadcasting Corporation.

Media studies grew out of literary criticism and early cultural studies; indeed, it is concerned with the popular. That is one of its strengths. It is firmly grounded in society: in the communication, cultural understandings, concerns and sometimes even manipulation of the mass of ordinary people. Long before anyone else, media studies questioned the once utopian view of the internet, examining race and gender representation and analysing the economic and political power of media moguls.

I tried to demonstrate to my pupils the essence of the BBC and why it is still so important to us in our multichannel, online media culture. It is a British cultural institution, held in highest regard across the world, in fierce competition with other broadcasters.

I will mention the programme “Blue Planet II”, an eight-part documentary about our oceans, which took four years to produce but ultimately profoundly changed the world’s understanding of two-thirds of our planet’s ecosystem. Commercial and satellite operators could only dream of such influence and reach. Moreover, I am sure that the unconfirmed proposal that the Six Nations is to go to paywall TV would be an unmitigated disaster for the sport.

Some of the BBC’s key content, such as documentaries, children’s programming and extensive news coverage, would not be prioritised in the commercial demands of the free market. Advertising revenues are shrinking, and the broadcast marketplace is expanding. The BBC under commercialisation would run the risk of being squeezed both financially and in terms of the high standards of its production quality. One example is BBC Bitesize, the educational website. It is outstanding, and there is no way that content such as this could be funded without the licence fee.

According to reports, the BBC is to be massively pruned back, and the licence fee scrapped and replaced with a subscription service. Senior government sources insist that they were “not bluffing” about changing the way the corporation is funded: in her excellent speech today, the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, called their bluff. Plans being drawn up include forcing the sale of the majority of 61 radio stations, reducing the number of television channels and scaling back the BBC website and the very important World Service. It must be protected. The BBC offers more services, across more platforms, with greater longevity and choice for viewers and users, at a lower cost than ever before. I would often ask my students to compare the cost of the licence fee with subscription services, and they were astounded that it was less than half the price.

The BBC is not perfect: in my political roles, I have been dragged around the houses by many a political journalist, from both television and radio—mainly in Wales, of course. But I defend their right to do so in our open democracy. I have yet to make it on to “Newsnight” or be interviewed by Andrew Neil, as many noble Lords have, but unlike some elected politicians, I certainly would not turn down Andrew Neil’s request if that opportunity arose in the future.

Well over 90% of the population consumes BBC programming and content every week. Despite its faults, the BBC remains the gold standard in multiplatform broadcasting. My noble friend Lady Morgan of Ely, in her role as the Welsh Government’s Minister for International Relations, has put a strong focus on the creative industries, and we have huge productions going on in BBC Wales—“Doctor Who” and “Sherlock”, to name but two. Despite its faults, the BBC remains the gold standard. It is a basic universal service, and if the Government make it a subscription service, then health and education could be next.