BBC Regional Politics Coverage
Debate between Lord Harper and Neil Parish(4 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Neil Parish
My hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—I got the constituency right—makes a really good point. Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland have quite a lot of regional coverage, and rightly so. They could do with more, but so could the rest of the regions.
The merging of those 11 shows into one “Politics England” programme deprives local communities of properly funded regional and relevant politics.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
My hon. Friend is also from the fantastic south-west of England. He has touched on the BBC’s discussion about costs. Is he, as I am, struck by the fact that when we visit Broadcasting House we see lots of costs having been spread about, but when we visit our regional centres, be it BBC Gloucestershire or the BBC’s headquarters in Bristol, we see a very cost-effective organisation—far more cost-effective, dare I say it, than BBC HQ?