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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what recent discussions she has had with the BBC on digitising the BBC archives.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport meets regularly with representatives of the BBC on a range of matters.

With regard to the digitisation of the BBC archives, the BBC has an obligation under their Framework Agreement to both maintain an archive, and give the public reasonable opportunities to visit the archive and view material kept there. As the BBC is operationally and editorially independent of the Government, decisions on how it discharges its obligations in relation to its Archive Services are a matter for the BBC.