Patrick Hurley

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

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242 held · 230 searchable for Patrick Hurley. The searchable lines are below in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 4 of 5.

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1. “I do not particularly class myself as a shrinking violet on this, nor do I think I am any less competent than the average person when it comes to dealing with these issues; but when someone like me gets a £100 fine through the post, God help the average motorist, who is just trying to navigate the complex multitude of different regimes and approaches. There needs to be standardised regulation in this area, concerning issues such as signage, grace periods, appeals processes and complaint handling. There needs to be a consideration period, so that people can make an informed judgment about whether to accept the terms and conditions.”

   House of Commons6 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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2. “This is exactly what I did although I found the whole process very complicated.” After a lot of back and forth, she ended up paying the fine because: “It turns out it was my fault because unbeknown to me you have to put the length of time you’ve been parked for in the machine when you pay. So I only paid for one hour and not two.” Katie is not alone because, secondly, we have an issue with the Ocean Plaza car park near the beach. One of my residents went to the shops there a couple of months ago—parks up, does his shopping and gets a letter two weeks later to say that he had been parked for three days, four hours and 38 minutes. It was an obvious mistake, but it took the intervention of my office before the parking firm would admit it. Even I have been caught out.”

   House of Commons6 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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3. “She parked at the private car park near the railway station but was not sure how the payment machine worked, so approached someone on duty for help. This is what she said when she wrote to me, as her words are far more powerful than anything I could write: “I received a letter from a debt company in March of this year telling me I had a parking fine of £170 for parking longer than I paid for at the London Street NCP carpark in Southport in January. I’ve never parked here before and even asked a gentleman if I paid on arrival or exit and he told me you pay on exit by putting your registration number in and paying the amount shown.”

   House of Commons6 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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4. “It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford. The Government were elected back in July on a mandate to put more money into working people’s pockets. However, almost as soon as that money goes in, those same pockets are being picked by the increasing costs of just living their daily lives. One of the most egregious culprits is the private parking industry. On average, 41,000 new private parking fines are issued each and every day. We are on course for more than 14 million this year alone. That is an issue that affects pretty much every motorist in the country, whether through being fined themselves or worrying that they will make a mistake and that they are at risk of being fined. I will tell a couple of stories from my constituency just to illustrate the argument. First, we have Katie Lovett.”

   House of Commons6 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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5. “I agree completely. The £70 uplift that the recovery firms are charging is indefensible. For repeat offenders in the industry, there needs to be a statutory code of practice. It should include the power to remove a company’s access to the DVLA register of keepers, meaning that operators who fail to meet the standards of the code would be prevented from enforcing unpaid parking charges and would therefore effectively be unable to do business. Lastly, the Government need to stop the private operators issuing and enforcing fines due to inadequate signs, broken machines, faulty ANPR cameras and simple mistakes around dealing with the technology. I await the Minister’s remarks with interest.”

   House of Commons6 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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6. “It is disappointing to see how Conservative Members have approached this question. I would have hoped that this was an issue on which the whole House could remain united. The way in which it has been approached is to be regretted. I have no desire to pour cold water on the daft political posturings of adolescents given voice in pop music—that has been going on for decades and is somewhat of a rite of passage—but the comments of this band go far beyond what is remotely acceptable in a civilised country. Will the Minister therefore please use his good offices to look to minimise the number of mainstream platforms—not just Glastonbury—across the board on which this band appear?”

   House of Commons29 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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7. “T3. The co-operative movement has a long and proud history of helping to rebuild local economies post-conflict. In this UN International Year of Co-Operatives, will the Minister agree to meet me and representatives of the co-operative movement to discuss the ways in which Governments can promote co-operation as a solution on the global stage?”

   House of Commons1 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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8. “The Environment Agency allocates its budgets to carry out work on flood defences on the basis of a funding formula, but that formula does not give sufficient weight to agricultural land. Will the Minister undertake a review of the formula, so that agricultural land gets the flood defences it needs?”

