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Commenting on yesterday’s parliamentary debate on S4C, Nia Griffith MP said,

“Yet more Tory hypocrisy over S4C cuts, as Simon Hart MP’s request for a debate on S4C came up in the ballot, so he had the chance last night or rather at 2.45 am this morning to praise S4C and lament the new 26% cut that his own Conservative Government is imposing on the Welsh medium television channel, which comes on top of the cuts already made during the last five years. So much for the Tory manifesto promise to protect S4C funding.

And all we got from the Minister Ed Vaizey MP in response was weasel words – he was trying to talk about anything but the funding – and he played down the importance of the direct funding from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, referring back to the other source of funding that S4C gets from the BBC. In other words, he has no intention of doing anything to mitigate the massive 26% cut in funding down from £6.7m to £5m. We also know that the funding that S4C gets from the BBC is under threat as the Tory Culture Secretary John Whittingdale MP himself said that he would expect the BBC to cut S4C funding along with everything else. And those cuts of course were a result of the Tories promising in their election manifesto to keep free licences for the over 75s, and then turning round after the election and telling the BBC they would have to fund those free licences from their existing funds. You just cannot trust the Tories to keep their manifesto promises.”