Independent Radio Production

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, with unerring accuracy the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, has put his finger on a vital and current issue. Before I begin, I draw attention to my work as a broadcaster and composer, as stated in the register of interests.

Long before the advent of television, radio—as provided then exclusively by the BBC—carved out a niche in the public psyche that has never really gone away. Think of Churchill or Eden; think of the King. Indeed, given the way television is gradually morphing into something that will doubtless be unrecognisable to us in a few decades, radio may well be the long-term survivor. What is it about radio that makes it so special, if less high-profile than its visual partner?

At its best, it is very much to do with the imagination, as the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, suggested. By not spelling out every detail, radio allows listeners—indeed, forces listeners—to use their imagination, to build pictures in the mind. I enjoy drama on television very much but I invariably find drama on radio more challenging and more satisfying. Radio, particularly local radio, is the great friend of the car driver—with information on where he or she is, what they can expect to find weather-wise, local events. That is very important, particularly in remote rural areas. Television, apart from short bulletins and the occasional magazine, cannot really devote the time to discussing local issues in the way that radio can and does.

Television has, in fact, been forced further and further down the one-way road of instant gratification. There is a terror that without quick editing the viewer will be bored, so we get faster and faster intercutting to hold the attention. Of course television can take us directly to world events as they unfold—the Twin Towers, Grenfell—and yet, does not a wonderfully scripted description, as we often hear on, say, “From Our Own Correspondent”, sometimes and somehow give us more human insight? What we get on television will be the same footage repeated over and over again until we almost feel we are becoming immune to the full horror of what is happening, whereas a radio correspondent will act as our witness and as our conscience, especially in the case of gifted reporters such as Fergal Keane, Kate Adie, George Alagiah and Robert Simpson, to name but a few.

I had the pleasure of working with the current director-general of the BBC, the noble Lord, Lord Hall, at the Royal Opera House. What he achieved at the ROH was a remarkable turnaround. I believe that what he is attempting to do at the BBC is equally ambitious and admirable—for example, rationalising salaries in management, cutting through excess middle management and opening up the BBC to fair competition from the independent sector, as we have just heard, although that in itself raises problems. This latter move is still in its infancy but it has been welcomed by the Radio Independents Group. However, between the ROH and the BBC there is a huge difference in size and scale. Turning round an ocean liner—which Broadcasting House indeed resembles—is one thing on the open sea but quite another if you are hemmed in on both sides as though instead of being on the ocean you are actually trying to turn a liner round on the Serpentine.

I love the BBC and have contributed to it in many ways since the early 1970s. Even then, we were trying to attract younger listeners—well, they are our listeners now. In the spirit with which the noble Lord, Lord Hall, invited constructive suggestions at the Select Committee yesterday, I am going to make some observations which I believe are central to securing a continuing and healthy radio sector. The gender pay issue and the size of well-known presenters’ salaries has rather masked a troubling state of affairs on the factory floor—the grass-roots. I am talking here in particular of local radio, which the BBC has done so much to set up, but which is now in pretty dire straits. Several factors have fed into this, but one is that there is absolutely no equality in terms of rates for the job. I am certainly not saying that a local radio breakfast host should get a comparable rate to a “Today” presenter—obviously not—but the disparity has grown out of all proportion. Instead of the possible £325,000 that a “Today” presenter might get, let alone what they have been getting, a local radio man or woman gets up at 4 o’clock in the morning and, with no assistance, entertains and informs his or her local community or county for, after tax, something like £76. I support the request made to the Minister by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, and I shall add another one. I would like to know whether local radio staff are working for figures above, near or even below the minimum wage when the hours are properly and fairly accounted for.

Let us move up the ladder and take very knowledgeable and skilled specialist presenters on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio 4, but not on “Today”. Why do they get a fraction of what, say, leading BBC 6 Music presenters get? Audience sizes are similar, as is profile. I realise that in a commercial world there has to be some element of hierarchy and that the BBC has to have the right to say that so-and-so is worth so much to it and to use some sort of yardstick, but that yardstick needs to be transparent so that Miss A can say, “Is my job not more or less identical to that of Mr or Mrs B?”. My suggestion is that the BBC may need, in this area, to jump the hurdle of network budgets in order to achieve greater visible equality across the board in terms of fees. I think the BBC might have some sympathy with this, or at least a version of it. I want to add that I am not speaking out of personal desire here. It is a matter of public record that when the controller and my editor at BBC Radio 3 pointed out that I was being paid more than my colleagues who did similar jobs, I volunteered to take a 33% pay cut to bring me more in line with them. That is a perfect example of what I would like to see more of, as long as the proceeds really do go to the underpaid.

Let me turn now to an issue that has caused huge distress and hardship. It is the handling by the BBC of HMRC’s IR35 directive, which the BBC has interpreted, lazily in my view, as meaning that virtually all freelancers must be put on PAYE. Except that is not the whole picture. The Revenue wants to cut down on abuses, as it sees it, involving PSCs—personal service companies—but the BBC could and should have fought for those people who are arguably not required to go on to PAYE. The Revenue took a sledgehammer to crack a nut here, and the fallout has contaminated people who are completely blameless.

Instead, by its own admission, the BBC not only dropped the ball, it simply did not see it coming. These executives are presumably on rather good salaries, and get pensions, perks and expenses. No such goodies were offered as compensation to presenters, many of whom had been forced by the BBC to set up personal service companies in the first place, often against their wishes and those of their accountants—not cheap. So while the BBC sorts out this mess, presenters do not actually have contracts at all, and furthermore, people have been required to pay tax in advance without knowing what they are going to earn. This is devastating for many people with mortgages and families, not to mention cases I have heard of women being denied maternity leave.

To sum up, the BBC has been overzealous in its interpretation of IR35 and CEST—“check employment status for tax”, which determines whether or not someone should be on PAYE. It saddens me to have to say that an organisation that is supposed to be expert at communication with the public has been so utterly disorganised and inept in that regard when dealing with its own employees.

The BBC appears to have paid HMRC up front without any idea of what will be owed and has applied IR35 to sole traders unnecessarily, forcing people into unacceptable contracts that tax them as staff, but with none of the benefits. All of this is a legacy of making people set up PSCs so that the BBC could avoid employer’s national insurance contributions. Can it be right that the BBC can simply disregard contractual obligations and, without consent, claw back tax from the past as well as the future? Many talented radio people are now questioning whether they can carry on working for the BBC. These matters really go right to the heart of this debate and the future of radio. I cannot help pointing out that under most BBC contracts, I could be sacked for saying what I have said and for criticising the BBC—but then again, I do not have a contract.

I end on a note of optimism. The BBC is like the NHS: it has myriad components that make it the impressive vehicle it unquestionably is. As a fine Culture Secretary in her day, I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Jowell, will not mind me taking an important point from her moving speech about illness and the NHS, and applying it to other large institutions such the BBC: we have to nurture the small specialist departments that contribute so much to making the body whole.

Of course, as with the NHS, money is the game-changer, but I believe that the BBC can be seen to be economising—it just has some of its priorities and methods horribly wrong. However, while it can give us programmes as diverse as “Test Match Special”, “Moneybox”, the “Shipping Forecast”, “Hear and Now”, “All in the Mind”, “Choral Evensong”, the “Proms”, “New Generation Artists”, “In Our Time”, “Open Book” and so many more, it will continue to hold a place of great affection and importance in the national psyche.