BBC: Government Support

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I part company, slightly and even-handedly, with the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, over the point about bias. When asked to name the source that they trusted the most, news consumers cited the BBC most often: 49% did, which is far ahead of its nearest rival. Sky News and ITV were both on 7% and the Guardian was on 4%, while all other sources combined totalled 23%. If any noble Lord wishes to challenge that, please do so.

However, it is a remarkable fact—this, I suspect, is what irks the Government—that the “what the papers say” consensus, which is faithfully reported every day at 8.10 am on Radio 4, does not reflect the news provider that people trust most, which is the BBC. With regard to the consensus between the Mail, Express, Telegraph and so on, the people out there do not instinctively trust such tabloids; they instinctively trust the BBC. Let us get that out of the way.

I will make a couple of personal points. First, I join noble Lords who have congratulated the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool. I greatly admired his speech, which was what it says on the tin: calm, reflective and analytical. I hope that we will hear a lot more from him.

Secondly, I add my gratitude to my noble friend Lord Bragg. If, at 9 pm or 9.30 pm—I forget which—on a Thursday I fancied hearing a bit more about Aeschylus, or the ideas currently coming out of the community of astronomers, I could get it straight from my noble friend. I said to him once, “You know all this stuff backwards, don’t you?” He replied, “No, no, I forget it all one minute after I’ve finished”. I do not believe that, but we will all have to make our minds up about it. His is a remarkable arrangement, and it is quintessentially BBC.

We have to recognise that there is a difficulty for the commercial market in not having a slight increase in the financial commitment to the BBC. A noble Lord opposite— I think the noble Lord, Lord Hannan—asked only a few minutes ago why, since we had surely got past the stage of running a state motor car company, we should run a state broadcaster. The noble Lord will correct me if I have misquoted him. I query the phrase “state broadcaster”. There is no doubt what that has come to mean: Radio Moscow, Peking radio or whatever. To say that we should criticise the BBC for “allowing” Nick Robinson to say something that the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, clearly strongly disagrees with or believes to be untrue is wrong; it is, surely, the way in which the BBC has to operate.

Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 2nd June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis]

As long as everyone has the Throne, that is fine.

The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, made the correct argument for the Bill: having the right balance between the providers and those who lose out in terms of infringements to their property. His point about direct compensation seems sensible.

There is a further concern on this issue: on an owner not being prepared to allow a telecoms company to access their land, in many cases, part of the reason why they might play hardball in terms of compensation is that they are not the ones primarily affected by the loss. The people primarily affected by the failure to lay the cable will be their tenants. That is a real issue in this case. We should not allow owners to disadvantage their tenants because they cannot get what they regard as a satisfactory level of compensation out of a provider.

I hope that the Minister will be able to allay our concerns and tell us that this is not just an open invitation to owners who are not going to benefit from the fibre being laid to those premises, because all the benefit will accrue to tenants, to try to get the best compensation they can. Going through a compensation route not only might mean the fibre is not laid at all but could lead to delays. The Bill does not seek only to enhance fibre coverage but to do so swiftly. Anything that encourages delays and haggles over compensation, where there is good reason for owners to expect that they might be able to extract more than they are offered, is very much against the public interest.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Non-Afl)]

I follow a couple of points made by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. I am chairman of the residents’ association of a block of flats in Camden, London, and I mentioned all this to a meeting of the residents. Of course, on these occasions one gets a lot of relevant feedback and a lot of feed- back that is not relevant, but there is quite a lot of concern about whether HMG have had the time, or will make available the time, to check with the National Organisation of Residents Associations or to understand the nature of a typical tenant on a lease of, let us say, 99 or 125 years. There is a ground landlord, a managing agent, a leaseholder and an attempt to liaise between the tenants, all of whom may have broadly the same interest, but they are—to say the least—very confused indeed when it comes to compensation and how things get held up. It is a bit of a nightmare.

Can the Minister give an assurance that, although we are at this stage of the Bill, the Government can give Parliament a more comprehensive account of the feedback they have got and the degree to which they have buy-in from these various interests?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

My Lords, we support this attempt to probe the Government on the practical implications of the compensation provisions laid out in new paragraph 27H. Not qualifying the types of losses or damages that are subject to compensation seems a curious choice when amendments to simplify processes are frequently resisted on the basis that, while often cumbersome, legislation needs to set clear parameters for the processes it establishes. This is not a concern that has been raised directly with us, but it seems a recipe for potential bad blood between lessees and operators. While there will inevitably be some scrapes along the way, we need to ensure as harmonious a relationship as possible.

I hope the Minister will be able to point to provisions elsewhere in the parent Act, or to established precedents, to assure us and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, that this has been fully considered and is not likely to become an issue once the new measures are operational.

BBC and Public Service Broadcasting

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I too congratulate my noble friend Lord Young of Norwood Green on introducing this wonderful debate. It ought to be compulsory reading for Ministers involved in the emerging debate. I am one of those who is astonished by the things on the BBC that one gets hooked on. On a Thursday night, my noble friend Lord Bragg gives me the impression that I can get my brain around Plato, the evolution of the dinosaur, astronomy, every subject under the sun. He might say that it is nothing to do with him, but it is amazing, and one of a range of examples. My radio is usually on Radio 3. When its controller came to one of our all-party groups, my only criticism was that there was too much talk. This is a good example of one person’s bias being cancelled out by another’s, as happens in theology.

This is an important political point. Would the Minister say that this is the spirit in which the Secretary of State is approaching this? His speech yesterday bore signs of a more reflective approach. I hope she picks up that none of us mind a debate, but not a debate in which Mr Cummings has got his retaliation in first. Whether that is done by the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, or any of my noble friends who have worked at the BBC, it is not a debate.

One of the quotes that struck me in yesterday’s speech by the Secretary of State was about the BBC’s impartiality in an era of fake news. He is right to raise that problem, but the BBC is trusted by the public. Should not the Minister be looking at ways to support this independent, globally respected broadcaster in this age of disinformation?

There is this notion that the licence fee is patently out of date and that there is an obvious alternative. Many noble Lords have spoken about this, including the noble Viscount, Lord Colville. What is the alternative? I think we would all agree that it must be looked at very coolly. Take the business of the decriminalisation of the licence fee. What do we think will happen if we decriminalise non-payment of the licence? Surely it is obvious. We may as well decriminalise non-payment of council tax. There are no simple alternatives and the Treasury under any Administration would certainly say that hypothecation has its problems as well.

Right around the world, at every level, in villages in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, they say, “I heard it on the BBC, so it must be true.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Barran]

I thank my noble friend. I have now found the Secretary of State’s speech. As he knows, the Secretary of State said this morning that we need to ensure that there is

“genuine diversity of thought and experience”

and to be able to raise that in an open and balanced way. Indeed, in his memoirs, John Humphrys touched on some of the points about bias within the BBC. We do not have to agree with him but it is a valid view.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

Is it not the case that the same John Humphrys in effect ran the “Today” programme for donkey’s years and is now writing for the Daily Mail? That is perhaps relevant to the idea that the BBC has bias.

[Baroness Barran]

I am not clear why those things are linked, but perhaps scarcity of time means that I should move on. The noble Lord, Lord Monks, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, highlighted the importance of supporting journalists who are harassed both in their work here, as was referenced in connection with Laura Kuenssberg, and internationally. We echo that.

The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, asked about the over-75s concession, and commented on loneliness. I cannot help but feel a little defensive. As Minister for Loneliness, I reassure him that we take it extremely seriously.