Met Office

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. This is the third time in less than 24 hours that the Minister and I have been opposite one another. Yesterday evening he tried to incite me to intervene, although, as the Speaker rightly pointed out, it was against parliamentary procedure—not exactly fair play.

[John Nicolson]

Or cricket.

[Chi Onwurah]

No, it was not cricket. I was obliged to remain silent, but I intend to make up for that today. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) on securing this important debate and on his impressive opening speech. He speaks with experience and authority, as a local MP and a previous Minister.

[The Minister for Culture and the Digital Economy (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

He was a Secretary of State.

[Chi Onwurah]

And as a previous Secretary of State. He knows his subject comprehensively. I am sure that the Minister will extend my right hon. Friend the courtesy of answering all his questions as fully as possible.

As my right hon. Friend said in his introduction, the Met Office is a respected and successful institution. He touched briefly on the origins of what is now known as the Met Office. Those origins reflect many supremely British characteristics: naval power, trade, exploration, science and eccentricity. The Met Office was first founded as the Meteorological Department of the Board of Trade by Robert FitzRoy, who is most famous for being the captain of HMS Beagle, the ship that carried Charles Darwin on his famous voyage. More than 160 years ago, this House roared with laughter when a Member suggested that we might, one day, predict the weather in advance. FitzRoy led an interesting and troubled life, but pressed on in the face of scepticism about weather reporting. Today, his vision of a public forecasting service, funded by the Government for the benefit of all, has endured.

The modern Met Office is respected the world over and has an important place at the heart of the nation’s contingency planning and our culture. Indeed, the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson) emphasised its role in the heart of Scotland’s culture. We all like to poke fun at weather forecasters for getting it wrong, but the fact is that the Met Office is critical to our military security and civil planning. Its shipping forecasts make the jobs of those at sea a little safer, as the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) rightly emphasised. Its global research links enhance our understanding of how the weather and climate affect our economy and way of life, and its parliamentary advice makes us all—at least, those of us who make use of it—a little wiser.

I hope the Minister will assure us that the Met Office is not on the Government’s list of public sector targets. In fact, I hope that he and his colleagues will go further and champion its work and the unique role it plays. Perhaps, they might even recognise the value that such public sector institutions play in our society and economy. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter said, this decision is not the end of the Met Office—far from it. It does so much more than providing the BBC with weather forecasts. In fact, its data will still drive those forecasts. The decision raises questions about the strategic relationship between the BBC and the weather provider. The police and the military will continue to rely on the Met Office for advice, while the public may receive different information. My right hon. Friend cited international examples that raise serious questions about this approach. Is the Minister concerned about that and has he discussed it with the BBC?

Many in the Conservative party believe that the BBC needs to be clipped, either because of misplaced ideas that it crowds out competitors or because of perceived bias. I find it difficult to divorce this decision and this debate from the wider context of the charter renewal process and the sustained attack that the BBC is coming under from the Government and their friends. The BBC is under immense pressure at the moment to prove to the Government and the wider public that it is efficient and good value for money. Obviously we are all in favour of value for money, but what matters is how we define value and over what period of time. Even if we accept that there is no risk to the national interest—which I have yet to be convinced of, although I will listen closely to the Minister—I am not persuaded that the cheapest option is always the best.

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On resuming—

[Chi Onwurah]

As I think I was saying before democracy interrupted me, my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter explained that the BBC’s decision is not the end for the Met Office—far from it: it does much more than weather forecasts. However, the decision raises questions about the strategic relationship of the BBC and the weather forecaster. Has the Minister discussed that with the BBC, and does he have concerns about it?

I am intrigued by the timing of the decision. Is it right to award a 10-year contract when the charter renewal process is about to decide on the entire future of the BBC and its purpose? Should not such important decisions be made after we know the outcome of the process? I understand that the contract does not expire until next year. Is it too late to review the decision and the process? Will there be increased transparency about the criteria for the decision that has been made?

What if, as part of the open consultation the Minister is running with the British public, we decide that the purpose of the BBC is indeed to provide integrated weather warnings at critical times? In its briefings to Members, the BBC has said that the decision to go to open tender was a legal one—something that it had to do. I support open tendering, of course. We need competitive procurement to prevent contracts from being handed out to the same old cronies and to enable new and innovative companies to have access to the £242 billion of public procurement cash available from the public sector, but what discussions have the Government had with the BBC regarding other aspects of the contract, such as social value?