   House of Commons20 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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9. “With that in mind, I am pleased that the Government are willing to commit to support our coastal communities and I too put on record my wish to see the creation of a specific Minister for coastal communities. The issues our areas share are so specific to the coast, common to each other and important to our residents that Government will gain greatly from a dedicated Minister ensuring that the views of our towns and areas are heard in this place. I am sure that if government steps up and meets some of the challenges that our towns face, the decade of national renewal that we know the country needs could be implemented.”

   House of Commons20 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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10. “Austerity manifests itself in different ways in different areas, and in my town austerity has manifested itself most prominently in the closure of the town’s seaside pier. A botched repair job 25 years ago means that there are now structural problems estimated to cost over £10 million to fix. The pier is in local authority ownership, and thanks to the previous Government, the local authority has not got the money to bring about the necessary repairs. I have been campaigning on innovative ways to ensure that piers across the country are safeguarded for the next generation. This Labour Government have more coastal MPs than at any point in our country’s history, as is evidenced by the overwhelmingly empty Conservative Benches. The common issues faced by coastal towns are felt keenly by my colleagues on the Labour Benches.”

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11. “While it once might have been appealing for families from Manchester to take a packed lunch to the seaside and enjoy the scenic train route through Lancashire, it is no good for our commuters to still be stuck on that scenic route, trundling across the north-west to get to work and back every day. What was once our strength has now become our weakness. Austerity has hit us hard too. The former Government removed in excess of £200 million a year from the local area. The multiplier effect of that has had an impact on private businesses in the town because when so many customers see that their wages are not keeping up with prices, then small businesses fail. We have seen a lot of that in Southport in the past decade.”

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12. “In many ways, my constituency of Southport is a typical coastal community and, like many coastal towns, it has seen better days. It is coping with challenges that do not necessarily impact inland areas to the same extent. Part of that negative change is due to the nature of the town’s economy, but a big part of it is due to its geography: it is a seaside town. What made many of our seaside towns successful originally—the sense that they were a trip away from the big city and that people could travel for miles through the countryside to get to them—now militate against us.”

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13. “Does my hon. Friend agree that with the new Government, north-west towns have the best opportunity for a generation to turn the tide on years of Tory decline and ensure that their best days lie ahead?”

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14. “Does my hon. Friend agree that a strong enabling state, bringing forward those five missions and investing in a progressive industrial strategy, can help our coastal towns thrive in the next decade?”

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15. “The Liverpool city region combined authority is maintaining the £2 bus fare cap, including in Southport, and we are moving forward with trials of bus franchising across the region. Despite problems, Merseyrail still received the second highest overall customer satisfaction levels nationally in the latest surveys. And although there is perhaps an element of empire-building, I welcome the fact that our line to Manchester is set to be brought into the Greater Manchester Bee network in 2028, which will finally allow a tap-in, tap-out ticketing system, integrating with Manchester’s. Those positives point the way forward, as more devolution on transport and greater statutory powers for the coming Lancashire combined county authority ensure that the rest of the north-west is linked up, in the way my constituency already is.”

    House of Commons19 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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16. “The closure of two simple railway curves in Burscough, just outside of constituency, means that the seven-mile journey from Ormskirk to Southport takes 85 minutes by train, and that the notional 20-mile journey to Preston involves passengers changing at Wigan, which is itself 20 miles out of the way. We are lucky, though, because unlike in other parts of the country, the railway curves at Burscough were never built over—they are still there, just overgrown and unloved. It would cost an estimated £30 million to reinstate them, which would once again connect the towns of Merseyside and west Lancashire, and strengthen travel-to-work routes, promoting the economic growth we all want so desperately. It is not all bad.”

