BBC Leadership Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
Al Pinkerton
Main Page: Al Pinkerton (Liberal Democrat - Surrey Heath)Department Debates - View all Al Pinkerton's debates with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
(1 day, 15 hours ago)
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Lisa Nandy
That is a question for the BBC, and when members of the editorial committee appear before the Select Committee, I am sure that that is something the Committee will rightly challenge them on.
Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)
Earlier this year, as part of the armed forces parliamentary scheme, I had the great privilege of visiting the 77th Brigade—the anti-Russian disinformation brigade of the British Army down in Newbury. The experts on the front line of the information wars told us that the British population are being subjected to tens of thousands of messages every single day designed to seed distrust between Government and citizen and break our belief in our institutions. The United Kingdom is in an incredibly privileged position in that we have a state broadcaster that provides us with something that might resemble a national culture. If we were to lose that, we would be feeding the forces that stand against us. Does the Secretary of State agree that the BBC provides a vital connection to our past that unifies us and that, as well as being a source of education, information and entertainment, it is also a great source of national resilience?