Commonwealth Games

Lord Razzall Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

Your Lordships’ House benefits from sports people who have competed at every level, and I am glad that the noble Baroness has made her point. We hope that we do not lose the Games; we are working with the Commonwealth Games Federation to ensure that the Games go ahead and there is a sustainable resolution for both 2026 and 2030. She is right to point to their importance in the sporting pipeline for people of all abilities, and that is why we would like to see them continue.

[Lord Razzall (LD)]

My Lords, I accept that this is not the direct responsibility of the Government, except Chancellor as a leading member of the Commonwealth. Does the Minister believe that this disaster may be the responsibility of the Commonwealth Secretariat, which has not handled it terribly well, or does he believe that the Games have become a financial extravaganza, way beyond the days when my noble friend Lord Campbell participated? May I cheekily ask whether he believes it would help if the Commonwealth Games followed the recent proposal of the Olympic Committee to add cricket to the roster of games played?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

The Governments of Alberta and Victoria have cited cost as a reason for their decision. That is curious in the light of Birmingham’s experience, where the Games came in £70 million under budget and the Government gave that money to the West Midlands Combined Authority to spend on a variety of important initiatives, including cultural and sporting ones, in that part of the UK. So it is possible to deliver a Games that everyone can enjoy, as they did in Birmingham, on time and on budget, and we are very happy to share the lessons of Birmingham’s successful hosting with those who might want to bid. My right honourable friend the Sports Minister has been speaking to the federation about learning those lessons.

Public Service Broadcasting: BBC Centenary

Lord Razzall Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Razzall (LD)]

My Lords, like many other noble Lords, I welcome the Minister back to his role. I think the unanimity of view shows the esteem in which he is held in all parts of the House. I do not normally intervene in these debates, not only because my daughter has worked for Channel 4 and is now the arts and culture editor of the BBC but because many colleagues across all parties are more expert on these topics than me. However, I cannot resist speaking in this debate in the light of recent attacks on both the BBC and Channel 4.

It all started with the Johnson Government in 2019. If noble Lords remember, such was his antipathy to the BBC—probably egged on by Dominic Cummings—that for a long time you were more likely to hear the captain of the England women’s cricket team on the “Today” programme than a Cabinet Minister. This was followed more recently by the proposal from Nadine Dorries—who is rumoured soon to be joining us—to privatise Channel 4. The proposal was clearly based on such intimate knowledge that she believed Channel 4 to be funded by the taxpayer. As the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, has said, it was clearly made without any thought for the impact on independent production companies, many of which rely on Channel 4 for their very existence. The proposal was also clearly opposed by Channel 4 management. Normally a privatisation is welcomed by the company’s management, but, notably, not in this case.

The final straw for me has been recent attacks on the BBC and its funding model, which are putting its very existence as we know it in danger. As noble Lords have said, “Inform, educate and entertain” was the rubric for the BBC when it was established by John Reith. Can there be any doubt that, over 100 years, without the BBC many critical world events would not have been captured so vividly? I name a few: the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, the 1966 World Cup victory—apologies to the Scots—and the recent war in Ukraine. In all those cases, the BBC has been at the forefront of stellar reporting. We have clearly been informed. As for education, the Open University could not have been established without the BBC’s participation and, as the noble Lord, Lord Addington, indicated, during the pandemic, education could not have survived without it.

Then there is entertainment. I always worry about politicians talking about the BBC, because I think they think it is all about politics, news and comment. It is not. For most people, it is all about entertainment. I am sure all noble Lords are aware of the pleasure given to millions by, for example, “EastEnders”, “The Archers” or “Strictly Come Dancing”—I am sure most noble Lords have heard of them—let alone the export revenue from BBC-produced shows.

Why do the Government seem so hostile to public service broadcasters, particularly the BBC and Channel 4? I believe it is ideological. I think the desire to sell off Channel 4 came from Johnson’s refusal to appear on a political programme and being replaced by a block of ice. I think the desire to clip the financial wings of the BBC comes from the belief on Tory Benches that it is full of nasty lefties biased against a Tory Government. Oh, yes? Nick Robinson, formerly its political editor and now a presenter on the “Today” programme, used to work for Tory central office; Tim Davie, the director-general, stood for Hammersmith council as a Tory in the White City ward, and chair Richard Sharp was at one stage, I believe, a Tory donor—hardly nasty lefties.

