BBC Governance and Regulation: Communications Committee Report

Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick Excerpts

Thursday 1st March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick]

My Lords, this is a vital debate on the governance of the BBC which allows the BBC family in Parliament to come together, as evidenced from these Benches, and the commercial Members likewise.

I declare interests as a delighted pensioner of the BBC and, probably more importantly, as the former head of public affairs and parliamentary affairs at the BBC for eight years between 1995 and 2003. Reflecting on the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, that this is a post-Murdoch era, one of my roles was to fight in this House on behalf of the BBC, then as a lobbyist for the BBC, to protect listed sports events. It was this House which stood up to the Government of the time and voted in favour of protecting listed events for public viewing.

Over the years, I have also managed to bring the issues of parliamentarians—both Members of the House of Commons and of this House—in front of my colleagues at the BBC. It is that experience of having to take the complaints of Members—who would frequently come to my office over the road in Millbank, not in tears but often in fury, and speak to me about what they felt, what they thought and how they had been misrepresented—that is informing what I want to reflect on today. I also want to say that, in recognition of the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, the existing Select Committee—I was previously a member for two years under his chairmanship—should in every sense be enhanced and protected. As a recommendation to the Government, I say “Fiddle with it at your peril”.

This report, rather grandly titled as The governance and regulation of the BBC, too easily falls into the general trap that the BBC used to encourage—continual conversation among itself about very little change. I heartily recommend some of the points put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, on the future management and governance of the BBC as being entirely appropriate.

We all want the BBC to energise and engage us; we want it to surprise and thrill us. We have heard about the wonderful 10 years of children’s programming and, of course, it is also 80 years—recognised at a party tonight—of the BBC World Service, which we also celebrate.

However, I wish to reflect on the “grisly experience” that the noble Lord, Lord Grade, explained to the committee in attempting, when no longer chairman of the BBC, to complain to his former organisation about what he did not like. What is wrong with the grisly experience? You get treated like the public after you have left an exalted position.

I, too, had an annus horribilis in 2004, if I recall correctly, when still as an executive in the BBC I took a complaint directly to the director-general. It was to have a conversation about what I can only describe as a tacky, slapstick, dreadful programme—it was a ridiculous attempt to ridicule faith—“Jerry Springer: the Opera”. The public had made very clear their views in preparation for that programme’s broadcast late on BBC 2. More than 85,000 members of the public had said that they were disdained if not irritated at its potential. During the course of the conversation I found myself with only one last recourse, which was to phone up a senior executive at BBC 2. I shall not state the gender of that person because it would give away their name. At the time I spoke to that executive within the close confines of BBC confidence. They said to me, “The problem here is this: there is a culture of ‘intransigent self-righteousness’ at the core of editorial policy, complaints and, ultimately, editorial decision-making”. I have never forgotten that hardened phrase. What is contained within this report about the complaints procedure—its exceptional muddle and unacceptability to the public—just raises those issues to the very core of our conversation.

So what is to be done about it? When we have an organisation that we all want to preserve and strengthen and that we all thrill at, none of us wishes to engage in crazy conversations about the further reduction of the licence fee, the unnecessary eradication of the royal charter or becoming purely a commercially driven broadcast nation. However, we do want a BBC that genuinely feels it has returned to—or enhanced—its position as the citizen’s duty provider; that it stands up for the complaints, concerns and issues of the public. They are not just the payers but the customers. I quote no greater figure than the Deputy Prime Minister, who called for a John Lewis culture in business: the advantage of a John Lewis or Marks & Spencer culture is that the customer starts with knowing they are right. My experience—and that of many others—with the complaints procedures of the BBC is that the customer is instinctively treated as though they are wrong. That position needs to change.

I recall that the interim director-general, Mark Byford, established a journalism school at the BBC as part of a very bold and appropriate methodology to attempt to reinvigorate courage in the journalism of the BBC post-Hutton. Of course it was right for presenters and journalists to spend time being re-energised and rethinking how they saw their position in the world and how they reflected on matters of great controversy and interest. However, I do not recall—and I may well be wrong—those responsible for policy or complaints procedures having to go through the same criteria for re-evaluation, re-energising and getting their minds back on the right track of courage and responsibility.

There are many recommendations in this report about what to do. Maybe we will hear shortly that we are to see a split in the responsibilities of the next director-general. That is one possible way forward but it is only to hint at change. What is ultimately needed is a sensitisation within BBC policy-making among those responsible for the editorial process and for those who must, rightly, handle complaints within the BBC. I am not a fan of handing another single power to Ofcom. If you energise bureaucracies, they simply create more bureaucracies, so let us not go down that route. However, we need to sensitise the complaints and policy systems within the BBC back to the duties of ensuring that the public interest is served first; that the customer, viewer and listener must be instinctively correct in the first instance and challenged by facts only later; and that the opportunity to reply is an instant requirement rather than a delayed and fiddled process.

I believe that the BBC, as long as it retains its public resourcing and good governance, is always going to be a great organisation. In the light of that, let us make sure it has great people who make right decisions.