THE GUARDIAN: Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, attacks 'extraordinary and outrageous' waste and predicts tough settlement
The BBC licence fee could be cut as part of the government's public spending austerity drive, the culture secretary has said.
Jeremy Hunt accused the corporation of "extraordinary and outrageous" waste in recent years and warned he could "absolutely" see viewers paying less than the current £145.50 a year after next year's licence fee negotiations with the government.
"The BBC should not interpret the fact that we haven't said anything about the way licence fee funds are used as an indication that we are happy about it. We will be having very tough discussions," he told the Daily Telegraph.
Hunt said the BBC should recognise the "very constrained financial situation" the country was in and it would need to change "huge numbers" of things that it does.
"There's a moment when elected politicians have an opportunity to influence the BBC and it happens every five years. It is when the licence fee is renewed.
"The BBC will have to make tough decisions like everyone else. There are huge numbers of things that need to be changed at the BBC. They need to demonstrate the very constrained financial situation we are now in."
The licence fee review process begins next year and a lower levy could be in place for 2012. >>> David Batty and agencies | Saturday, July 17, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: The culture department can offer glamour and excitement but Jeremy Hunt has taken charge with the BBC under fire and the arts facing severe budget cuts, writes Andrew Porter.
And he doesn’t just mean the sight of the massed ranks of luvvies screaming at him — as they have been this week — about the impending cuts to arts budgets.
He is referring to the period after this autumn’s spending review. “We are in an unreal period at the moment where everyone knows they are coming but they don’t know what it means. I’m not sure it’s sunk home yet what the effect of these cuts will be,” he says.
“People probably still don’t assume it’s going to affect the services they use every day so it will be a shock when the penny drops.”
With cuts of up to 40 per cent in Whitehall budgets, the Department for Culture Media and Sport, not being a front-line area, is braced for severe pain. Luckily, much of the money for the 2012 Olympics has been allocated already, but there are nagging concerns, not least about the ability to police such a monumental event. Mr Hunt is candid about the threats.
“We’ve got a number of terrorist networks in the UK at the moment actively plotting to cause major, major carnage. So security is going to be an issue,” he says. “It’s an obvious target. We have to assume they are targeting it and we have to be ready for that.”
Mr Hunt will use the Olympics to try to revive competitive sports in schools after years of neglect by Labour. Refreshingly, he is talking the right language.
“The point about competitive sport is it helps people to deal with setbacks and losing,” he says. “Losing is something that happens just as often as winning in all sports — and in fact more frequently for most people. This is something we should welcome and we have got to bury the myth that everyone has to get a prize and it is damaging to people’s self-esteem if you don’t win first prize. Setting up the Olympic school programme is the way to help do that.”
Mr Hunt has been taking flak this week from unlikely places. Selina Scott accused him of failing to follow up his promise in opposition to make the BBC examine how it treats its women. She says the corporation is guilty of “malign sexism and ageism”. But the Culture Secretary is not in the mood to be conciliatory. >>> | Saturday, July 17, 2010
