Diversity in the Media

Baroness King of Bow Excerpts

Tuesday 10th May 2016 Grand Committee

Asked by

[Baroness King of Bow]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their current assessment of diversity in the British media.

[Baroness King of Bow (Lab)]

My Lords, I have spent seven long years as a diversity executive and only in the last year or so have I suddenly felt wanted. These days everyone wants advice about improving diversity. Let me start with the housekeeping and draw attention to my entries in the Register of Members’ interests. I am Channel 4’s diversity executive and the lead member on the board of governors for the British Film Institute with responsibility for diversity.

In the past I used to be very lonely but now things are hotting up, I am pleased to report. Everyone wants a piece of the action. After seven years as diversity executive, I thought the time had come to summarise what needs to happen to turbo boost diversity in Britain’s media and which principles we must embrace to secure change. I would therefore like to place before the Committee six principles and one fact.

In other speeches to Parliament, I have outlined the extraordinary strength of Britain’s creative industries and I will not repeat it now. Suffice to say that the creative industries in general and TV and film in particular are special cases. To some extent they create our culture and in many ways make us who we are. We like to think of ourselves as open, accessible, imaginative, innovative, transformational, wealth generating and, perhaps more than anything, fair—we are British, after all. So how is it that the representation we see on British TV does not always seem that fair? How is it that many under-represented groups feel locked out? In a nutshell, why does not British TV reflect Britain adequately? What are we doing wrong?

That question was posed last week on Radio 4’s “The Media Show” about the BBC’s latest diversity strategy. That strategy is hot off the press, but it is the 29th such strategy in 15 years. There is therefore an inevitable feeling that this strategy is just as likely as the last 28 strategies to slowly sink without trace. Simon Albury, chair of the Campaign for Broadcasting Equality and former chair of the Royal Television Society, does a great job of holding all the broadcasters’ feet to the fire. His article in the Guardian last week was entitled, “The BBC’s diversity strategy is not good enough”, so that gives a clue about its content. He then explains why the BBC’s current BAME employment rates are woeful and he praises Channel 4 for being frank about our own progress around diversity and setting,

“a benchmark that other public service broadcasters should seek to match”.

Let me be frank: a diversity strategy is not worth the paper it is written on unless it gives others the tools to measure its success. We can all spin our way out of trouble—or at least try to—and so the first principle we must all embrace is transparency, and we must link that transparency firmly to diversity data. Without it, there is little chance of making progress.

Here the broadcasters deserve credit for creating and funding a system that will allow others to judge them on how they perform on diversity. I know that the broadcasters are not thinking, “Let us sink £2 million on a system that is going to possibly criticise us hugely and be happy about that spend”. However, they have stepped up to the table and are working closely with Ed Vaizey, the Minister responsible—he has provided fantastic leadership in this area—because everyone recognises that it will bring transparency.

DIAMOND is the name for this system. It stands for Diversity Analysis Monitoring Data—a snappy little title that I came up with in the middle of the night but nevertheless serves its purpose. DIAMOND, as the Creative Diversity Network sets out on its website, will switch the lights on. It will enable British broadcasting to be the first of its kind in the world to answer the question: who is on our TV and who makes our TV? That question basically is: who chooses which stories are told and which voices are heard? These questions go to the heart of what it is to be a free society with a free press, so let us not accidently file away the “Diversity in the media” debate as being boring but worthy. It fundamentally deals with questions about who we are and what sort of society we are.

While I am being frank, let me also state what I think one of my greatest mistakes was for five of my seven years at Channel 4, where I was first head of diversity and then, when I came into this House, became diversity executive. My mistake was largely ignoring the situation facing women in the industry. Because I am a woman, I probably thought, subconsciously or not, that I better not start going on and on about women’s issues. But then you reflect a bit. Five years go by and you realise that women’s issues are society’s issues; that if you wipe out discrimination against 52% of the population, you boost employment and expand the talent pool, and if you change gender stereotypes, rather than perpetuate them—which too often the media do—you make things better for girls and boys, because boys are just as distorted by sexist stereotypes as girls.

