BBC: Impartiality

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Thursday 28th November 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Deech]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the BBC’s measurement of its duty to deliver due impartiality as required by its Charter, and of how impartiality is addressed by its complaints system.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Twycross) (Lab)]

My Lords, it is for Ofcom, the BBC’s independent regulator, to hold the BBC to account on its duty to deliver impartial news content under its royal charter. The Government must set the right framework for the BBC to operate in; however, editorial decisions are, rightly, not something that the Government interfere with. The BBC is hugely important to public life and must be responsive to its audience—the British people—including through its handling of complaints.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, the BBC’s impartiality and accuracy in its coverage of the Israel-Gaza war have been thoroughly documented and found to be failing by the Asserson and Danny Cohen reports. To say that the audience trusts the BBC is no substitute for measuring impartiality. BBC Arabic reporters have been found to be supporting terror and to be anti-Semitic. Among the most egregious failings was Jeremy Bowen jumping to the conclusion that Israel had bombed the al-Ahli Hospital on 17 October last year, when it turned out to be an Islamic Jihad misfired rocket, and never apologising for this report, which caused great reputational damage. Today, a union has urged BBC staff to wear a keffiyeh or the Palestinian flag colours, while the BBC remains silent in this flaunting of impartiality. Will the Minister demand that the BBC set up an inquiry into the BBC Arabic service and, in the next charter review, call for an external ombudsman to settle BBC complaints, which, as we all know, are handled slowly and by the BBC marking its own homework? With all due respect to Ofcom—

[Noble Lords]

Oh!