Alun Cairns
Main Page: Alun Cairns (Conservative - Vale of Glamorgan)
Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)
Thank you for calling me to open the debate, Mr. Speaker. I also thank the Backbench Business Committee for agreeing to the debate in the first instance.
As you have indicated, Mr. Speaker, support for the debate came from a range of quarters: from those who are no doubt ardent champions of the broadcaster, and from those who feel that it is long past its sell-by date. I am sure that an array of views will be expressed, and, given the BBC’s recent history, I think it important for Parliament to be encouraged to comment on what has happened. I pay tribute to the way in which the Culture, Media and Sport Committee and the Public Accounts Committee have pursued many of the issues, and I am pleased that a debate in the main Chamber will allow more Members to participate, comment and air their concerns.
It is important to consider not just the issues themselves, but the way in which the BBC has responded to them, both internally and externally. The way in which the organisation reacts reflects its culture, which is something with which we all need to be happy and content. I see myself as a critical friend of the BBC. I do not want to offer a post-mortem on each issue that has made the BBC the subject of news reporting over recent years, but I do want to question the way the broadcaster has reacted to many of those issues, which, I suggest, is defensively rather than in an open, positive and transparent way. I want the debate to be about how the BBC needs to adapt, change and reform to become a more open and transparent organisation that welcomes criticism to better inform its own internal operations. Likewise, any criticism that follows should be constructive.
This debate builds on my ten-minute rule Bill of last November calling on the BBC to publish all invoices in excess of £500, as local authorities in England do, and asking it to give unfettered access to the Comptroller and Auditor General. I was very disappointed by its response to that call at the time, which was basically an unequivocal rejection. However, I received a letter last Friday evening advising me it was looking into ways in which it could be more open and transparent, which I naturally welcome.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Does he agree that the BBC is anti-competitive, undemocratic and unaccountable and one way to reform that would be to democratise the licence fee and give licence fee payers a vote on the BBC’s board, chairman and annual reports?
Alun Cairns
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising those points, and I hope the BBC will actively look at such innovations as it moves forward. It needs to be more responsive and adaptable, and that model may well carry favour.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
I, too, congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. Does he agree with the leader of his party in the National Assembly who believes the BBC in Wales should be accountable to the National Assembly? Public opinion in Wales, too, is overwhelmingly in favour of broadcasting being devolved to the National Assembly for Wales, and that is also advocated by the Silk commission.
Alun Cairns
I certainly do not agree that broadcasting should be devolved—I do not agree with that pick-and-mix approach—but I do think all contributions on the question of how to make the BBC more transparent and accountable are helpful.
Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Does he agree that the BBC is a national—a UK- national—resource and that it is important that the BBC as a whole is scrutinised from this House, not by other Administrations in other parts of the United Kingdom who are trying to lay claim to it?
Alun Cairns
I strongly agree with my right hon. Friend. She is a strong champion of Wales, but I absolutely agree that the BBC is a UK organisation—indeed, a worldwide international organisation—and it is right that scrutiny is by the licence fee payer, but this place needs to help develop a way in which the licence fee payers’ thoughts, views and concerns can be expressed.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
I hope the hon. Gentleman will touch on the way in which the BBC divvies out its resources to the regions, and why it is that London gets between two and three times more than other regions. Secondly, will he say something about the high salaries and redundancy payments, and, thirdly, is the reason why we cannot get to know the salaries of some BBC staff because they are self-employed?
Alun Cairns
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making those points, and the move to Salford may be one example that we could highlight. No doubt there are significant benefits, but there have also been serious questions about the cost and the employment of staff in that move, and I would welcome contributions on the subject.
Alun Cairns
I want to make a little progress before taking any more interventions.
I recognise that the BBC holds a unique place in British society. That should be welcomed. It produces and broadcasts world-class programmes and excellent news and current affairs outputs, and it would take me too long to list them all. All this success does not automatically make it special and certainly does not put it above scrutiny, however. The BBC rightly plays an important part in scrutinising public and independent organisations. Some of its journalists are among the best in the country and possibly the world. Its investigative reports have exposed wrongdoing and failure by many individuals, organisations and private and public bodies, yet it seems that none of these skills are encouraged when it comes to scrutinising in-house matters. The BBC does not interrogate its own internal affairs with the same rigour as it does so well of outside bodies. How many investigations of scandals or examples of wrongdoing involving the BBC have been made or prompted by the BBC? Some may argue that that is not the BBC’s job, but I would disagree. It receives £3 billion a year in public money from the licence fee payer—the fee is probably the UK’s most regressive tax.
I do not blame the individuals within the BBC for not pursuing these matters, because this is about the culture within the organisation. The “officer class” of executives, as they were described by Lord Hall, need to engage and communicate better with those working at the sharp end, who are the ones usually left to manage the fallout and who are often frustrated and angry at the changes they see that simply will not work. Because of the BBC’s resources and its unique place, BBC executives should encourage its programmes to act where it feels there is wrongdoing, wherever that may be. I recognise that the BBC reports issues when they have come into the public domain, but that usually happens as a result of other press activity and, I suggest, when there is little alternative because of the prominence of the story.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend share my worry that the BBC puts out an enormous internet and web offering for free, thus undercutting other news and cultural providers who might otherwise be able to do a better job?
Alun Cairns
I certainly do agree, and I will discuss the scale of the BBC and how it squeezes out competition and innovation from other independent quarters.
Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Ind)
When I served on the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport, I talked to Sir Michael Lyons, the then chairman of the trust, about transparency and how much the top talent earn. It was only because there was a leak that we got to find out how much Jonathan Ross was earning—it was £6 million a year. When I confronted Sir Michael about that he said, “He is worth every penny” and that to have transparency would force salaries up, not bring them down. We now find that quite the reverse is true. Does my hon. Friend share my belief that we should have far more transparency about the salaries being paid to top talent in the BBC?
Alun Cairns
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and I will wish to comment on that issue a little later. The use of public money to drive up salaries against competitors needs to be considered within the debate about the BBC.
We need to speak positively when there are good practices; there are some isolated examples of the BBC interrogating itself. The best example was the “Today” programme interview that John Humphrys did which led to the departure of the last director-general. That, however, is the exception rather than the rule. A number of daily and Sunday newspapers and journalists regularly pursue the BBC, and the organisation persistently defends itself, whatever the issue and whatever the rights and wrongs.
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
How much does my hon. Friend feel that the BBC stepped back from carrying out in-depth investigations after the behaviour at the time of the 45-minute dossier?
Alun Cairns
That is an interesting point, and I hope that my hon. Friend will have an opportunity to catch the Deputy Speaker’s eye and expand on it. I know the strength of feeling that my hon. Friend has on that issue.
I am describing the issues that the BBC should be actively examining from a management or journalism point of view, as that would be not only good management practice, but in the interests of the licence fee payer. I hope the House will allow me to demonstrate the point a little further. Recently, the BBC has not been seen in a positive light on a range of matters. The Jimmy Savile scandal was the ultimate demonstration of that, but I could mention so many examples. Why was £100 million wasted on a now-abandoned digital media initiative? Has anyone lost their job as a result? How do executives pay millions of pounds in severance payments to themselves? Why are staff allowed to leave the BBC on significant pay-offs only to return in a freelance capacity? Why, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans) mentioned, are BBC talent salaries not published? What about the extent of BBC talent—is it used as a way of preventing the publication of salaries of other senior appointments, because BBC talent is not simply restricted to broadcasters? How can presenters interview organisations that pay them handsomely to speak at conferences in a private capacity outside their employment with the BBC? Is that not a conflict of interest?
Alec Shelbrooke
I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, as he is being most generous with his time. Does he find it deeply ironic that when the BBC was found guilty of mishandling premium charge calls for competitions the result was that it was fined, once again hitting the taxpayer?
Alun Cairns
That is part of the difficulty and is another demonstration of how and why the BBC needs to look internally. I am conscious, Mr Deputy Speaker—[Laughter.]
I would suggest that had there been similar questions about conflicts of interest and other bodies, the BBC would rightly demand answers and transparency.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
While we are asking questions, I have one. Why has the focus at the core of the BBC been moved north—for political reasons, or for economic reasons?
