Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if she will have discussions with the Director General of the BBC on increasing locally (a) produced and (b) sourced (i) radio and (ii) television output.

Under its current Charter, the BBC has an obligation to ‘reflect, represent and serve the diverse communities of all of the United Kingdom’s nations and regions’. Ofcom sets specific obligations for the BBC on programme making in the nations and regions including requiring that at least 50% of network TV programme hours and production spend must be made outside the M25, and 30% of relevant radio spend outside the M25. The BBC is operationally and editorially independent of the Government in determining how it meets its obligations, and it is subsequently for the independent regulator Ofcom to hold the BBC to account in meeting those obligations. BBC reporting shows it is consistently meeting or exceeding these quotas.

The Secretary of State does not have specific plans to discuss this issue with the Director General. However, as part of the next Charter Review, the Government will engage with the BBC and others to consider how to ensure the BBC truly represents and delivers for every person in this country including to be more ambitious in growing our world-leading TV sector outside of London and the South East, and to commission content in every part of the country.