BBC and Public Service Broadcasting

Lord Puttnam Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Puttnam (Lab)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Young, for making possible this incredibly timely debate—albeit the Roger Bannister version, as I view it. In the short time available, I hope to remind your Lordships that the current project to undermine public service broadcasting is not new. It is simply the most recent iteration of a decades-long campaign of salami-slicing and intimidation by, I am sad to say, successive Conservative Governments, many of whom have sought to take the wind out of the BBC’s sails and erode the trust it enjoys among the public. It is the now-familiar Putin playbook: promote fear and distrust, and allow the consequences to multiply.

As the noble Lord, Lord McNally, has already suggested, there is something rather ironic in the determination shown by Conservative leaders to dismantle an institution of which the party itself should be rightly proud. Perhaps the Prime Minister has forgotten that it was under the leadership of his hero, Winston Churchill, that a Conservative Government passed the Television Act 1954—legislation that protected the position of the BBC while, at the same time, introducing a brilliantly conceived system of regulated competition through a new Independent Television Authority. This system established a nationwide ecology—there is that word again—of public service broadcasting that allowed all aspects of the media to thrive. Crucially, while there was competition for audiences, the BBC/ITV duopoly did not compete for revenue.

The one-nation vision that lay at the heart of policy-making 60 years ago would appear to have evaporated and turned into something rather more sinister. There is no lack of vision in this Government’s policy towards the BBC. The vision is there; it was laid out with paint- by-numbers clarity by the Prime Minister’s principal adviser, Dominic Cummings, in 2004. Writing that year, he called for a campaign to undermine the corporation’s credibility, suggesting that:

“The BBC is a determined propagandist with a coherent ideology.”


To combat this, he argued for the creation of a British version of Fox News. He believed this could be achieved through a

“campaign to end the licence fee”.

Here was a vision that represented a massive departure from Conservatism, certainly as most Members of this House would understand it. Its genesis was that of Trumpian populism, an ideology that treats contempt for institutions as a form of political weaponry and is a long way from the wisdom of Edmund Burke, who once said:

“Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half an hour than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years.”


For the past few months I have spent a great deal of my life in the Committee Corridor, chairing a Select Committee looking at the impact of digital technology on democracy. One thing has already emerged with quite frightening clarity: confusion over where to seek verifiable fact. However, thanks largely to the vision of the noble Lord, Lord Birt, who I am delighted is in his place, and as recently confirmed by Ofcom, the BBC has emerged as the digital gold standard in the provision of trusted information in an era of fake news. Surely, as we stand on the brink of a global pandemic, that gold standard of trust is more crucial than it has ever been.

This can no longer be about the wilful vengeance of politicians; it is about the very real possibility of saving lives. To paraphrase the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, speaking in this House just two months ago, trust is the scarcest and most precious political metal we have. Sad to say, I am far from reassured by the Secretary of State’s well-trailed retreat from earlier briefings. I can only repeat my belief that we are watching a well-rehearsed process of intimidation and destabilisation. Hopefully, when she comes to respond to the debate the Minister will unequivocally assure me that I am wrong, because we cannot allow an unremitting vendetta to rob us of the most valuable asset that democracy has at its disposal.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Barran]

If he will forgive me, in the interests of time I will write to the noble Lord with some of the detail. He raised a point about data sharing and the over-75s concession. The BBC’s decision document sets out that the BBC will operate a self-verification model. Therefore, the issues that he has raised should not arise but I am happy to write to him in detail about this.

A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Judd, Lord Hennessy and Lord West, raised soft power—a matter that I have already touched on. The Government strongly support the BBC’s mission to bring high-quality and impartial news to audiences across the world. The noble Lord, Lord West, had done some clever maths on expenditure.

[Lord Puttnam]

I apologise to the noble Baroness and I do not want to delay the House but there is an elephant in the room and it needs to be shot. This morning the Secretary of State said that the BBC was

“an institution to be cherished.”

Words matter. I know what cherished means, as does the noble Baroness, but it is not in any way possible to square that with the supposedly informed comments that come out of No. 10. The noble Lord, Lord Birt, referred to the Shipman piece. Would she like to use this opportunity at the Dispatch Box to totally repudiate the continual comments about wishing to destroy the BBC that are claimed to emerge from No. 10?

[Baroness Barran]

I can reiterate with confidence what the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State have said, but I am sure that the noble Lord will understand that I cannot respond confidently about leaks to the newspapers; I can deal only with the facts before me. My noble friend has whispered in my ear that I have a minute or two more, and I would be grateful if I could go through the important points that other noble Lords have raised.

On soft power, the royal charter is clear that the BBC must spend at least £254 million a year on the World Service until 2022, and in 2017-18 that figure was £268 million.