S4C 1980s cash switch plan 'amazed' minister Peter Walker
Plans for a Welsh Office to fund Welsh language television channel S4C instead of the Home Office in the 1980s were rejected by the Welsh secretary at the time, documents have revealed.
In government papers from 1989, Peter Walker said he was "frankly amazed" by the Treasury's proposals. Such a move would bring S4C "too far into the political domain", he warned. Mr Walker said he wanted broadcasting in Wales to remain an issue which had been "successfully defused". In 1980, former Plaid Cymru MP Gwynfor Evans had said he would fast to death if the government did not provide a Welsh-language TV service. Both the Conservatives and Labour had promised to create the channel if they won the 1979 general election. But the victorious Tory administration initially decided not to go ahead with the plan. It later honoured its election pledge fearing a "difficult and emotionally-heightened atmosphere" in Wales if Mr Evans became ill or died. Before devolution in 1999, the Welsh Office, now known as the Wales Office, was the UK government department responsible for key Welsh public services, including health and education, with the Welsh secretary at its helm. In the papers, released on Friday, Mr Walker said: "We have successfully defused broadcasting as a political issue in Wales over the past eight years and I have no desire to see it become one again." In response, the then chief secretary to the Treasury, Norman Lamont, suggested the Welsh Office would be in a better position to move money from S4C into other public services. "The main advantage of my proposal, that the Welsh Office accept responsibility for funding S4C, was that you would have been able to judge when to re-open the [funding] formula we have agreed and transfer resources between S4C and other activities funded by the Welsh Office," he said But Mr Lamont said he understood Mr Walker's concerns and agreed to keep funding via the Home Office. In the exchange of letters, revealed in papers released by the National Archive, Mr Walker said he did have an "obvious interest" in broadcasting but the Home Office had responsibility for the issue. Aside from the political concerns, he added: "On a practical level, my department [the Welsh Office] is simply not equipped at present to assume this sort of responsibility and neither do I have the necessary powers." He continued: "I very much hope that you agree with me that these are sufficient reasons for me to resist even the suggestion that officials should meet to discuss this." Mr Walker finished his letter by saying he was sending a copy of it to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Mr Lamont said he was "prepared to agree" with Mr Walker that allowing this "possibly could re-open the impassioned debate on broadcasting in Wales". S4C began broadcasting in 1982, and was initially funded through an agreed share of independent television advertising revenue. However, in 2013 main responsibility for funding the channel was transferred to the BBC via the licence fee. Currently, S4C gets £6.7m a year from the UK government, with most of its £80m funding coming from the licence fee.