Public Service Broadcasting (Communications and Digital Committee Report)

Lord Smith of Finsbury Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Smith of Finsbury (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, the report from the Select Committee on Communications and Digital is even more timely now than when it was published. It is wise and welcome. The noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, and members of the committee have done a brilliant job. We live in a world where there has been an explosion of competing, often inaccurate and untrusted news and information. Our public service broadcasters provide a rock of reality on which people can depend. As such, they provide a vital resource for us all.

Public service broadcasters’ mission, of course, is to inform, educate and entertain. By and large, they do all those things well. They provide impartial news and trusted coverage of great national events. They are the places people turn to for information at times of crisis—something we have seen clearly over the past year. They create wonderful, thoughtful and insightful programmes, from Kenneth Clark’s “Civilisation” more than 50 years ago to Simon Schama’s recent series on the Romantics. They give us bewitching drama that has the whole nation talking, whether “Downton Abbey”, “Line of Duty” or “It’s a Sin”. They exist, above all, as a benchmark of quality. They are, in fact, among the best broadcasters in the world. We damage or diminish them at our peril.

The committee identified a number of ways in which public service broadcasters’ value can be sustained and enhanced—for example, by extending the availability of major sporting events by enhancing the “crown jewels” list. I am sorry that the Government did not respond positively to that when they replied to the report. I hope that they will think again. Proposals also include: reinforcing the obligation for programmes, including series—not just one-off programmes—to be commissioned from outside London and other metropolitan areas; monitoring the diversity of commissioners; ensuring that licence fee funding is not siphoned off to yet more non programme-making purposes; a new independent process for setting the licence fee; and ensuring mandated prominence in programme guides, not just for the main PSBs but for their digital versions. All these are welcome proposals. I hope that the Government will take notice and implement them.

Much has been said and written during the past week, and, indeed, in this debate, about the BBC in the wake of the Dyson report. Let us be clear: the BBC failed, not only in allowing Martin Bashir to use fake documents and dishonesty to secure an interview but, above all, in not acknowledging the error when it investigated and knew about it. The BBC failed in its basic duty to be transparent. For all this, there is no excuse. Those are not the standards expected of and insisted on for a public service broadcaster.

What must not happen, however, is for this matter to be seized on by the enemies of the BBC to tear down its place in the life of the nation. The sight last weekend of the tabloid newspapers salivating over the BBC’s discomfiture was risible hypocrisy at its worst. Some spokespeople for the Government, though happily not all, have also leaped on an anti-BBC bandwagon. In that context, I worry that the Public Service Broadcasting Advisory Panel announced by the Government seems to have an agenda that is too sceptical about public service broadcasting. There have been some arguments that the BBC should be subjected to external control—even government-directed control. That would be an immensely dangerous road to take. The BBC is a public broadcaster; it is not a state broadcaster and must never become one. Genuine independence is crucial.

Over Bashir, the BBC got it badly wrong. It must be held to account for it by Ofcom, and I supported the shift in responsibility for oversight of the BBC to Ofcom when it happened. However, the role of the BBC, like that of the other public service broadcasters, must be sustained and supported. We need our public service broadcasters. They should be impartial, informative, trusted and creative. They should part of our national life that we can be proud of. The Government must ensure that the PSBs are not damaged. They are, quite simply, too valuable for us all.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Haskel) (Lab)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Hastings.