The fact is that every Government think the BBC is against them. It is because a key role of the BBC is to hold Governments of all persuasions to account. Noble Lords should have heard Alistair Campbell’s views about the BBC when he worked for Tony Blair. The Johnson Government started on a path in 2019 to curb many of the key pillars of our society. The judiciary: remember the so-called “traitors”? The Civil Service: let us sack Permanent Secretaries who disagree with us. The parliamentary system: remember Prorogation? After 100 years of the BBC and 40 years of Channel 4, now is the time for the Government to return to what I always thought was the raison d’être of the Conservative Party—to conserve what is best in our society. I say to the Government, “Keep your hands off our public service broadcasters”.

Sport Sector: Financial Support

Lord Razzall Excerpts

Wednesday 25th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Baroness raises the interesting idea of “Work Out to Help Out”, or whatever it would be called. Obviously there are different ways of helping different sectors. We have tried to focus on a number of direct funding packages. Obviously there is the £300 million winter survival package; £200 million was announced earlier in the year for grass-roots sport; and there is £100 million for gyms and leisure centres, which I am sure the noble Baroness welcomes.

[Lord Razzall (LD)]

My Lords, I hope that noble Lords will forgive me for the metaphor that I am opening the bowling on behalf of cricket. I particularly want to say that as I see that the noble Lord, Lord Botham, is bowling at the other end—hopefully with me rather than at me.

The Statement indicates that cricket has the opportunity to make an application. Can the Minister confirm that there will be sufficient availability within the £300 million for county cricket, which is in need of money, if it gets its application together? I would welcome some elucidation from her as to why county cricket has not so far been included. I understand why the ECB is not because it is rather analogous to the football situation, where you have the Premier League and the lower clubs, and the ECB has had a huge amount of television money from Sky.

Is county cricket not included because it has not actually made an application yet, or is it to pressurise the ECB to give more of the TV money to the counties rather than them getting it out of the £300 million? If neither of those is true, can the Minister please explain what the counties need to do to receive the necessary payments from the fund?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I was wondering which bowler I would rather face if I were batting at this hypothetical wicket—but, with the greatest respect to the noble Lord, we probably know which one it is. In answer to his question, the reason that funding has not been made available to country cricket is that we were reassured by the ECB that it had the means to support all the counties over the winter. If the restrictions continue beyond 1 April, we will consider whether some form of additional support is needed.

Arts and Cultural Services

Lord Razzall Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran]

The right reverend Prelate makes an important point. He will be aware that the Government committed in their manifesto to offering an arts premium to secondary schools to fund enriching activities for pupils; we have committed £107 million of funding to that for 2021-22. On careers progression, good work is going on between Arts Council England and the creative industries body to develop apprenticeships, particularly in this area.

[Lord Razzall (LD)]

My Lords, I am sure the Minister is aware of the importance of the creative arts and creative industries to the economy in general. Is she aware of a recent survey showing that 42% of employees in the creative industries generally lack the necessary skills, that 22% of employees in those industries come from overseas, and that 10% came as freelance workers from the EU last year? How does all this fit with the Government’s immigration policy?

[Baroness Barran]

As the noble Lord knows, the Government have set out a points-based immigration system that will recognise skills and talent rather than the origin and nationality of the individual. The UK’s existing rules permit artists, entertainers and musicians to perform at events. I know this has been a concern of a number of your Lordships.

Brexit: Audio-visual Services

Lord Razzall Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, the Government are actively involved in the renegotiation of the AVMS directive, and I believe that the plan is for the trialogues to finish some time this year. I do not want to disagree with the noble Viscount, who is an expert in these things, but I think that the European work status is confirmed by the Council of Europe transfrontier television convention.

[Lord Razzall (LD)]

Do the Government agree with the recent recommendation of the DCMS Committee in the other place? The committee said:

“To address profound industry uncertainty … the Government must as an urgent priority state its negotiating intentions with respect to the Country of Origin rules framework and”,


more particularly,

“set out its contingency plan, should the rules cease to apply after Brexit”.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, the report to which the noble Lord refers was published last Thursday. Although we are quick in DCMS, we have not come to a considered opinion on it yet.

Channel 4: Privatisation (Communications Committee Report)

Lord Razzall Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Razzall (LD)]

My Lords, although my time on the Communications Committee had come to an end by the time this report on Channel 4 was produced, I have remained involved in the subsequent deliberations about the channel’s future.

