At DCMS questions this morning, Easington MP Grahame Morris questioned Rt Hon John Whittingdale, Minister of State for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport about proposals to cut local and regional political and news programming. The National Union of Journalists has been informed that many of the existing staff who currently work on the award-winning investigative programme Inside Out will be put at risk of redundancy, if the BBC is to go ahead with plans to reduce the number of regional production centres from 11 to 6.

Grahame Morris MP asked Mr. Whittingdale if he would undertake to ask Ofcom to review the BBC’s compliance with its service obligations to provide local and regional news and political coverage, in light of these proposals: