Public Service Broadcasting: BBC Centenary

Baroness Bakewell Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bakewell (Lab)]

My Lords, 1922 was a very special year. It was the year The Waste Land was published and saw the birth of Philip Larkin and the creation of the BBC—cultural events that echo still to this day. My contribution is going to be about the BBC and my personal experience of it. I first worked for the BBC in the 1950s when I made the sound effects for the horses’ hooves in radio drama. I have gone on to have a varied career in all segments of the BBC, largely working with the creative community, of whom I have a continuing and varied experience. I have been close to them and not to the administrators—of whom the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, is a distinguished one—so I speak from that community.

What do I see of the BBC now? I see the BBC living in fear. It lives in fear of government and government interference and change for the worst. It lives in fear of the right-wing press and its effect on public opinion, always vocal in damning the BBC for the slightest errors and undermining public trust in a national institution. It lives in fear of the public reputation and in fear of the other platforms and the changing landscape of the world of broadcasting; quite rightly, so it needs handling.

What is the consequence that I perceive in the behaviour of the BBC today? I see it as overmanaged, overloaded with managers trying to answer these fears that it harbours. I see too many people designated to sign off programmes—person after person—to sign off a creative enterprise whose managers are perfectly able to deliver in the first instance. I see a timidity from the BBC, overcautiousness about what you can say and how much daring you can display. The great triumph of the BBC throughout the 1950s and 1960s was its openness to adventure and daring and that is where it culled its huge reputation. Now, it drives away people such as Andrew Marr and Emily Maitlis who are fearful of expressing an opinion for fear of overstepping the new rules that apply.

I wish—and this is not the arena to say this—that the BBC had more courage to face down these fears. I call on the Government to endorse the values that existed at the founding of the BBC. I interviewed Lord Reith in this building at the end of his life when he expressed to me how much he regretted that jazz had ever been allowed on the radio. He felt that it was the beginning of the corruption. You can be wrong.

I would like the Government to acknowledge positively the role of the BBC today. The BBC has a global brand, an enviable one in the world of brand making; there is nothing to match it. It has global reach: it reaches into Ukraine; it reaches into China; it reaches everywhere, and it has a say. It is a soft power of incalculable value. Ask any of the diplomats. Ask our foreign embassies. They will tell you how much the BBC is valued as part of our diplomatic contribution to the world.

What is more, the BBC has the trust of the public. The public snipe at the BBC; that is what you do with those you love. Overall, the approval rating for the BBC is extremely high, and it is very precious. Unless we endorse it in a positive way, unless the Government say how they agree with the values of the BBC, then it will slide down the reputational ladder in our society. We cannot afford for it to lose heart and to give way to these fears that it harbours. I call on the Government to endorse the BBC and its values and encourage it to hold fast.