That brings me on to my second and third principles: accountability that must be data-driven. We need accountability and we need our decisions to be data-driven. The data show us which groups are most excluded. They show us that, extraordinarily important as on-screen diversity is, the lack of off-screen diversity is even more concerning.

One example of data helping to inform opinion is the Channel 4 report on gender in the media. I hope that we at Channel 4 made good a small absence on gender for a few years, although we have had some extraordinary on-screen triumphs in terms of very strong roles for women and so forth. The report looked at how sexist TV is, basically. The report found that British TV is awash with low-level sexism. There are 30 incidents of sexism an hour being broadcast in prime time, all day, every day. It is no doubt the same the rest of the time, but prime time is what we measured.

We also found that the greatest amount of sexism was in comedy. You might not be that surprised by that, but think back to all the “light-hearted” racism—I am calling it light-hearted—of the 1970s. We would not say that that humour was acceptable now and yet, if you start talking about comedy and diversity and women, people say, “Oh, haven’t you got a sense of humour?”. However, we would not these days say that it was acceptable to think about race in the way that we did in comedy in the 1970s. We need to make some improvement there.

We also need to look at things by genre. Here, we found that in on-screen representation, the group that had the fewest women presenters was sport. In sport, the presenters are 98% male and 2% female. This is truly diabolical when you think that 52% of the population are women. Girls looking at sporting events are not ever seeing themselves engaging, commentating or having anything to do with it. The data help you clearly see where the gaps and problems are. They give you insight, and we all need that.

There is no excuse for not improving on-screen diversity, but as I said off-screen diversity remains far worse. Look at the situation facing women directors and ethnic-minority directors. I hope in future to have the stats for the LGBT community, for disability and for social class. These stats came from Directors UK. Once DIAMOND is up and running, the broadcasters will be able to give us all those stats, for instance around LGBT and disability, although not yet social class, another area where we need to make progress. With those caveats, the recently highlighted stats from Directors UK are truly shocking. Ethnic-minority directors make up just 3.5% of the directing community, despite making up 14% of the UK population, and women, despite being the majority, make up just 13.6% of working film directors. What is even more shocking is that these figures have not budged a millimetre in a decade. We have to think about how slowly we are making progress here.

The Directors UK report looks at why this has happened and outlines all the interwoven factors such as,

“career progression … budgets, genres, critics, audiences and public funding”.

The chair of Directors UK, Beryl Richards, stated that,

“the industry culture leads to vastly different outcomes for men and women”.

This is the bottom line for me—culture.

I would of course like to draw your Lordships’ attention to Channel 4’s 360° Diversity Charter, which deals with that culture, but it is also important that we look at the principle of systemic change. Policies that force systemic change are as important as cultural change. I will just name the principles: transparency; accountability; being data-driven; having systemic change; being genre-specific; and resource. That is what we need and what will make the BBC’s strategy, and all the other diversity strategies, a success.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady King, for introducing this important debate, and for doing so with such passion and eloquence. I start by congratulating her on the role model that she represents, not only in politics but at Channel 4, the BFI and across the media more generally. I also thank other noble Lords who have spoken today—including my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Prosser and Lady Grender—who reminded us quite rightly of the work that has been done by the Mayors of London over the years, particularly on LGBT issues. The noble Baroness also gave third-party endorsement to the work of Channel 4. It is clear that it is delivering on its important remit of serving minority communities, which is a key feature of Channel 4. It was also good to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Taylor.

It is clear that the old world needs to change and that the media, with its high profile and creativity, can play a vital part. I want to move to a world where ethnicity, gender and disability are not issues and only skills and experience count, for example, when it comes to recruitment, promotion and assessing people for appointments. My ambition is to see a sea change which takes us beyond identity politics and constant talk of quotas and targets.