Alun Cairns
In view of the signals I am getting from you, Mr Deputy Speaker, I should perhaps let that one hang. It is a well-made point.
The BBC has played an important role in exposing so much wrongdoing, including the payment of civil servants through personal service firms—yet that was also taking place at the BBC. I can remember a public body being criticised for the increase in employers’ contributions to its pension scheme when only weeks earlier the employers’ contribution to the BBC pension scheme had increased even further, which was not mentioned as part of the package or the report.
It could be argued that the Pollard review, which considered the reasons why the “Newsnight” Savile programme was pulled, is doing just what I am asking for. I am worried, however, that questions remain. It cost nearly £3 million and took seven months to be published, but the results should have been presented on a rolling basis. Most worryingly—I hope that this is not significant—there are even suggestions that some of the evidence from Mark Thompson was excluded from that report. I now suspect that it will be down to the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport to pursue the question, should any more evidence come to light.
There have been other reports that we need to welcome, including the Dinah Rose report on the respect at work review and Dame Janet Smith’s report on the culture and practices of the BBC.
I am conscious of the time, Mr Deputy Speaker, and would certainly echo much of what has been said about the competition, about how the BBC squeezes out innovation and about the extent of its internet coverage, which squeezes out fresh thinking and opportunities for smaller companies to make their way in news reporting, sports reporting and cultural activities. My final point, however, is about some of the things the BBC does very well.
Mrs Gillan
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. He is making a powerful speech, making the sort of criticisms of the BBC with which I think we would all agree. Does he acknowledge, however, some of the work carried out by the BBC, particularly in Wales, where the production facilities are tremendous, including the work done with S4C and the work of Elan Closs Stephens, who heads up the BBC Wales audience council? Does he agree that perhaps considering extending the remit of the audience councils might be a way of improving and bringing better scrutiny to the work of the BBC?
Alun Cairns
My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point. She names Elan Closs Stephens and I would certainly underline her contribution. The BBC’s commitment to S4C and its funding as a channel is extremely important. My right hon. Friend also suggests one of the ways in which more effective scrutiny could be brought about.
The BBC has in the past covered some sensitive areas of public and private life extremely successfully. Domestic violence, rape, racism and other issues have been part of its education programmes. That education has been done through dramas, news reports and other means. The most notable was the education and information campaign on HIV. Before the BBC took an active role in informing viewers, the public’s understanding of contracting HIV was confused, to say the least. Factual programmes combined with drama, such as Mark Fowler on “EastEnders”, played a significant part. With its unique status the BBC can play an important part in helping frame a decent society.
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
On that unique position, does my hon. Friend recognise that when BBC local radio was threatened a couple of years ago in one of the BBC’s many reviews, the response from Members across the House and across the country showed how much they respect, trust and value BBC local radio, which plays a very important role in what the corporation does for our constituents? Here is one suggestion—
Alun Cairns
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for championing the cause of local journalists and local broadcasters. Very often, when decisions are taken by that officer class of executive, local broadcasters and local journalists are the ones who pay the price.
Ian Lucas
Does not the hon. Gentleman deeply regret, with me, that we have no BBC local radio in Wales? Unfortunately, my area of Wales suffers profoundly from not having the type of support and investigative journalism that is available, for example, from BBC Radio Shropshire?
Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Alun Cairns
I should like to make progress for a moment, if I can. I have been trying to make a suggestion for a few moments. I will come back to the right hon. Gentleman, with the permission of the Deputy Speaker, a little later.
I hope the BBC can pursue the protection of children online. It is ideally placed to help families protect children online. Few organisations are better placed to educate and inform on a mass scale. A number of newspapers have led the campaign to protect children online, to which the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister have responded admirably and have led the way in policy change. However, many children understand technology and the range of filter settings better than their parents. Many parents do not even understand the risks.
The BBC’s mission statement and stated public purposes fit perfectly for it to become the trusted source of advice on how to protect children online. The BBC has a responsibility to educate, to inform and to use new technology for the benefit of the licence fee payer. What better way to do that than to commit part of its vast resources to help parents understand the risks that their children face online and show them how to act to protect them? The BBC has an even more direct reason to do that: BBC iPlayer allows watershed programmes to be downloaded and viewed at any time of the day. I recognise that the system raises a warning, but it merely asks for the OK button to be pressed. Combining the need to improve filtering options and to educate parents about them could therefore easily kill two birds with one stone.