    House of Commons19 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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17. “Even the rail services that we do have are incredibly unreliable. Just this morning, at 6.47 am, Merseyrail sent out a message on social media saying: “Due to a train fault, some services on the Southport line face cancellations”. The first reply said: “Another day, another train fault”. The second reply blamed the politicians. The service to Manchester is even worse: in November, there were no services at all on Sundays for three weeks in a row, and more than a quarter of all journeys were either delayed or cancelled. When the trains do turn up, passengers are greeted with what the chief exec of Northern Rail has called “some of the worst-performing rolling stock in the country.” That cannot be allowed to continue. The constituency’s connectivity has also been directly impacted by the well-known 1960s cuts to railway services.”

    House of Commons19 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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18. “It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Leigh and Atherton (Jo Platt) for securing the debate. I will lay out my case in simple terms: north-west public transport is not up to scratch. Specifically, our railway journeys are nowhere near good enough. They are holding our region’s economy back, and we need change. Take my constituency, for instance: there is no direct public transport link from one side of the constituency to the other, despite it being overwhelmingly urban. Try to take public transport from Birkdale to Rufford—a journey of 10 miles—and a single ticket will cost £21, while the journey will take one hour and 11 minutes and involve changing trains three times. It is literally 10 miles away; it would almost be quicker to walk.”

    House of Commons19 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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19. “May I associate myself with colleagues’ comments about the tragic events in the Minister’s constituency? Back in 2021, a young woman in my constituency was the victim of an alleged assault. Even now, in 2025, she advises that there has been no trial, and she worries that she could run into the accused around town. What can be done to expedite such cases in which violence is alleged, to better protect our citizens and ensure that our streets are safe from crime?”

    House of Commons11 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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20. “T5. Following the recent announcement that the Smedley Hydro Government site in my constituency will close in the years to come, will the Minister work with me to ensure that the hundreds of jobs currently based there are relocated at a new site also in the constituency?”

    House of Commons6 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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21. “We do not want foreign agents and foreign actors to influence our democratic process in relation to adults and we certainly do not want them to influence the formation of the politics of our children.”

    House of Commons24 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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22. “As a starting point, I support an increase in age restrictions, in line with the petition, but we need to learn more about the causes of the problems affecting our younger generations and find out how to prevent them for future generations. In addition to an increase in the age limit, I want stronger enforcement of age limits by Ofcom and through self-regulation by social media companies. We also need more high-quality, robust research to prove causality beyond any doubt. I finish with an aspect that has not been touched on in the debate. Last week in the House, I noted how there is increasingly a political element, where social media companies reflect the national interests of the host countries in which they are situated. There are national interest considerations for the UK in regulation of social media.”

    House of Commons24 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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23. “Many Members in this debate have, rightly, concentrated on the harms to children. My hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister) somewhat stole my thunder by so eloquently drawing an analogy with smoking in the 1950s. I have truncated my speech accordingly, but the analogy is accurate: we are now at the stage where social media usage is analogous to smoking in the 1950s. Obvious harm is being done, but we are not yet at a stage where we can accurately quantify it, categorise it or come to a settled conclusion on how to deal with it. Evidence continues to emerge around harmful content, disrupted sleep patterns, damage to the mental health of children, addictiveness and more, but we as a society, a Government, a Parliament and politicians do not yet know how to adequately deal with all of that.”

    House of Commons24 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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24. “It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I will set out some facts and figures before moving on to the substance of my speech. Seventy-one per cent of children report having experienced harm online. Twenty-one per cent of children report having been contacted online by adults they do not know. Vulnerable children are twice as likely as their peers to encounter online bullying. Fifty-seven per cent of parents report that their children’s sleep patterns are being negatively affected by online activity. And here is the killer stat: despite the age limit of 13, 85% of 9 to 12-year-olds are reported to use social media. It is obvious that a mere increase in the threshold to 16 years of age is insufficient; the measure needs to go hand in hand with enforcement.”

