BBC: Funding

Lord Birt Excerpts

Wednesday 17th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

That is fitting for a Question begun by the noble Lord, Lord Morse. The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, is right. So many of the world’s democracies go to the polls this year, and this is an issue which will face broadcasters, but the BBC particularly, both at home and through the World Service, does a brilliant job at making sure that the claims of politicians—wherever they are in the world, whatever party they come from—are rightly scrutinised and that people are informed so that they can make decisions about the societies and countries in which they live.

[Lord Birt (CB)]

It is right against the backdrop of an ever-more complex digital universe to review the funding model for the BBC, as the Government intend. However, will one or more of the panel of experts to be appointed to advise the Government be an expert in the evolution of the BBC, with an understanding that its emergence as one of the most renowned institutions in the whole world, noted for its values, its creativity, and its devotion to public purposes, is inextricably bound up in the fact that for 100 years it has been publicly funded?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

We will ensure that the expert panel helps to inform our thinking in the round, looking at both the things that have made the BBC so successful over the last century and the challenges ahead. We have also already been consulting the BBC itself as part of the process.