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Chris Bryant: I give way to the fat controller himself.
Mr. Heald: Actually, I think that the Secretary of State for Education and Skills has that responsibility.
Programmes such as "Ivor the Engine" and others that the hon. Gentleman mentioned are very popular. Why should his taste take precedence? Certainly, when I visited the National Assembly for Wales recently, there was great enthusiasm for programmes with a particular Welsh content.
Chris Bryant: It would be difficult to argue that "Sara Edwards' County Set" was the most popular programme, or, for that matter, that "Dragon's Eye" would be more popular in Wales than "Question Time". It would certainly not be right for me to inflict my taste on everybody in Wales. However, I suspect that Wales would be better off trying to be more ambitious about the programmes that it makes, instead of adopting a policy of putting a leek and a daffodil into every television programme shown there.
I recently went to the BAFTA Cymru awards in Cardiff, and I was hard-pressed to see a single programme that won an award that night that had been shown anywhere other than in Wales. That is a problem. It has not always been the case, however. When the Culture, Media and Sport Committee went to the United States of America a couple of years ago, I was delighted to see, on our return flight, that two of the films that we were offered had been filmed in the Rhondda: "Very Annie Mary" and "Solomon and Gaenor", which are both excellent films. The truth is, however, that the tendency at the moment is for the BBC to invest too much in too many small programmes—partly because it has a great deal of money from the licence fee settlement, much of which has been devolved to the regions, which is great in itself—and the danger is that, instead of broadcasters enabling us to see a wider world, we are being made more insular and inward-looking. That will be a problem for us, culturally, in Wales.
It was nice to see that the latest BBC bodice-ripper, "He Knew He Was Right", was a BBC Wales production, but I could not see any Welsh talent, Welsh scenes or Welsh writers on the programme. Yet we have significant Welsh talent—we always have had—in the form of actors and singers, for example. I do not need to go through the list, but an example would be Sir Stanley Baker—he was from my constituency—who was one of the great actors and who appeared in "Zulu" among many other films. We ought to be ensuring that our broadcasters in Wales attract an international audience for all that great talent, rather than just a home-grown one.
A specific challenge faces S4C, the Welsh language channel. Its audience figures for the last few years show that, in 2000, it had a 7.7 per cent. share of the viewers in Wales. In 2001, it had 6.3 per cent., and in 2002, 5.2 per cent., which means that it lost one third of its
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audience in only two years. S4C therefore finds itself on the edge of a precipice. Even its reach—illustrated by the number of people who turn to it for at least 10 minutes a week—has fallen from 65 per cent. to 48 per cent. It is now reaching an audience of about the same level as that of Channel 5, despite the fact that 30 per cent. of homes in Wales cannot get Channel 5 at all, and that every home can get S4C.
S4C therefore faces a real problem of audience figures, which brings with it a problem of money. Two years ago, 200,000 people in Wales watched "Big Brother" on S4C. S4C broadcasts not only Welsh language programmes; it carries 36 hours of such programmes a week and about 10 hours of English language programmes such as "Big Brother", along with "Friends" and some of the other American imports. Last year, however, only 100,000 people watched "Big Brother" on S4C—the figure had halved. That is not because fewer people in Wales watched "Big Brother", but because people can now watch it on Channel 4.
That causes a financial problem for S4C. Selling the advertising time around the programme provided a lucrative market, because 200,000 people were watching it, but that market has now greatly diminished, because the audience has halved. As we go into a digital future, in which everyone in Wales has Channel 4 and S4C, it is likely that S4C will lose those programmes and the money that it was getting from selling the advertising time around them.
The Tories did not help S4C either. The Broadcasting Act 1990 set the amount of money that the channel would receive each year at 3.2 per cent. of national television advertising revenue. In 1996, however, they let S4C down by changing the formula to one in which the 1997 grant would increase each year in line with inflation. If we had stuck with the old formula of 3.2 per cent. of advertising income, S4C would have received £84.1 million in 2002. However, because of the Tory funding system, it got only £81.4 million, despite the fact that 2002 experienced one of the greatest recessions in television advertising revenue.
Mr. Heald: The hon. Gentleman might not have noticed—although most people have—that since 1997 Labour has been in power. If the formula is as wrong as he suggests, why is he not leading a campaign against it and doing something to change it? It has nothing to do with the Conservatives.