    House of Commons24 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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25. “Good public services are dependent on reliable and easily accessible and available underlying data, such as postal addresses. However, address data is complex and expensive for UK businesses to access. Given the importance of that data to public service delivery and economic growth, will the Minister commit to reviewing the terms under which UK address data is made available to support growth?”

    House of Commons12 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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26. “In recent months it has become obvious that some social media companies’ algorithms are run not in the pursuit of a commercial imperative but in the service of the political interests of their host country. Can those politicised social media firms be treated as such, to protect the national interest?”

    House of Commons12 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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27. “It is quite evident that tariffs will have a negative impact on the UK economy. Among all the palaver in the imposition of tariffs, the impact on workers—on their jobs and livelihoods—is often forgotten. In formulating a response to the proposed tariffs, I ask that we work closely with trade union representatives to ensure that the workers are not forgotten in all of this.”

    House of Commons11 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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28. “I thank the Minister for his statement, and his Department for the sensitive way in which the families were consulted prior to its publication; I have spoken with several of the people most intimately impacted over the last few days, and I know full well how much it is appreciated. Some of the details in the review beggar belief. I will mention just one. There were spelling mistakes in the Prevent database. Each time Rudakubana was referred to Prevent, his name was recorded with a different spelling. The review states that it is possible that previous referrals did not show up in searches. Can this House have confidence that, where such issues and training needs are identified, the recommendations of the review will be implemented rapidly to make sure that the failures of the Prevent programme between 2019 and 2024 are not repeated?”

    House of Commons5 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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29. “I thank the Secretary of State for his answer. In the Liverpool bay area, just off the coast of my Southport constituency, we already have a number of wind farms, including the Burbo Bank scheme. Can he outline to the House what more his Department is doing to ensure that, as we put up these wind farms, jobs are created in constituencies like mine?”

    House of Commons4 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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30. “Does the Home Secretary agree that the next stage of achieving justice for my community and for the families impacted so desperately by the crime back in July—that is, the public inquiry—should also be allowed to undertake its work and make its recommendations free of the ridiculous nonsense and lies that we have seen from public figures who should know better and which have been circulating purely for their own interests?”

    House of Commons21 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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31. “It has been another tough week for my Southport constituency, as I am sure that Members across the House will appreciate. I want to start by thanking the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister for the calm, diligent way in which they have undertaken their work over the last six months, and for the way in which they have been good friends to Southport. I was clear back in the summer that I did not want people speculating online as to the motives or the background of the person who we can now say was the murderer of those three girls. We were risking prejudicing the trial, and it could have collapsed because of that speculation. In fact, it was not just speculation, but in some respects, downright lies—downright lies that were being circulated in the interests of political gain, with the interests of justice a distant second.”

    House of Commons21 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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32. “I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) for bringing this valuable debate and Bill before the House today. As has been made clear by many speakers, for as long as we have known it, there has been a weird hotchpotch of different regulations concerning different elections in the UK. We have different voting systems for different elections; we have parliamentary boundaries that take little account of the boundaries for local elections; and we have age differences for different elections in different parts of the country, with votes at 16 in some parts of the country for some elections. We have voter ID regulations. We have the single transferable vote, top-up systems and first past the post. That whole hotchpotch of different regulations needs to be simplified and standardised.”

    House of Commons17 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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33. “I will talk briefly about an issue in my constituency and across my wider combined authority area. Over the last couple of years, since voter ID has become mandatory, there has been a localised concern. The law states that an older person’s bus pass is an acceptable form of ID, but the common bus pass in my part of the world is the Merseytravel over-60s bus pass, which the law does not allow to be used as voter ID. My council, and neighbouring councils across the local authority and combined authority area, had to write to every single Merseytravel over-60s bus pass holder in the borough to tell them that their bus pass was not valid to vote with, contrary to what they had been led to expect and believe by the national press in its reporting on the law change.”

