Support for the BBC

That the Parliament notes what it considers the UK Government’s overt threats to the funding structure of the BBC; believes that it is important to defend the BBC’s independence and impartiality, which it sees as a crucial part of the democratic process; acknowledges the role of the licence fee, without which it considers that the BBC would be less able to produce fair, unbiased and challenging content, free from any interference by advertisers, shareholders, and political interests; recalls reports of the Scottish National Party’s threat to boycott the BBC licence fee and of its attack on a prominent BBC journalist during the Independence referendum, which reportedly led to 4,000 people marching on the BBC’s headquarters; believes that the Prime Minister’s reported position on the BBC is clearly the action of a government that, it considers, is in disarray and desperately trying to distract from its own incredible incompetence, arrogance and disunity; calls for a defence of the current funding structure of the BBC, without which, it believes, the BBC would be less able to produce fair, unbiased and challenging content, and notes what it sees as the vital role of the BBC as a fact-based broadcaster, both in this country and around the world, at a time when, it considers, the very notion of truth itself is increasingly ignored and undermined.