BBC (Proposed Cuts)

Nic Dakin Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell). Clearly Radio Humberside is going to get a few plugs this afternoon.

It is tempting on such an occasion to attack and compliment the BBC in equal measure. I am very happy to say that I would pay my licence fee for Radio 4, and if I happened to get the Radio 5 Live football commentaries, “Newsnight” and “Match of the Day” thrown in I would be a satisfied customer. In reality, however, we are here this afternoon to convey to the BBC, through the Secretary of State, the concerns of our constituents.

It is clear that our constituents greatly value local radio. In the case of mine, that means Radio Humberside. Unless someone is local to the area, it is difficult for them to appreciate the antipathy to the word “Humberside”. Indeed, one of my illustrious predecessors, Michael Brown, pledged to expunge it from the English language. Alas, it lives on, although it is now sometimes referred to as “the Humber”. However, Radio Humberside has gone a considerable way towards overcoming the in-built suspicion of anything containing the word “Humberside”. Nowadays, we are at least referred to as “northern Lincolnshire”.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that despite the issue of the word “Humberside”, there is a lot of affection for Radio Humberside among people in Scunthorpe, Grimsby and on the south bank of the Humber, particularly for its support for and reporting on local people’s activities, whether they be football, arts or other things?

[Martin Vickers]

I certainly agree with the hon. Gentleman, and the word “affection” appears somewhere in my notes in relation to Radio Humberside. I suspect, though, that most of my constituents on the south bank of the Humber are more interested in what goes on in Louth and Lincoln than in Cottingham and Kirk Ella. I therefore remain convinced that some savings could be made through joint working with Radio Lincolnshire. Residents in places such as Keelby and Caistor, which are really suburbs of Grimsby and Cleethorpes, feel much more part of what we might call the Humberside community than of the more rural Lincolnshire community. I acknowledge that the success of Radio Humberside is partly because people grow fond of—even affectionate towards—some of the presenters, such as Peter Levy with his lunchtime phone-in.