    House of Commons17 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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34. “I am sure it was not the vote of my 20-year-old self that tipped the balance in that election, but none the less I was very proud on that May morning to go down to the community centre around the corner from my house, with my voting card in hand, and cast my vote for the first time in a national election for my MP. I am still very proud that at every election, I cast my vote in person, but just because I am a hopeless old romantic who wants to go down to the polling station, it does not mean that we must ensure that everybody does that. On the contrary, we need to make voting as easy and engaging as possible, so that the majority of people can engage with the process. For those people who cannot vote on the day, we need to ensure that proxy and postal voting, and absent voting more generally, is as easy as it can be.”

    House of Commons17 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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35. “I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend—the amount of complications and complexities in the voting system in this country needs addressing. This Bill will address just one of those complexities, but I fully agree with what he has said. My hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk (Euan Stainbank) mentioned that we could perhaps guess his age from the elections he had taken part in. In a similar vein, perhaps Members can guess my age when I say that the first national election I voted in was the landslide Labour victory of 1997. At the time, I was living in the marginal constituency of Knowsley South—it was one of the safest seats in the country.”

    House of Commons17 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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36. “The remits of the various boundary commissions need revisiting, and the voting system needs updating to ensure stability and good governance. In July last year, we achieved stability and good governance almost by accident, despite the voting system. Voting needs to be made more accessible, and engagement with the democratic process needs to be made easier. In conclusion, there is a huge patchwork quilt of rules that make sense to almost nobody. The Bill seeks to rectify one small aspect of the increasingly daft situation. I hope it is allowed to make progress.”

    House of Commons17 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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37. “For some reason, Wales was included when it came to police and crime commissioner elections, but Scotland was not. Unwittingly, the weird hotchpotch of systems was made worse, rather than better. People in Scotland and Wales who thought that they had registered for a postal or proxy vote found out when it was too late that they had registered for one set of elections but not another. Unwittingly, they were being disenfranchised, due to the nonsensical bureaucratic changes that had been brought in. Even council officers, as has been made clear, did not want this change; it heaped further administrative and cost burdens on electoral officers and local authorities. Nobody wanted it to happen, yet almost by accident, the complexity was increased. There needs to be a raft of changes.”

    House of Commons17 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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38. “I again agree wholeheartedly. The omission of veterans’ passes from the previous legislation, which meant that they could not be used, was shameful. We have all talked about the complexities, but the cherry on top of the 57 varieties of voting system that we have all got used to over the years was the old European Parliament elections being held under the d’Hondt system. I am mindful of time, so I will not go into detail on that—I am sure that even Mr d’Hondt could not come up with a better method of filibustering than doing so. Much to my dismay, this Bill is not intended to correct every single peculiarity of the voting system, but it is intended to correct one. The Elections Act 2022 made it easier to apply online for absent voter arrangements, but it included Scotland and Wales only when it came to UK parliamentary elections.”

    House of Commons17 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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39. “The failure of Ofcom to regulate the small but risky platforms seems to mean that a site such as LinkedIn is being regulated to a greater extent than platforms such as Telegram or Discord, which are overrun with far-right activism, self-harm, misinformation, homophobia and antisemitic content. Does my hon. Friend agree that that needs to be rectified and that Ofcom needs to raise its game?”

    House of Commons13 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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40. “The reason why nothing works properly in this country any more is the economic legacy of the Conservative party. GP appointments, train journeys, street lights, social care—none of it works. We had to do something to put this country’s economic policy on an even keel, and this is what we had to do. [ Interruption. ] I will take no lectures from anybody over there who opposes it.”

    House of Commons7 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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41. “It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz, and I thank the hon. Member for Isle of Wight East (Joe Robertson) for securing this debate. Prior to the election, the Labour party made a promise to the British people not to put up taxes on working people and I am proud that they have not put up taxes on working people. However, everybody in this country has known for years that the state was failing on its own terms. Prior to the election, I spent a year as my party’s candidate and I canvassed every single street in my Southport constituency; I know pretty much every dodgy garden gate and letterbox in the whole town. The one complaint I heard over and over and over again was that nothing works properly in this country any more.”

