BBC Charter Review (Communications Committee Report)

Lord Macdonald of Tradeston Excerpts

Thursday 21st April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Macdonald of Tradeston (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Best, and the Communications Committee for this excellent debate based on their excellent report, both of which highlight in particular the importance of better governance, greater diversity and protection against political pressure.

The report anticipates that the existing BBC Trust will be replaced by an independent regulator—most likely Ofcom, which I would welcome because it is very well regarded across business and politics. Given the replacement of the BBC Trust by an independent regulator, Sir David Clementi’s recent review proposes a unitary BBC board of perhaps 13 members, led by a non-executive chair with a deputy chair acting as senior independent director, plus four other non-executive directors “designated” from the four nations of the United Kingdom, and the balance of five or six non-execs also to be appointed to a 13 or 14-strong board. The proposed unitary board might therefore have only two or perhaps three executive directors from BBC management, including, of course, the director-general.

As we have heard, the DCMS Secretary of State, John Whittingdale, suggests that the Government might appoint all the non-executives. That would be, as previous speakers have made clear, a very real threat to the independence of the BBC because, in an organisation controlled by a unitary board, these government appointees could exert influence in many sensitive areas, including programming decisions. One consideration should therefore be that the next royal charter must make it clear that the ultimate editor-in-chief of all programme output is the director-general.

The noble Lord, Lord Hall, the current director-general, recently stressed that the independence of the BBC from political pressure must be a priority. As we have heard today, it is clear that most noble Lords share that view. We now know that the White Paper on charter renewal will finally be published next month, and I hope that by then the Government will have backed away from proposing an appointments procedure that would threaten the BBC’s traditional independence and would be very vigorously contested.

The weakness of the royal charter process in protecting the BBC from government interference has long and cogently been argued by the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, who rightly states that it should be rooted in statute, with more transparent and democratic decisions debated and endorsed in Parliament. The noble Lord, Lord Birt, a former director-general, criticised the way in which the royal charter’s supposed safeguards have been so easily bypassed to divert around 25% of BBC programme budgets to fund Treasury schemes. Unfortunately, it is almost too late to push through fundamental reforms, but I look forward to the draft Bill from the noble Lord, Lord Lester, to which I hope this House can give attention and momentum. However, we must still use next month’s White Paper to press for reforms in other arrangements.

Your Lordships’ Communications Committee recommends scrapping the multiple accountability layers of BBC bureaucracy and adopting Ofcom’s four general public service broadcasting purposes, which are: informing our understanding of the world; stimulating knowledge and learning; reflecting UK cultural identity; and representing diversity and alternative viewpoints. So to the BBC’s traditional Reithian mission, to inform, educate and entertain, we might now add a fourth priority: to reflect the diversity of the UK. That diversity will, no doubt, become even greater over the life of the next BBC charter, and I pick up here on some of the issues raised by my noble friend Lady Healy.

In the House of Commons last Thursday, a debate on the BBC and diversity was introduced by the MP for Tottenham, David Lammy, in an excellent speech. Mr Lammy’s Motion noted with concern that black, Asian and minority-ethnic people working in the UK’s creative media fell by 31% between 2006 and 2012. It also noted that the BBC had fallen behind other broadcasters in setting and achieving targets for a more diverse workforce. Diversity, of course, embraces more than BAME matters; it is also about the representation and employment of people with disabilities, about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, about regionalism and about gender. Noble Lords may recall that our own Communications Committee recently reported on the problems facing older women working in television.

Over the 15 years from 1999, the BBC launched 29 initiatives aimed at improving BAME employment, and no doubt another initiative will be announced soon, which will be welcomed. However, clearly what is needed are action and results if the BBC is to meet its targets, which, at present, lag behind Channel 4 and Sky. Sky Entertainment has decreed that all new shows will have 20% of people from BAME backgrounds in significant on-screen roles, plus targets for senior roles off-screen in all productions. On Sky News, 15% of interviewers were from black, Asian and minority-ethnic communities. Channel 4 has ambitious targets in its 360° Diversity Charter, with an increase from 15% of BAME staff in 2015 to 20% in 2020. Channel 4 has also made remarkable progress in employing and presenting, on-screen and off-screen, people with disabilities. My noble friend Lady King is the driving force on these issues at Channel 4.

Currently, the reckoning is that in London, where national broadcasters are based, about 40% of the population are from BAME communities or are not British born. Across the UK, the figure is around 14% and rising. Significantly, BBC1 has a share of 22% of the television audience but only a 13% share of BAME viewers. The BAME percentage of the BBC workforce has crept up pretty slowly in recent years to just over 13%, but that is markedly lower in senior positions.

Interestingly, the Minister for Culture, Ed Vaizey, who took part in the Commons debate, was repeatedly praised for the personal and very positive role he plays in encouraging greater diversity. The Minister in turn praised the work done to highlight diversity issues by Sir Lenny Henry, the actor Idris Elba, who recently addressed a packed meeting here in Parliament, and Simon Albury of the Campaign for Broadcasting Equality, who is a former chief executive of the Royal Television Society. Mr Albury says that the advances made on-screen in BAME representation are important but that on-screen representation must now be matched by more off-screen employment, especially in the areas of commissioning power and editorial influence, which must be mobilised to drive faster change across the BBC.

Regarding regional diversity, the BBC can be proud of the progress it has made in spending much more of its programming budget outside the M25. Media City in Salford has given a great boost to production in the north of England. ITV has also built on its old regional structures in Yorkshire and in what used to be called “Granadaland” in the north-west, especially with location drama and serials such as “Emmerdale” and “Coronation Street”. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland now have shares of BBC programme production that better reflect their share of UK audiences, a much welcome advance on past practice. BBC television and radio now have a more diverse regional spread, but there is surely a lot more that could be done for the populous Midlands and the north-east of England. Our judgments on these matters might be better informed if the BBC were not so grudging in giving out information about programme budgets and staffing, for which it was criticised in the Commons debate. How viewers’ licence fee money is spent demands and deserves more transparency.

The diversity of the UK can be defined in so many ways that no royal charter or PSB purpose can capture all its complexity. The creative challenge in producing BBC programmes has been defined as “making the good popular and the popular good”. With digital platforms and alternative channels multiplying, competition increasing and audiences fragmenting, the demands on executives and creative producers will intensify. These demands for quality and higher ratings will at times not sit easily alongside the targeting of more diversity. That challenge must be guided strongly and imaginatively from the top of broadcasting organisations, especially one as indispensable to the UK as the BBC —I speak as somebody who has spent his 30 years in broadcasting in the rival, independent side of television. That leadership will not be achieved by a unitary board of the BBC if it is dominated by political appointees.

Between the publication of the White Paper and the start of the new BBC charter, Parliament must strive to put the right structures of governance in place to encourage creativity and diversity, to sustain impartiality and independence, and to reward the viewing public for the trust and affection they have for the BBC.