BBC and Public Service Broadcasting

Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Young on securing this debate at such an important time. It is interesting to look around the House to see which Benches are busiest. I suspect that a lot of noble Lords on the other side of the House have not sought to come in because they agree with the position that is adopted by this debate. My noble friend Lord Puttnam made a powerful speech that sums up, more eloquently than I could, my view of where we are in this debate about the BBC. This is a fundamental issue about the nature of British culture and the British people.

I speak as a Scot who once worked for the BBC: I did not last very long, because it was in the days of received pronunciation and, as your Lordships may have noticed, I do not have received pronunciation. However, it was one of the proudest experiences of my life, because I learned that the BBC is the gold standard, admired around the world.

I want to say a little about the World Service, because it is one of this country’s most effective tools of public diplomacy, and it gets into places that no one else can reach. It is always a symbol of how useful it is that dictators the world over try to find ways to block the World Service, or indeed the BBC in general. It has already been cut but it is still very good indeed, and it should be treasured. On the issue of decriminalising the licence fee, which will cost £200 million, I worry that the bean-counters will look again at the BBC World Service.

I will spend a little time on a much more parochial issue, perhaps in your Lordships’ view, although I see it as integral to the culture of the United Kingdom. The Culture Secretary is today talking about the need for diversity in the BBC and the need to be less urban. Perhaps I can politely suggest to him that he needs to get out more. One need only look at some of the broadcasting in Scotland: at BBC Alba, the Gaelic channel, and BBC Radio nan Gàidheal, a Gaelic channel. I suspect that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, is the only Gaelic speaker in the House. Gaelic is spoken by a small number of people but it is a valuable culture. When Gaelic broadcasting took off, the need to make programmes gave a huge boost to the creative industries in Scotland. Programmes were made and people were taught skills, and, as a consequence of that, the creative broadcasting sector has grown. We now have a very useful partnership between BBC Scotland and Screen Scotland to make movies in Scotland; a lot of it is based on the BBC and Channel 4—another public sector broadcaster—having capability in Scotland. Diversity comes in many different forms, and that kind of diversity matters. To someone like me—a Scot who is proud to be British—one of the best examples is the British Broadcasting Corporation.

In various guises in my past, I have complained about bias in the BBC. The noble Lord, Lord Lilley, complains about bias in the BBC. The SNP had hundreds of people outside the BBC studios during the referendum campaign, complaining about bias in the BBC. I am sure that the Lib Dems have done it as well at some point. If we are all complaining, it must be getting something right. If we are all unhappy about bias, something must be working. We have a great opportunity to take the BBC into its next century. Let us not be myopic; let us not see Fox News as our ambition; let us be proud of what we have got. We are not good at doing that—this is a chance to do it.