BBC Charter Review
Debate between Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Baroness Grender
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for repeating the Statement given by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport in the other place.
However, we now know for certain that, as part of their zealous drive to destroy the public realm in this country, this Government have the BBC in their sights. Those who care about these matters, who—from the evidence of recent debates in your Lordships’ House—are to be found in every party, all around the Chamber and are in a majority, certainly know that we now have a fight on our hands.
The BBC is established by royal charter, and has been so from the very early days of its existence. The first charter ran from 1 January 1927 to 31 December 1936, and we are now approaching the end of the ninth charter. You would have thought that running a process for the 10th time would mean we had developed a standardised approach; and that certain questions about the BBC’s role, functions and structure would have been agreed as settled business. There is surely a need for stability and security in all organisations if they are to thrive and deliver their best. So my first question is: why is the current charter review so different from its predecessors?
Compare where we are today with what happened last time, when the Government published a similar Green Paper entitled—and perhaps this should be noted—A Strong BBC, Independent of Government. Then, the review process involved significant public engagement, including a range of events, consultation, research and focused analysis. What public engagement preceded this Green Paper? How many people responded, and will the evidence from that engagement be published? Then, the department’s work was closely informed by the work of an expert panel. There is a panel this time, but has it met yet? What will its role be? It was not even mentioned in the Statement. Will the Minister please elaborate on this?
Then, the Government conducted a major programme of survey research, to support and inform the consultation proposed in the Green Paper and ensure that it reflected the views of all sections of the population. This programme encompassed qualitative, deliberative and quantitative survey research, and was published. Has the department done the same this year, and will this be published?
Then, the department also conducted four independent reviews of the BBC’s services, which fed into the Green Paper. The Statement makes a lot of noise about the technical uncertainties faced by the BBC and makes a number of unsupported judgments about issues that it may be facing, but has the department carried out reviews comparable to the Lambert review of BBC News, the Graf review of BBC Online, the Barwise review of the BBC’s digital television services and the Gardam review of the BBC’s digital radio services? If not, what evidence have the Government relied on to make these judgments, and will that evidence be published?
Then, the independent panel chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Burns, held a series of 11 seminars looking in detail at all aspects of the BBC, from funding and governance to educational and international issues. The panel published its conclusions. Will the new panel follow suit, what will the timescale be and will it publish its conclusions? The Green Paper invites comments between now and October, but certain decisions have already been taken so it is not really comparable with what happened in 2005-06.
My second question is whether the Government really understand, or want to understand, what the BBC is for. In the Statement, the Secretary of State merely says:
“The British Broadcasting Corporation is cherished and admired, not only in this country but around the world. At its best, the BBC sets international standards of quality”.
In a debate earlier this week, the Minister said:
“The BBC is a world-renowned institution … It retains a unique importance in the UK’s broadcasting industry and in our collective sense of identity, and it is a brand that is respected and valued around the world—a world beater, indeed”.
That is certainly better, but talk about damning with faint praise. I put it to her that it would make a huge difference to the tone of the forthcoming review and the debates that it will engender if she would at the very least associate herself with the words that I and others used during the QSD of the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, this week. In case she does not have the reference to hand, I remind her that I said that the BBC is,
“the cornerstone of the sort of open and accountable society that we want in this country, the gold standard for other broadcasters, the fulcrum for a competition for quality in broadcasting, and the guarantee of impartiality and fair coverage throughout the United Kingdom”.—[Official Report, 14/7/15; col. 533.]
Could she please respond to the House on whether she agrees with this?
I am sure that others will want to make detailed points and ask questions, including about protection for the World Service and S4C, as well as more generally on the charter review announced today, but there are three or four points that I ask the Minister to respond to particularly. Could she say more about how the Government are to deal with the question of universality? Does this imply that the Government no longer accept the formulation, which has stood the test of time, that the BBC should be big enough to deliver the service that audiences demand but as small as its mission allows? If not, does she have an alternative plan for how the broadcasting system is to sustain, for example, its contribution to the health of the creative economy by research, training and production?
