BBC Pay Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
Mike Penning
Main Page: Mike Penning (Conservative - Hemel Hempstead)Department Debates - View all Mike Penning's debates with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
(6 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Matt Hancock
I certainly want to make sure that this issue is properly and rightly aired. In ensuring proper reporting, which is the question that the hon. Lady was asking, we must make sure that the BBC is objective about itself. That is a difficult thing to pull off, but it is very important that the BBC does it.
Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)
May I say to the new Secretary of State that some of us—perhaps across the House and perhaps some here on these Benches—do not share quite as strongly the love for the BBC that he, in his first couple of days in the job, has shown? At the end of the day, we are talking about the top end of pay, but I agree with the shadow Secretary of State that this must be going on across the pay bands in the BBC. The BBC is under a charter from this House; we could change that at any time we wished to make sure that it publishes and shows everything, so that there is equality across the pay bands for contractors as well as those at the top end.
Mr Speaker
There might have been a question there, but if there was it was very heavily disguised.
Matt Hancock
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that this is a question about fair pay at all levels, and not just at the top.