Stephen Phillips
Main Page: Stephen Phillips (Conservative - Sleaford and North Hykeham)Department Debates - View all Stephen Phillips's debates with the Leader of the House
(13 years ago)
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Hugh Robertson
The first point about that is the obvious political one. It is pointless to pretend that cuts have been made because the coalition Government are in power and would not have been made had the Labour party been in power. There would have been cuts whoever was in power. We have put in place a series of programmes to ensure that the effect of the cuts is mitigated, including the Places People Play programme and the work that we are doing with the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government on the Localism Bill. That will allow sports clubs to place all sports facilities on which they play on a local community asset register, so that the facilities are offered to them directly before being put on the open market.
Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
6. What steps he is taking to ensure scrutiny of expenditure by the BBC.
The Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
In September last year, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr Foster) announced full access for the National Audit Office to the BBC accounts, and I am confident that plans will be in place to allow that to happen by November this year in accordance with our departmental business plan.
Stephen Phillips
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that answer. At the moment, funding for the World Service comes from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office budget, as a result of which it is subject to scrutiny by the Public Accounts Committee. When funding for the World Service transfers to the BBC, how will he ensure that those arrangements remain in place?
Mr Hunt
My hon. Friend makes a very important point, and that is exactly why it is important that the National Audit Office has full, unrestricted access to the BBC’s accounts, including the ability to examine its spending on the BBC World Service. I have a meeting with the incoming chairman of the BBC Trust on 9 May, and I will discuss that very point with him then.