BBC has 'duty' to educate children about dangers online While parents had the "ultimate choice" about what their children were allowed to do online he argued that the BBC could educate about risks of online grooming, protection from legal adult content or explaining how filters work. He said: "The BBC's mission statement and stated public purposes fit perfectly for it to become the trusted source of advice on how to protect children online. The BBC has a responsibility to educate and to inform and to use new technology for the benefit of the licence fee payer. What better way to do that than to commit part of its vast resources to help parents understand the risks their children face online and to show them how to act to protect them? John Whittingdale chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, also said today that people were angry with the BBC for delivering savings in frontline programming costs when they see "huge amounts going on senior management salaries and pay-offs and also the waste of money represented by the Digital Media Initiative." Former culture secretary Dame Tessa Jowell, Labour MP for Dulwich and West Norwood, suggested that the BBC should become a mutual company meaning it would be "owned by its licence fee payers." She said "It is the public and the licence fee payers who should be in the driving seat. So the argument would be the BBC should indeed be owned by its licence fee payers.