Could she say more about how the Government intend to assess the distinctiveness of BBC output? In the past, it has been broadly accepted that the BBC should remain a cultural institution of real size and scope and not only be a broadcaster of minority-interest programming. It should provide a wide range of different programmes to a wide range of different audiences, and only with this scale and scope can the BBC meet the public purposes that were set for it. I hope that the Government will continue to continue to accept these, as the people of this country certainly seem to. What evidence does she have to suggest that people no longer support the current range of BBC services? Can she confirm in particular that when it finishes the charter review, the Government will not require the BBC to shut down or privatise any of its current services?
The Statement outlines only three scenarios for dealing with governance issues, which I agree need to be addressed. Have other options in effect now been ruled out? In response to a question asked by my right honourable friend the shadow Secretary of State in the other place, the Secretary of State implied that the question of changing to a subscription model to replace the BBC licence fee was only a matter of not having the right technology. Is that right? Have the Government already decided in principle that they will change to subscription? If that is the case, can she reassure us that the licence fee is to be retained for the whole of the next charter period?
Given that the TV licence fee enforcement review has recommended that while the current licence fee collection system is in operation the current system of criminal deterrence and prosecution should be maintained, will the Minister elaborate on what was meant by the comment in the Statement that:
“The Government will now consider the case for decriminalisation as part of the Charter Review”?
That sounds to me as if the excellent report by David Perry QC—and it is extremely good—has been rejected. Has it?
We are at the beginning of what looks like a quick and dirty charter review process, one that is not worthy of the sort of concern and interest that every Government should have in one of their principal public institutions. As I have indicated, we on this side are concerned about the general approach being taken, the tone of the public consultation document and the sense that, taken along with the recent Budget decisions, the Government have already decided to cut the BBC “down to size”. As the BBC itself has said today,
“this Green Paper would appear to herald a much diminished, less popular BBC”.
We welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate on what should happen to the BBC over the next charter period, albeit at the same time worrying that most of the decisions have in effect already been taken and will not be in the interests of Britain. As I said in the earlier debate, the biggest tragedy in all this is that at a time when we should all be thinking of ways to improve the BBC, many of us will be forced to defend it, warts and all.
Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. No one could be more splenetic about the BBC’s coverage during the election than our party. Its appalling coverage of the Liberal Democrats’ absence from one of the leader debates, due entirely to the BBC’s own negotiating failures, will live with me for some time to come. However, this party and these Benches will not succumb to venom where vision is required. Whatever the Prime Minister or the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s personal views, this is the time for the bigger picture.
The BBC is a world leader in soft power, as we learnt this week. One has only to listen to the now entirely BBC-funded World Service and its interviews from Iran on the new nuclear settlement to understand the unique place that it has in the world. It is a major player in the creative industries, which are the fastest-growing sector of the economy. The Statement rightly acknowledges the challenges of reaching younger people and people from ethnic minority backgrounds. It is worth noting that “The Voice” alone has a more diverse audience than other outlets or programmes. However, the Green Paper suggests that it is too costly. I seek reassurance from the Minister that such programmes will not be discouraged, as suggested in the Sunday Times. I heard the Secretary of State compare that weekend article to Booker Prize fiction, so I ask the Minister whether the journalist, Tim Shipman, is accurate when he says that the Government question whether the BBC,
“should stop chasing viewers and provide more public service programmes”.
Which is it—fact or fiction?
The Statement asks for greater transparency from the BBC. I am sure that the Minister would like to match that by making available the processes by which the new advisory panel was recruited. Formal or informal, it provides a clear signal about past opinions that the new Secretary of State has given on the BBC. Perhaps she could make available to us in this House the process by which the panel was recruited and the rationale for each of its members’ appointments. Is there an intention—it is already possible to infer this from the Green Paper—to make the BBC smaller? Does any evidence therefore currently exist that licence fee payers are asking for less, rather than more, from their BBC?
Lastly, the chair of the BBC Trust seems to be under the impression that she has the Chancellor’s word that, unless there is a massive change, the licence fee will rise by CPI in the first five years of the charter. Does the Minister believe that she is right to have that impression?