The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, gave us some important examples of how things have changed in his working life. Last week, he kindly participated in a full debate on the Floor of the House on the review that BIS has initiated under the chairmanship of another role model, my noble friend Lady McGregor-Smith. That looked at the issues faced by black, Asian and minority-ethnic people in the workplace and how to harness the potential to call on the very widest pool of talent. We talked about the work that we are doing to improve representation of women and BME people on boards. The media could and should be a leader and not a laggard in this area. It is at the heart—

[Baroness King of Bow]

I thank the Minister for her very generous remarks. On the point about the media being a leader, will she join me in congratulating the BBC as the first broadcaster to say that by 2020 50% of the people that it portrays on screen will be women?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

I thank the noble Baroness. I was not aware of that. It is certainly a very brave ambition and it is relevant to the debates that we will no doubt be having very imminently on the future of the BBC. The point that I was making is that the media industry is at the heart of a vast creative machine. It is growing by 10%, with exports of film and television approaching £3 billion a year.

I believe strongly that we need to reach a situation where the prospects for BME individuals, for LGBT, for the disabled and of course for women who want to progress in the media are as good as those for their white or male counterparts in the same situation—neither better nor worse. I think we all agree that there is work to do.

The noble Baroness, Lady King, has been very supportive of the Minister for Culture, Ed Vaizey, in his great efforts to raise the profile of diversity. I pay tribute to Mr Vaizey. He gives government by round table a genuinely good name—he is a modern-day King Arthur. He has been tireless in his work on diversity, especially on BME, and in encouraging the industry to be proactive in increasing diversity both on and off the screen, including in the representation of disabled people. On International Women’s Day, he launched Women in Digital to tackle some of the barriers which mean that women still make up less than 20% of our digital workforce.

The conference that Ed Vaizey held in January raised the wider issue of lack of representation of disabled people in the creative industries. I was very glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Prosser, made some strong points about disability in acting and more generally. Indeed, she rightly referred to Ofcom’s equality remit. Addressing the problems of the disabled is an important area and I think that it has to be addressed in the glamorous media industry. There is a huge spectrum of disabilities, and individuals encounter unique problems. More needs to be done to ensure that they can contribute and that their voices are heard.

More generally, people who are unfortunate enough to have a permanent or temporary disability tell me again and again how difficult life is. It is a mixture of countless physical and mental barriers—such as bad attitudes, with people looking through you and even avoiding you. It is for this reason that ground-breaking legislation was put through Parliament by William Hague—now my noble friend Lord Hague of Richmond—in the 1990s. That was important—the position encountered when travelling overseas is still worse than here. Broadcasting shapes and reflects our society’s values, so increasing the visibility of disabled people’s impact in the media is essential. I emphasise that because it is not always talked about as much as it should be.

I turn to the BBC. The noble Baroness, Lady King, has expressed some of her reservations. As an ex- businesswoman, I believe in the power of encouragement, so we should applaud the efforts of the BBC, as she has just done, in relation to gender.

The BBC has established a fund to help black, Asian and minority-ethnic talent on and off screen to develop new programmes. It will be accepting more training internships, and it is setting new targets to increase senior BME staff in priority areas.

I welcome the work that the BBC is doing with the Shaw Trust to open up business support roles to disabled candidates. I congratulate the BBC on establishing an independent diversity advisory group, with experts and role models including Sir Lenny Henry—of course, we were all glad to see Sir Lenny celebrated at the BAFTAs, as was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Holmes—and the noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson and Lady Benjamin. They, with others, represent quite a challenge to the BBC on diversity, which I think will be helpful and encouraging.

The BBC charter review has allowed Government to look across the whole of the BBC’s performance. It has given us a great opportunity to review the BBC’s approach to diversity and to ask some forthright questions, some of which were repeated by the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, and the noble Lord, Lord Taylor. The fact is that the BBC should lead the way in representing the nation it serves, and I can assure noble Lords that diversity will feature prominently in the White Paper which is to be published imminently.

