Bishop speaks out in opposition to authorities plans to abolish BBC licence payment

A number one Church of England bishop has spoken out about authorities plans to abolish the BBC licence payment – and praised the Company’s position in creating higher understanding of faith.

Dr Helen-Ann Hartley is Bishop of Ripon and Chair of the Sandford St Martin Trust that promotes ‘excellence in broadcasting about faith, ethics and spirituality’. 

She stated: “It’s with concern that we on the Belief have learn stories that the BBC is to be hit by a funding freeze and that the tradition secretary Nadine Dorries is anticipating the abolition of the licence payment after 2027.

“The BBC performs a important position within the promotion and enhancement of public and private understanding of faith. This has by no means been clearer than over the past two years when so many UK residents relied on the BBC for content material that helped help their very own non secular observe and related them with their communities.

“As a funding mechanism, the licence has served as contract between the broadcaster and the UK public – the one stakeholder that its output exists to serve.

Learn Extra: Will Christians miss the BBC when it’s gone?

“We, on the Belief, can be very sorry to see this or the BBC’s popularity as a world-class public service broadcaster and artistic chief jeopardised.”

Bishop Hartley stated the Belief would welcome a chance to debate how public service broadcasting and the BBC might be funded to “actually characterize all communities and viewers within the UK”.

In a press release, the bishop identified that the BBC had constantly produced or commissioned programmes that been shortlisted or had received prestigious Sandford St Martin awards lately.

Final yr the BBC dominated the shortlists in all 5 of the Belief’s annual classes and received three – for kids’s broadcasting, for journalism and for a radio/audio manufacturing.

The BBC was established as a Company in 1927 with the motto ‘Nation shall converse peace unto Nation’. The BBC’s dedication to faith contains its broadcasting of the radio Every day Service since 1928, and TV’s ‘Songs of Reward for greater than 50 years.

Peter Crumpler is a Church of England priest in St Albans, Herts, UK and a former communications director for the CofE.