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42. “The Conservative party has been very clear that it wants tax cuts, but less clear on what public services it would cut to pay for them. Perhaps the Minister might wish to reflect on that.”

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43. “T3. I recently met farmers in the northern parishes of my constituency, and they told me about the urgent need for improved water management to protect farmland. They want to establish an internal drainage board for flood management, but they cannot take action to set it up until the necessary statutory instrument is in place. Given the importance of establishing an IDB in my area, will the Minister commit to working with me and stakeholders to reduce flood risks, and will she outline when the statutory instrument for an IDB in my area might be put before the House?”

    House of Commons19 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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44. “It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I thank the right hon. Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) for bringing this debate to the House. Today is 18 December, so this time next week, millions of people will be gathered around their television to watch Christmas day programming. It is one minute past 3, so—”

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45. “The best way to ensure that the BBC continues to provide its services, therefore, is through the continuation and maintenance of the licence fee model, rather than general taxation for public sector broadcasting or subscription services for entertainment.”

    House of Commons18 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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46. “Millions will be watching the King’s speech this time next week—on the BBC. People would not subscribe to the BBC on Christmas day to watch the King’s speech, but to watch programmes such as “Gavin and Stacey”, “EastEnders”, or “Doctor Who”. If they subscribed for only entertainment purposes, however, they would miss out on the cultural life of the country and on important issues that they should be exposed to and should consume. A subscription service that unwittingly creates such a taxonomy of programming, and divides content between public sector broadcasting and entertainment, would fall foul of reducing the consumption of important content.”

    House of Commons18 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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47. “I therefore ask that the system be changed to allow a permanent charter for the BBC, which the Government and the BBC, in concert, could alter as and when required, rather than after a mandated medium-term period. I welcome the Government’s commitment to putting the BBC on a stable financial footing, and look forward to the Minister’s comments.”

    House of Commons18 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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48. “The BBC’s £5 billion investment each year supports a unique entertainment output and provides world-class exports for viewers abroad. I want the BBC to be able to invest more in its cultural output so that it can extend its provision in that area. For those reasons, it is incredibly important to maintain the BBC’s position at the top of the electronic programme guide, so that public service broadcasting continues and survives in years to come. Finally, although the Government should monitor the BBC funding situation, the current system of charter renewal, whereby the BBC continually diverts attention and resources to the upcoming charter review, is less effective than it should be at supporting the BBC to deliver as a public service.”

    House of Commons18 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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49. “I hope that more effort can be put into improving Verify’s output in the months and years to come. I turn to the importance of the World Service, which many Members have already discussed. I support the Government’s recent uplift in funding for the World Service, but I favour returning this funding to the Foreign Office to relieve financial pressures on the BBC’s domestic coverage, enable sustainability and stability in the long term, and help to support Britain’s soft-power role in an increasingly dangerous world. The BBC’s cultural impact is crucial to supporting the creative economy in the UK. The BBC strives to represent and serve all communities across the UK, and invests over half its funding outside London. The UK creative sector is a continuously developing area.”

    House of Commons18 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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50. “I thank the hon. Lady for the question. Fewer people are willing to pay it, but there is a way around that. The BBC can make efficiency savings that will help to rebuild trust in it. If its content can be improved or its reach can be extended, that will lead to a regaining of trust, which the hon. Lady mentioned earlier, and to more people supporting the BBC financially through the licence fee. I want to come on to an issue that the BBC has struggled with in recent years: trust. BBC Verify is a new service to combat the disinformation that we are seeing online. BBC Verify can be improved, both in content and in tone, as I have raised directly with BBC executives. I have also raised the fact that it is not perfect, but it is a good start in combating the disinformation and misinformation that we see online.”

    House of Commons18 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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