Of course, the BBC is not alone in trying to do better. The noble Baroness, Lady Prosser, mentioned film tax relief and diversity. The BFI led the way with a £1 million fund and the “three ticks” scheme that she spoke of. The Government introduced that tax relief for UK films in 2014 and I think that it has been helpful and good for the industry. Sky, Channel 4 and ITV have also all responded positively. My noble friend Lord Holmes rightly highlighted Channel 4’s 360° Diversity Charter, as well as the work done by David Abraham and Channel 4’s support of the Paralympics. To mention a former competitor, Sainsbury’s also supported the Paralympics. These instances of good practice are to be celebrated. I am also encouraged that partly as a result of the round table process, Channel 5 has now joined the other main broadcasters in taking action on diversity. It is doing various things, including special annual apprenticeships and paid internships.

I want to turn now to the Creative Diversity Network because it is a great example of how the major broadcasters can come together to tackle a problem. The noble Baroness, Lady King, talked about “switching on the lights”, soon to be designated as Project Diamond, which is due to go live this summer. I welcome the project because it will monitor diversity on television, as has been explained, and data are important. As has been said, what gets measured tends to get done—not entirely, but it certainly helps to know what you are up to. It will be critical in allowing broadcasters to judge how well they are doing and whether the targets that they have set themselves are being met. I should also like to mention, as did my noble friend Lord Holmes, the guidance entitled Thinking Outside the Box provided by Ofcom.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

My Lords, I was referring to the point made by my noble friend Lord Holmes about Thinking Outside the Box. This guidance, provided through a unique partnership between the EHRC and Ofcom, is part of a range of advice to help broadcasters with fair recruitment, commissioning, broadcasting, programme making and, indeed, procurement practice.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, pointed out, the media getting its act together on-screen makes a huge difference. There are some great examples of where the BBC and the media in general have got it right. The Sunday night series “Under Cover” on the BBC, with Adrian Lester and Sophie Okonedo, would be a good example. Channel 4, as we have said, has been at the forefront of producing popular programmes, including those representing LGBT people like the “Cucumber” trilogy, its well-received transgender series. I also commend Channel 4 Racing—one of my own sporting passions—for pioneering female presenters very early on.

My noble friend Lord Holmes talked about gaming. That caused me to reflect that this is another area for potential transformational change. And we certainly need more female directors such as Thea Sharrock.

[Baroness King of Bow]

The subject of gaming is really important if we are going to keep up with the times. I echo the Minister’s praise of the BFI—I have stated my interest there—but does she think that if it is to encompass gaming it will need to have enough resources to do so?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

Of course the BFI has to be well run and properly funded but I was not suggesting that it change its remit. I was saying that the gaming industry is an important and growing part of the media industry, which I spend a lot of time encouraging, and that I think the point was rightly made—for the first time to my mind in this Chamber—that that is an area that should be within the remit of some of the work we are agreeing on.

I also welcome the efforts of the publishing industry with its EQUIP charter, which pushes for better diversity in another industry that is not generally renowned for it. It has brought together publishers, authors and others to make improvements, so that, for example, many employers in the industry now accept CVs without personal data to avoid unconscious bias.

I do not have a great deal to add on funding, top-slicing and ring-fencing, but I am sure we will return to these issues in the coming weeks and months.

I agree with the sentiment of the debate that there is much more to do across the media industries, not only in representation on and off-screen but also in portrayal. Unless more action is taken now, this will become increasingly challenging as audiences diversify further, as the country and demographics change, and as different groups continue to move away from our mainstream media sources. It is in all our hands to improve practice and attitudes. The Government have a part to play, as we have acknowledged, as do business and industry, including the media industries—and, as we discussed last time, as does the education sector and its teachers and lecturers. Led by the Prime Minister, we have set various targets for 2020.

We especially want to increase diversity across the media so that all the UK’s communities feel represented. I believe that our industries can and will rise to the challenge.