Glastonbury Festival: BBC Coverage

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the Chair of the Select Committee.

[Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I thank the Secretary of State for that strong and welcome statement. The BBC editorial guidelines on livestreaming are actually quite clear. They say,

“The level of monitoring should be appropriate for the likely content. A producer should normally be in a position to cut the feed from a live stream if it becomes necessary.”

What explanation has the BBC given for why the livestream was not cut? It cannot be for lack of staff on the ground; the BBC took a reported 400 people to Glastonbury at the weekend—what were they all doing? For such a vast operation with multi simultaneous live shows going out across various different parts of the site, has the Secretary of State had the opportunity to ask the BBC who has the final say on which bands are deemed suitable for live broadcast and why on earth it chose this one, and who makes the final decision when it becomes necessary to cut a livestream?

[Lisa Nandy]

The hon. Lady asks a series of typically important and relevant questions, some of which I have put to the BBC directly, but I will make sure that I ask it all those questions, with a response expected as soon as possible. She is right to raise the number of staff who were present at Glastonbury festival or working on the broadcast and to ask what they were doing, but this also raises very serious questions at the highest levels of the BBC about operational oversight and the way in which editorial standards are understood and reflected in the decisions of individual staff. I have already had that conversation with the BBC board in relation to a Gaza documentary, but I expect to have it again in the coming weeks.