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Electronic Communications

I will make progress before giving way. My right hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Tessa Jowell), the then Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, struck precisely that careful balance between the interests of the BBC and those of licence fee payers when she set out to the House the current six-year settlement—annual nominal increases in the licence fee of 3 per cent. for the first two years; 2 per cent. in years 3, 4 and 5, and between 0 per cent. and 2 per cent. in the final year. In the first two years—2007-08 and 2008-09—the licence fee increased by 3 per cent. Let me remind the House that the retail prices index was 4.3 per cent. and the consumer prices index was 2.3 per cent. in 2007. In 2008, RPI was 4 per cent. and CPI was 3.6 per cent. For the past two years, the BBC's funding increases have, on the whole, been below the prevailing rate of inflation. That is an important context for today's debate. On the logic of the motion that the shadow Secretary of State and the Leader of the Opposition have tabled, we might have expected a bid to uprate the BBC's position in the past two years, but I do not recall any clamour to do that. It is right not to clamour, because it is not sensible to look at any one year in isolation. However, the motion effectively asks us to do that.