BBC Trust

Alun Cairns Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Wilson]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to make that important point. I understand that the father of one of the young people has written to all members of the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport outlining his concerns. It was a significant breach of trust by the BBC. Many questions remain that need to be looked into.

Each of the issues that I have listed would on its own have presented painful difficulties for the BBC, but the management’s inept response to Savile and “Newsnight”, which was defensive, secretive, cynical and in some cases downright murky, made life even worse for the corporation and its staff. The damage to audience and public trust in the BBC was compounded by the woeful lack of active leadership by the BBC Trust, which is meant to be the guardian of the interests of licence fee payers. When it should have been leading the way in getting to the truth and in holding the BBC’s management to account, the trust seems to have interpreted its role as being to defend aggressively the management and to do the minimum necessary to fend off pressure, and wait for the storm to pass.

[Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the way in which he is leading the debate on this important subject. Does he agree that the BBC Trust should be driving much greater transparency within the BBC to drive better efficiencies and value for money for the licence fee payer? He might well recall a ten-minute rule Bill, in which I sought to force the BBC to publish every invoice in excess of £500. This morning, strangely, the chairman of the BBC Trust felt that to do so would undermine some of the special arrangements and deals with providers of BBC services. Does my hon. Friend agree that, should the BBC publish every invoice in excess of £500, it would be far more open to competition for its contracts, driving down their price and providing more value for money for the licence fee payer?

[Mr Wilson]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for leading the way in holding the BBC to account, in particular for its expenditure. If local authorities and Departments can account for everything over £500, there is absolutely no reason why the BBC should not do exactly the same.

Last autumn, the BBC instead suffered a severe loss of public trust and its problems were allowed to spiral out of control. While public trust in the BBC appears to have recovered somewhat in the months since, that is surely a reflection of the depth of the good will towards Auntie among the British public, and it should not be a cause for complacency. Unless the BBC has high standards of governance, with active leadership and oversight by its governing body, the chances are that it will be hit by more scandals, and that the cumulative effect on its reputation could be disastrous.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

It is an honour and a privilege to appear under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Mr Wilson) for calling this debate. I sit between two of the BBC’s strongest advocates in Parliament. I echo my hon. Friend’s opening remarks that the BBC is a fantastic institution, but that does not mean that it is above reproach or criticism.

With your indulgence, Mr Davies, I will dwell on my hon. Friend’s work in this area. He has positioned himself as a critical friend of the BBC. He is keen to look at where it has made errors, and keen to make constructive proposals to improve its governance. I would expect nothing less from him. I got to know him when he was Parliamentary Private Secretary to the then Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Mr Hunt), but his reputation preceded him as having made the highest number of runs for South Moreton cricket club in my constituency, a record that stood for something like 30 years.

At the risk of repeating myself, the BBC is a globally recognised and admired institution. It is a hugely respected brand around the world. The previous UN Secretary- General, Kofi Annan, described the BBC World Service as

“perhaps Britain’s greatest gift to the world this century.”

BBC programmes are sold all round the world, whether the programmes themselves or the format. It is important to keep that in mind during this debate.

The second point I want to make in setting the context and before turning to the specific issues that my hon. Friend raised is that one reason for the BBC’s success is its independence. Although we have our criticisms of it, no one in the House would want it to become subject to political control, which is why many processes are being put in place to ensure that politicians do not interfere, but perversely that produces an element of frustration when things go wrong and it is difficult to influence decisions when people in this House perceive them to be going wrong.

The BBC is independent, but that does not mean that it is not accountable for its actions. Because of the unique way it is funded and owned, the BBC must be accountable. It must be accountable to licence fee payers, and that is why this debate is so important. The BBC Trust represents licence fee payers’ interests, and holds the BBC’s executive to account.

Let us remind ourselves of the trust’s duties. They are enshrined in the charter, and explicitly include representing licence fee payers, ensuring the independence of the BBC, and assessing the views of licence fee payers. We believe that those principles, alongside the others set out in the charter and agreement, provide a strong framework for the trust to ensure accountability to licence fee payers.

Parliament should also have an overview of a public institution as important as the BBC, so it goes without saying that it has the right to ask questions and to hold debates—never more so, perhaps, than following the recent events that my hon. Friend referred to. It is clear, following those events, that the BBC Trust must rebuild not only the public’s trust in the BBC, but trust in the BBC Trust itself. I welcome the steps that are being taken to achieve that.