Chris Bryant: The hon. Gentleman might not have realised that that is exactly what I am doing by making this speech. The formula for S4C does need to be changed, and the Government are instituting—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman is wittering from a sedentary position, but the truth is that the Government have instituted a review of S4C, although there has not been a debate about it in the Chamber. I am trying to contribute to the debate.
S4C, in its digital future, will have to discover a new identity. It will no longer be good enough simply to be a channel for Welsh-speaking Wales. It needs to rediscover an identity for the whole of Wales, including
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my Rhondda constituency, and not just by putting subtitles on Welsh language programmes. One of the questions that a young person asked me the other day was, "Why is it that all the bands on S4C are Welsh-speaking bands? Why don't the music programmes have a Welsh-speaking band followed by an English-speaking band?"
Huw Irranca-Davies: Does my hon. Friend share my frustration with S4C that, despite the many good things that it does, its excellent political programmes are singular exceptions in failing to be subtitled in English? Many of my constituents who would want to enter the political debate cannot engage with it on S4C.
Chris Bryant: I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. One of the most scurrilous elements is that sometimes we find out that what the Plaid Cymru politician has said on a Welsh language programme is not exactly what he said on an English language programme. Without the subtitling, those such as me who do not have any Welsh find it difficult to know what is going on. Equally importantly, I do not understand why S4C is quite happy to interview French politicians in French, with subtitling or translation, but is not prepared to have its own Welsh English-speaking politicians, artists or dramatists appearing on the programme.
Huw Irranca-Davies: Will my hon. Friend also note that S4C is more than willing to interview English-speaking Welsh athletes and rugby stars on its sports programmes, because it feels that they have something important to contribute, whereas English-speaking politicians cannot get a foothold?
Chris Bryant: Absolutely, although this is starting to sound a little self-serving, so I cannot pursue the argument much further.
Of course, it is only right and proper that we should have a hefty Welsh-medium public service broadcaster, not only because the people of Wales for whom Welsh is their first maternal tongue deserve to be able to pursue their political, democratic and cultural life in their own language, but because Wales's growing bilingualism is an important contribution to a stronger society. I want S4C to play a role in encouraging that bilingualism, and not just encouraging Welsh.
I should not delay the House for many more minutes, but there are some challenges for other broadcasters, particularly Channel 4, which has an enormous audience in Wales and should recognise that. Channel 4 should have more of a Welsh remit. For instance, it should be able to interview people in Wales, whereas at the moment it has no provision to do so. The quota for programmes that must be made by Channel 4 outside the M25 is 30 per cent., but only 1 per cent. of those programmes are ever made in Wales. That should rise to 2 per cent., and I hope that Channel 4 will work closely with the independent sector, such as Pop Factory in my constituency, or Boomerang TV, to try to encourage more programming in Wales that gets on to network television via Channel 4.
There are also challenges for BBC Wales. Most importantly, it must get more good, strong Welsh programming on to the network. It is not good enough
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that Scotland has "Monarch of the Glen", and Northern Ireland has "Ballykissangel", but Wales has remarkably few programmes that manage to get on to network television. BBC Wales also needs to be much more engaged with the independent sector in Wales. It needs to promote more of a commercial sense in Wales of what it is trying to achieve.
We also need a decent BBC Wales website. It is outrageous that at the moment one cannot find out from the BBC Wales website who is contesting which seat in the local elections on 10 June. If a public service broadcaster has a role to play, surely it must make sure that everybody knows when elections are and who is standing.
Above all, BBC Wales must show all of Wales—not just Pontcanna, Cardiff, Swansea or Newport. It must show the valleys, but not in the stereotypical way such as when there is a drug-related problem or an antisocial behaviour order problem. It must show the fullness of Wales.
There are, of course, challenges for the Government. Everybody in Wales needs a free-to-air option in the digital era. We cannot hand it over to Sky. We need to make sure that the electronic programme guide enables viewers in Wales to find the channels that they want rather than the ones that Sky wants them to find. Above all, digital switchover should happen first in Wales, because we have made the biggest progress towards digital take-up anywhere in the world.
3.33 pm
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