BBC Charter
Debate between Earl of Courtown and Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury (LD)
My Lords, I have waited a long time for this date with the noble Baroness—and not just today—but the timing, if not the timing for noble Lords’ speeches, has turned out to be perfect, as last week saw the Government publish no fewer than three responses to discussions about renewal of the BBC Charter.
Although it is no surprise to me or my colleagues to discover that the British public overwhelmingly support the BBC, I suspect that it is for the Government. More than 80% of people responding to the Green Paper believe that the BBC is effectively serving audiences, about 75% support the licence fee as the best method of funding the BBC and almost three-quarters believe that the BBC’s services are truly distinctive and that it has a positive wider impact on the market.
As the summary of responses document states, the response to the consultation,
“was one of the largest ever received to a government consultation, highlighting that the future of the BBC is an important issue to a great many people”.
Despite the fact that the Secretary of State paid tribute in his speech last week to,
“the hours the public put into writing”,
he struck a sour note by implying that the involvement of the organisation 38 Degrees had somehow distorted the responses. Can the Minister assure the House that the Government do not believe that 192,000 people have been nobbled?
It is vital that John Whittingdale, the Government and Parliament remember, as this process of charter renewal gathers pace, that the BBC belongs to the licence fee payer—the public, not politicians—and that the Secretary of State honours his pledge to the chair of the BBC Trust that,
“all the responses will be properly considered in their decision-making”.
What is clear is that the BBC, despite what we read in so many editorials and so many opinion pieces, is not under attack from the public. Quite the contrary: across Britain, people use the BBC services every day and very happily because it serves them well. So where do the attacks come from? To quote the much-quoted Armando Iannucci:
“We seem to be in some artificially-concocted zone of outrage”.
As I said, 75% of the respondents support the licence fee, as do we. At 40p per day, the BBC is tremendous value for the consumer. It is also great for the UK economy, generating the equivalent of £2 for every £1 of licence fee—in other words, it doubles its money. As Sir Peter Bazalgette, chair of Arts Council England, said when giving evidence to the House of Lords Communications Committee, on which I sit:
“One of the justifications for the intervention in the marketplace that is the BBC is the value of the creative industries democratically, culturally, socially and economically”.
By the way, Sir Peter was appointed chair of ITV last month, and I am reliably informed that he has not changed his views.
We do not, however, support the way in which the licence fee is set. The covert way in which the Chancellor negotiated the BBC taking on the cost of funding free TV licences for the over-75s, effectively making the BBC a vehicle to deliver elements of the welfare state—blocked by the Lib Dems when we were in coalition—was inappropriate, to say the least. Can the Minister assure us that this is the end of the process and that this is the licence fee settlement, as the BBC believed when taking on the £700 million cost of the free licences? Does she not agree that the process should, in the future, be transparent, and that the level should be recommended by the new regulatory body?
With the BBC being asked to take this financial hit, it is important that other sources of income are not undermined. Does the Minister not agree that BBC Worldwide is a crucial element to the BBC’s ability to continue to fund UK content?
A second report was Sir David Clementi’s A Review of the Governance and Regulation of the BBC. We welcome its recommendation that the BBC should have a unitary board. We on these Benches argued when the BBC Trust was established that that arrangement would only perpetuate the muddle between regulation and governance, and it has. However, it is vital that the Government ensure the appointment of a genuinely independent chair and genuinely independent non-executive directors. We should note the warning from the noble Lord, Lord Hall, that under Sir David’s proposal,
“half the board … could be appointed by the DCMS”.
Does the Minister agree that there should be an independent appointment panel, with the majority of its members drawn from outside politics and outside the Civil Service?
The third report is An Assessment of Market Impact and Distinctiveness. The call in it—repeated by the Secretary of State—for BBC1 to be more distinctive is odd, considering that the channel comes out top of independent Ofcom’s distinctiveness measures.
On the matter of market impact—“crowding out”—there seems to be particular concern in the area of online news. BBC news has higher levels of trust than any newspaper, and in the digital age it is surely more important than ever. As Sir Peter said,
“yes, it does compete and it is a market intervention, but if it is to have an impartial and independent news and information service for the country—if we believe in that—it has to have an online iteration”.
Our concerns on these Benches about BBC news are different. They are about the downward trend in investment in current affairs, noted by Ofcom in its latest review of PSB. It is vital that the BBC maintains both quality and quantity in this genre, for the reasons I have just mentioned.
There are other areas, of course, where the BBC’s choices and behaviour have been far from perfect. These include Savile, money wasted on a digital media initiative, and unacceptable pay and pay-offs for senior executives. Members of the “officer class”, as the noble Lord, Lord Hall, refers to them, have been out of step, and there are still too many layers of them. We therefore welcome the very plain pledge this week by the newly appointed head of TV channels, Charlotte Moore, that,
“Life’s going to be simpler”.
We on these Benches believe that training and skills development should be made one of the BBC’s core public purposes. It must learn the true definition of partnership: that a partner is someone you collaborate with, rather than impose on. Furthermore, if the BBC is properly to reflect the country, it has to address the problem of a lack of diversity. We need diversity at production and management level, as well as on screen. The last two issues were addressed by Charlotte Moore and must all be delivered upon.
The BBC, as well as being so popular with the British public, plays a hugely important role in promoting the UK around the world. At home, it plays a crucial part in our democracy and wider society. It is vital that it maintains its independence, its ability to inform, educate and entertain, and—we believe—its licence fee. To quote the chair of the BBC Trust:
“Charter review hangs over the BBC: a cloud of uncertainty and unease”.
Can the Minister reassure the House that we will not have to wait long for the White Paper, since the new royal charter needs to be in place by the end of the year? Does she not agree that, in future, the charter review process should be,
“decoupled from the general election cycle”,
and that charters should be set to last 10 years in order to provide stability for the BBC?
Finally, my first job at the BBC was working for a great man and a greatly missed man: Terry Wogan. He certainly knew how to entertain, but also to inform and educate. I wonder whether he would have been distinct enough if he had sought a BBC job under the world of Whittingdale? This is what he had to say about the BBC:
“The BBC is the greatest broadcaster in the world. It’s the standard that everyone measures themselves against. If we lose the BBC, it won’t be quite as bad as losing the royal family, but an integral part of this country will have gone”.
That is so right: the BBC is unique, a glorious aberration. Once it is gone, it is never coming back.
The Earl of Courtown (Con)
I remind noble Lords that they have just a minute for their speeches. There is a joke somewhere about hesitation, et cetera. I will not interrupt the debate, but I will ask noble Lords to sit down once they have reached one minute.