I take this opportunity to thank the noble Lord, Lord Best, not only for this report but, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Sherbourne, for his work as chair of the committee, which overlapped with my membership of it. This is also a moment when I would like to commemorate the work of my friend Lord Hart, who sadly passed away in the summer. I think it was Lord Hart who came up with the brilliant title for one of the committee’s reports on the BBC, Reith not Revolution.

For more than 90 years, the concept of public service broadcasting has been at the heart of the British broadcasting model. Public service broadcasters have been tasked with offering their audiences the best of everything—programmes whose goal has been collective public benefit in the broadest sense, rather than simply courting popularity or revenue. Channel 4 has epitomised this approach with its policy of targeting younger viewers and its specific concentration on, for example, disabilities—hence coverage of the Paralympics, with its concentration on the employment of people with disabilities—and its landmark coverage of Gay Pride on the 60th anniversary of the Sexual Offences Act 1957.

As an aside, although Channel 4 has, as I said, been ground-breaking with its focus on disability issues, and in the appointment of the first female chief executive of a major channel, it is a shame that its copybook was somewhat blotted over ethnic diversity. This is arguably the fault of the Government, who apparently vetoed a well-qualified minority ethnic woman as a non-executive director, causing, as people will remember, uproar in the BAME community. The executive team at Channel 4 is all white.

As the noble Lord, Lord Best, said, when this report was published, the threat of privatisation was in the air. The report is unequivocal: do not privatise. The committee clearly felt that privatisation would have put at risk the very remit of Channel 4, which is a vital part of the creative economy, providing invaluable support for smaller independent production companies and acting as a platform for exciting new programming. The major financial issue with privatisation is that to generate a significant private investment in Channel 4 would be incompatible in value with retaining the remit which makes Channel 4 so special. As shown in evidence given to the committee, with the inevitable focus on profit rather than the channel’s remit, privatisation would have had a detrimental effect on Channel 4’s coverage of news and current affairs, diversity and the plurality of public service broadcasting in general. For example, to privatise Channel 4 would be likely to imperil the great success story that has been referred to, including the pioneering coverage of the Paralympics. On these Benches, we are delighted that the Government have agreed with this report and shelved the idea of privatisation. This is clearly an opportunity for the Government to confirm that the question of privatisation is permanently off the agenda and will not be revisited.

As the noble Lord, Lord Best, has indicated, there are new challenges now faced by Channel 4, in particular the idea announced by Karen Bradley at the end of March—and I think included in the Conservative Party election manifesto—that Channel 4 should be moved out of London. In looking at this suggestion, it must be remembered that Channel 4 makes no programmes of its own, so is a publisher not a programme maker, and employs only 860 people in its London office.

There are two major arguments against a full removal of Channel 4 from London. First, as one noble Lord said, the UK’s advertising industry is primarily based in London, so the 250 or so staff involved in this area would have to remain in London to successfully sell their advertising. Secondly, and this is a point not often recognised, a relocation outside London would be damaging to a number of small regional independent production companies who sell their programmes to Channel 4. A number of these companies are pitching programmes with relatively small budgets and currently can make only one journey to London to sell their product, allowing them to tour all broadcasters in a day. A relocation could be expensive and disruptive to these companies, costing significant extra time and money.

However, that is not the end of the story. At the moment, Channel 4 is reviewing its options, which will obviously mean waiting until the new chief executive is in post at the end of the year. But there are a number of actions that Channel 4 could take to improve its involvement with the nations and regions. First, there is absolutely no reason why the present regional quota of 35% of programme spend should not be increased to 50% or more. Secondly, there is no reason why regional commissioning editors cannot be established outside London, mirroring production hubs such as Manchester. Finally, Channel 4 should seriously consider the suggestion made by PACT that All 4 and the technology team should relocate to, say, Birmingham. This would involve around 200 jobs, and dovetail with the move of half of BBC3’s team to the city and with Birmingham’s role as a trading academy and centre for BBC journalism.

In conclusion, I welcome the decision to kill privatisation. Winning the title of Channel of the Year at the Broadcast Awards in both 2016 and 2017 and the top prize at the 2017 Digital Cinema Media awards is a true testament to the success of this exceptional broadcaster.