Coronation Street: 60th Anniversary — House of Commons, 2020-12-02
Topic: Culture
John Flasby Lawrance Whittingdale (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that. It has been some years since anyone was sent to prison for that and I hope it does not happen again, but it was disproportionately women who suffered My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith) talked about the issue of raising awareness of sepsis. It is perhaps worth observing that there cannot be another street in Britain that has experienced so many disasters and so many tragedies in such a short space of time Of course, most recently, the programme has had to wrestle with the challenges of covid, both in terms of production and also as a storyline. Covid stopped production of "Coronation Street" in March, but it was able to resume in June under the protocols to ensure safety. I want to pay tribute to the ITV health and safety team and to Magnus Brooke of ITV who played a very large part in helping to draw up those protocols so that not just ITV Studios productions could get going again, but all the other broadcasters and film companies could, too I have been chairing the broadcasting, film and production working group, which has brought together representatives of all the broadcasters, film companies and production companies to discuss how we could get production going again. We have now put in place very strict protocols to ensure that production can take place safely. As the hon. Member for Batley and Spen mentioned, we have also put in place the £500 million film and TV restart scheme. She is absolutely right that one obstacle was the difficulty in obtaining insurance of productions against the possibility of their having to stop because of covid. I am glad to say that that is in place and, as a result, productions have been resumed by most of the major broadcasters and film companies, but it has required some quite inventive solutions. I understand that, on "Coronation Street", furniture is quite often placed between characters in order that they can remain apart and socially distanced. Indeed, in a particularly inventive way, filming of romantic scenes takes place with one actor sitting on one end of a sofa looking longingly at a tennis ball suspended from the ceiling and then, once that section has been filmed, the other actor takes their place at the other end of the sofa and stares at a different tennis ball longingly and the production crew then splice the two together so that no one can tell. It is very important not just, obviously, that production is done safely, but that a show like "Coronation Street" gets across the public messaging about the importance of maintaining social distancing and mask wearing. "Coronation Street" had the socially distanced wedding between Maria and Gary I fear that it is almost certain that Weatherfield would still be in tier 3 at the end of the national lockdown, which would mean that the Rovers Return would be able to supply only a takeaway service, but I hope that it would not be long before the Rovers Return would be in tier 2, which would, of course, allow the sale of alcohol with a substantial meal such as Betty’s hotpot The hon. Lady also rightly referred to the importance of the UK production sector and our creative industries and the need to ensure that every region and every nation of the UK benefits from them, and we have been very keen to ensure that more production is done outside London. The BBC now has a major centre in Salford at MediaCity. ITV is now located with the "Coronation Street" set there. I have also had the pleasure of visiting the "Emmerdale" set in Leeds. ITV still has a presence in Leeds and Channel 4 has now established its headquarters in Leeds. I am absolutely clear that it is very important that we continue to encourage production to take place right across the UK, because it brings enormous economic benefits in terms of jobs and wealth creation The hon. Member for Batley and Spen and my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham referred to the importance of public service broadcasting. We are living through extraordinary changes in the media landscape that have brought huge extra opportunities for viewers in the range of content available through a number of streaming services that did not even exist two or three years ago. Now we have a choice of Amazon, Apple, Disney and Netflix, as well as Sky and the public service broadcasting companies. The PSBs have a tremendous role in supporting the UK creative industries, and while some of the streaming services are now commissioning content in this country, because we are so good at it here, the PSBs nevertheless still represent the major commissioners of UK content. We have recently established the Public Service Broadcasting Advisory Panel to examine the way in which PSB needs to adapt to this new landscape, but I am absolutely clear that there is still a role for public service broadcasting, and we will be looking at the issues and challenges facing public service broadcasters, such as the issue of prominence that my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham raised I would like to conclude by joining all those who have spoken in paying tribute to a show that has not only brought pleasure and entertainment to millions of people over the course of the last 60 years, not just in the UK but in many other countries around the world, but also played a vital role in raising awareness and affecting attitudes on so many important public issues. As several people have said, I look forward to at least another 60 years.