Parents must have the ultimate choice, but the BBC can play a significant part in communicating the risks and how to act to reduce those risks, should a parent want to—be it grooming on a social media site, protecting children against legal adult content, or simply explaining how SafeSearch can be switched to filter outcomes. Encryption, virtual private networks—VPNs—or peer-to-peer networks are ways around the filter and there need to be innovative ways of explaining these to parents and explaining how to protect children against them. There are several benefits to this approach. I am conscious of the time, but I hope that is one example where the BBC can use the licence fee money in a constructive way, recognising the changing needs and demands of the licence fee payer.
Chris Bryant
The hon. Gentleman walks straight into my trap. Public service broadcasting is not about making programmes that nobody wants to watch or listen to, which is in effect his argument. I do not believe that Radio 3 prevented Classic FM from coming into existence. If anything, Radio 3 enabled Classic FM to come into existence. There was competition at the start, but Classic FM found a different way of presenting classical music. It relied on an audience that was already out there—an audience created largely by Radio 3—and on players, singers and concert halls that, effectively, were subsidised by the BBC. There is a double benefit from the BBC. The licence fee paid by my constituents in the Rhondda pays for the hon. Gentleman to watch all the highbrow, intellectual stuff he watches, and to listen to the wonderfully intelligent and academic stuff he appears on and contributes to. My constituents are interested in watching “EastEnders” and, on Saturday evening, “Strictly Come Dancing”. They are also interested in watching sports programmes such as Wimbledon, which get very large audiences.
Chris Bryant
The hon. Gentleman would not give way to me, so he can wait a moment.
I do not want to rely on the market failure argument that has been advanced by a couple of hon. Members.
Chris Bryant
Before I give way to the hon. Gentleman, who is a member of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, I ought to give way to the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan.
Alun Cairns
Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that, when the BBC competes actively for sport, it drives up the prices for other broadcasters? He has mentioned Wimbledon, but no other broadcaster is allowed to broadcast it.
Chris Bryant
That is not true. Other broadcasters are allowed to broadcast it—[Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman quietens down, he will be able to hear the answer and learn something. The truth of the matter is that, under the television without frontiers directive, to which all countries agreed, the European Commission allowed individual countries to list certain events—they must be agreed by the Commission so they are not too anti-competitive. Wimbledon is on the list of events that must be available on free-to-air television, but others can compete for it, just as they have competed for other sports that must to be available on free-to-air television.
Chris Bryant
It is an utter delight to see you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. In whatever small way I contributed to your election, or at least did not prevent you from being elected by supporting you, I am delighted that you are there.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In many cases, the only training programmes in the industry are run by the BBC. For example, its contribution to the high arts, by funding orchestras and choirs, is one of the things that manages to keep many of our concert halls and classical concerts going. Broadcasting is one of the things we can rightly say, without any sense of British arrogance that often applies to many other things, we do better than any other country in the world. I am conscious that that is not just about the BBC. I once worked for the BBC in Brussels. I got into a taxi and the driver asked me who I worked for. I told him I worked for the BBC and he said, “I love the BBC. I love ‘Midsomer Murders’, ‘Inspector Morse’ and ‘Brideshead Revisited’.” I did not point out to him that they had been made by ITV. We get a double benefit from the BBC, because it creates a competition for quality. It is not anti-competitive—quite the reverse. It is profoundly competitive, because it creates a competition for quality.
Contrary to the grand sweeping statements by hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan about how the BBC never investigates itself, I have heard every director-general, and most directors of programmes, quizzed on BBC radio and television programmes with an aggression equal to that shown to any politician. I do not recall, not even throughout the phone hacking scandal at the News of the World, Rupert Murdoch ever being interviewed by Sky. That is not to say that I do not think Sky is a good broadcaster; I think it is a great news broadcaster—it adopts a different attitude and that is great. I would just point out that, if anything, the BBC racks itself with guilt almost too much on occasion. It did not do a good job with regard to Savile or Lord McAlpine. It did not cover itself with glory in its approach to the National Audit Office, as the hon. Member for Maldon said, and to which I have referred to many times before.