I welcome the appointment of a new director-general of the BBC, Tony Hall, and I use this opportunity to thank Tim Davie—now the chief executive officer of BBC Worldwide—for his role as acting director-general of the BBC. When Tim Davie took on that acting role, he was very conscious of the need to engage not only with politicians and the licence fee payer, but with the people who worked at the BBC. We should not forget, as my hon. Friend made clear, that the criticisms surrounding the BBC in recent weeks and months are not directed at the vast majority of people who do a fantastic job for the BBC, and the impact on their morale was significant.

There is still work to do, and I assure my hon. Friend that no one is complacent. We need to see through the remaining BBC inquiries. Let us not forget that we have yet to conclude the Dame Janet Smith review, which has contacted 450 people, and has had 275 telephone conversations and 80 face-to-face meetings with witnesses. The BBC is also carrying out two internal reviews on respect at work and on child protection and whistleblowing procedures. Both are expected to report to the BBC Trust shortly.

We have had the Pollard review, and my hon. Friend raised points about the cost of that. As I understand it, the cost is £2.2 million, which has been publicly stated, and in May, the BBC will provide a breakdown of how and where that money was spent. It is also the case that apart from redactions required to avoid legal action, if I can put it that way, all the evidence that was supplied to the Pollard review has been published. I am sure that people will still have their views on the review’s conclusions, but those are the facts as they stand.

My hon. Friend raised a number of other issues. In terms of the BBC Trust’s role as the guardian of the licence fee revenue, its strategic functions include setting the strategic direction of the BBC and assessing the performance of BBC services. BBC Trust oversight of the BBC, however, does not extend to interference in editorial decision making and involvement in operational management. It is the regulator of the BBC, but it does not run the BBC on a day-to-day basis.

My hon. Friend discussed value for money, which is important. Let us not forget that one of the first decisions of this Government was to freeze the licence fee until the end of the charter. It was a good decision, not only to provide value for the licence fee payer, but to force the BBC to address some of the costs that it could remove from its organisation. It has done that through the “Delivering Quality First” strategy, which has made savings of £700 million. It has reduced the amounts paid to senior managers, as well as the number of senior managers.

My hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) mentioned the issue of publishing invoices. As I understand it, the BBC is trying to make progress on that point. Last year, the previous director-general, Mark Thompson said that the BBC would release details of spending by category, which will provide a coherent and transparent picture of expenditure. However, the BBC believes that publishing individual invoices would cause commercial difficulties. Let us not forget that the BBC deals with a range of commercial partners that might not wish to see the commercial terms of their relationship with the BBC published. I can tell, just by making that brief remark, that I have provoked my hon. Friend into making an intervention.

[Alun Cairns]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way and for the way in which he is responding to the debate. Does he recall that the same defence was used by local authorities about their contractual organisations? The world has not fallen in since they have published all their invoices.

[Mr Vaizey]

That intervention was carefully staged for two reasons. First, it allows me to congratulate my hon. Friend on his magnificent performance at the marathon on Sunday. Secondly, I take his point and I was going to say that the debate will continue, and it is right that colleagues in the House raise those issues and press the BBC on them. I do not necessarily believe that the matter is closed, but the time for our debate is running short, and I want to address the specific questions that my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East asked.

I do not believe that Lord Patten thinks that governance is somehow a second-order issue. He is an experienced, former politician, who can sometimes have a particular turn of phrase, but I have no doubt at all that he took on the job with serious intent. He intends to run the BBC Trust—and has done so—in a serious manner, but I think that he wants to make sure, as we run up to charter review, that we focus on important issues.

It is an important point to make that we are gearing up for charter review. The BBC’s charter runs out at the end of 2016. The previous Government conducted a long, three-year process of charter review. Whether that is necessary in this instant, again, is a matter for contemplation and debate. What is important about the charter review is that those important issues can now be subject to part of a formal procedure. I am certain that my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East, who has made himself a strong voice in Parliament, putting forward issues of reform for the BBC, will play an important role. I, and the Government, want the charter review to be a public process, engaging as many people as possible.

The trust has acted as a guardian of licence fee payers’ interests. That is central to its very being. The trust’s oversight, as I said earlier, does not extend to interference in editorial decision making, but that does not mean, concerning recent events, that we cannot acknowledge that lessons need to be learnt, not only from the events themselves, but, as we made clear at the time, from the pace at which they were addressed. The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport made it clear that she felt the trust could have acted quicker with the initial inquiries. It is also now clear—the Secretary of State again made it clear—that she felt that once the trust had understood the seriousness of the issues that it was facing, it began to handle the process well.

My hon. Friend asked whether the trusteeship model is the right one for oversight and regulation of the BBC. We are content with the model at the moment, but there is no doubt at all that people will have views as we undertake charter review.