BBC: Finance and Independence

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, in this expert debate, admirably led by my noble friend Lady Bakewell, I speak only as a citizen but as a fairly widely travelled one in almost all the comparable democracies in western Europe, the transatlantic and Antipodean ones, and elsewhere in many other countries that are struggling to emerge as democracies or emerging as different kinds of democracies. Nowhere have I seen comparable broadcasting services to the BBC. I am not thinking just of speaking truth to power, although that is priceless and rarer than noble Lords might think, but of the refusal to segregate audiences via subscription into “quality” or “elite” fee-payers and a wide popular audience.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Low, I applaud the resolute focus of the BBC on entertaining as well as informing or educating, to quote the still not bettered Reithian formula. The BBC gains the status of a truly national institution by it. It creates shared experiences which bond the nation. If we can laugh at the same jokes or watch the same preposterous dancers, hot-tempered cooks, or soap operas, or listen to “The Archers”—how much do urban folk learn about countryside issues from it? Although to my taste that programme is not quite gritty enough—we become more at home with each other. We need these shared moments in our lives more than ever.

We are a diverse nation, no longer homogeneous in faith and belief and, as ever, very segregated by class. If we compound that by cultural segregation, we shall be committing an act of great folly indeed. BBC programmes unite the nation, and unite it with consistent quality. Of course all institutions need to evolve, but to oblige change in such a way as to undermine their real benefit would be irreparably stupid.