Chris Bryant
I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman again, because I have already made a long speech and I am sure that Members do not want me to go on for ever. I have at least united the House on that point.
There are other critiques I would make of the BBC. The Chair of the Select Committee said that the chairman of the BBC Trust and the director-general are appearing before his Committee tomorrow. I hope they are not appearing together. [Interruption.] He is saying that they are. I think that is entirely wrong as they have completely different jobs to do. They should never, ever appear on a panel together. They should not do joint press conferences or appear before a Select Committee together—perhaps they could appear one after another. This is where the BBC has gone disastrously wrong in the past few years. The chairman of the BBC Trust seems to think that his job is always to defend the director-general and vice versa. I disagree with that. The two bodies should be far more independent, as was argued in a report brought out in 1948.
Mr Leech
I disagree with the hon. Gentleman, because there is strong evidence to suggest that the BBC producing such content actually drives quality in the commercial market. There is little doubt in my mind that further funding cuts would be seriously damaging to the future quality of programming.
Alun Cairns
I find it strange that the hon. Gentleman thinks that further cuts would damage the BBC’s output. Have several examples not been aired already during this debate of significant waste? The digital media initiative cost £100 million, while the pay-offs to BBC executives also cost significant sums—£329 million to 7,500 members of staff. Those are examples of money that has not gone into broadcasting, which is the purpose of the BBC.
Mr Leech
Certainly, there are examples of money not going into broadcasting, but I think the new director-general has got a grip of what has gone on in the past, and I would expect it not to happen in the future. One good example is the restriction of pay-offs for senior executives to a year’s salary or £150,000, which is line with senior civil servants. My biggest concern is that future cuts to BBC funding would be most severely felt in local and regional broadcasting.
Gareth Johnson
It would be damaging to my career to agree with the hon. Gentleman, but he makes a very pertinent point. With news announcements from other broadcasters, we might think “That could well be true,” but when we see a story from the BBC, we view it as confirmation because the accuracy is there and the report is right and honest. The BBC is not always first when it comes to breaking news, but it is often the most accurate.
Alun Cairns
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his role as chairman of the all-party group and for his contribution. Bearing in mind Lord McAlpine’s difficult time, however, I am not sure that this is the right time to highlight the accuracy of the BBC.
Alun Cairns
In the limited time available to respond to the debate, I pay tribute to every Member who has spoken. I do not have time to go through them all, but I pay particular tribute to the Secretary of State and the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), who stayed throughout the whole debate, as well as to my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), whose interventions and speech were extremely helpful. I hope that this debate will be significant for the Culture, Media and Sport Committee report, which we look forward to with great interest.
A whole range of issues have been raised and I will try to bring them together. Many focused on structure, transparency and the licence fee, and we have also focused on public service broadcasting and what comes from it. On transparency, I pay tribute to the Secretary of State, who has achieved an agreement with the BBC and the National Audit Office. We have been calling for that greater transparency for some time. It was resisted for a considerable period and featured in my 10-minute rule Bill last November. It seems that significant progress is being made and we look forward to the NAO’s reports. The director-general’s response to me last Friday suggests that it is happy to consider grater transparency, which may well mean the publication of invoices.
The structure is an important issue and I disagreed with much of what the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said, other than one point, namely that all too often the BBC Trust and executive management appear to be one and the same and there needs to be a distinct separation. The BBC Trust needs to be the champion of the licence fee payer rather than the defender of the status quo against any criticism of it.
This is a useful time to start asking what we want from the future of public service broadcasting. Do we want the BBC to chase viewing figures and potentially compete with what the market can deliver, or do we want it to broadcast unique programmes that can appeal to wider audiences for whom the market will struggle to provide through the income it generates?
In conclusion, I ask the Secretary of State to take up my suggestion for the BBC to play a significant part in communicating with, and educating and informing, parents and children on online protection. That fits perfectly with the BBC’s unique status as well as its mission statements, and I hope that that is one positive that will come from this debate.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the future of the BBC.