I am sure the Minister is aware that recent European Union law exempts some services from procurement laws, and other laws allow organisations to make allowances in certain circumstances—for instance, where there is a question of social value. The Public Contracts Regulations 2015 came into force in February and expand on exemptions for co-operation between entities in the public sector, which I would have thought was exactly the case here. What is the Minister’s interpretation of that exemption? Has he taken any advice on the rules in this case? If so, can he share it with the House today or deposit it in the Library, or ideally both?

One charge often levelled by Members of this House and others is that we are too strict on ourselves in this country when interpreting and obeying EU laws and can err on the side of extreme caution, so will the Minister bring his considerable resources to bear and see whether this 93-year-old relationship does not have to be sacrificed? We have yet to decide what the BBC is for or what outcomes we want. The BBC is a great British institution. It is public sector, it is successful and it is loved. Of course it needs to evolve with the times and with technology, but it also needs the support and championing of this Government.

I could say exactly the same about the Met Office. My right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter and the hon. Member for Torbay described in detail how successful and appreciated the Met Office is, and it, too, needs to evolve with the times and with technology. The Met Office also deserves the support and championing of this Government. I will listen with interest to the Minister, as always, but it seems strange that these two great British institutions should not be natural allies and partners.

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[Mr Vaizey]

As I thought I was explaining but will try to make clearer, my understanding was that the public weather service will be freely available to all media outlets. The work that the civil contingencies secretariat, BIS and the Met Office are undertaking now will ensure that when that service goes live in the summer of next year, it will be able to be incorporated into the BBC’s more general weather. In effect, the public weather service is about severe weather warnings—gales, storms and flooding, as I said earlier—and it must be incorporated within the routine weather forecast: for example, whether it will rain tomorrow in East Dunbartonshire, or be cloudy or sunny. I am confident that that work will ensure that those two effectively separate parts of weather forecasting will be consistent and incorporated, not only by the BBC but by other broadcasters.

I will take this opportunity to address some of the other points raised by the right hon. Gentleman. It is not the case that Ministers were informed by the BBC of its decision. The Met Office informed the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills after learning that it was not on the shortlist for procurement, but I do not take any umbrage at the BBC’s not having informed us. As I said, it is a commercial decision for the BBC.

Are we getting value for money? Are we effectively paying twice for the service? It is important to understand that the Met Office was not giving general weather service free of charge to the BBC; the BBC was paying for it. Procurement is under way for the weather service that the BBC will use in future. That is commercially confidential, but I do not see how it can be argued that we are paying twice, given that the BBC is currently paying for a weather service from the Met Office and will pay for a weather service from another provider next year.

I know that there will be concerns, particularly from a constituency perspective, as the right hon. Gentleman rightly mentioned. As far as I understand it, the Met Office contract with the BBC is a small fraction of its total turnover, and I am not aware of any knock-on effect in terms of redundancies or job losses.

[Chi Onwurah]

To clarify, the point about not paying twice is that the British public pay the Met Office to produce a weather service, and now it will pay the BBC to pay somebody else to produce a weather service. The British public might be paying for two different weather forecasts, for the same weather.

[Mr Vaizey]

Clarity is clearly not my strong point this afternoon. As I said earlier, the BBC’s contract with the Met Office is a commercial contract, paid for out of the licence fee. The BBC will continue to pay for a commercial contract, whether or not we agree with whoever eventually wins that procurement—whether or not we morally agree, as it were, that it is the right company. It may well be a foreign company, although it could well be a British company. That is one thing, but the fact is that we are not paying twice for the service. The licence fee pays for a weather service provided by the BBC that happens to be provided by the Met Office. It is not provided for free. As far as I am aware—again, it is a commercial procurement process—at no point did the Met Office offer to provide that service free to the BBC.

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[Mr Vaizey]

I absolutely give the right hon. Gentleman that assurance; I will ensure that the points he has made in this debate are taken seriously and that we absolutely clarify for him exactly what the public weather media service will provide, although the answer may not completely satisfy him. I will also seek assurances from the civil contingencies secretariat and BIS officials that they are content with the arrangements, as it were, whereby the BBC is in effect contracting with another provider for what I would call its commercial weather service, which provides the day-to-day weather service that we all watch at the end of a news bulletin, whether that is a national or local news bulletin, as opposed to the more important severe weather warning work that the Met Office does.

[Chi Onwurah]

As the Minister is so successfully clarifying points, may I point out that my question to him was about the legal basis that is necessary for there to be an open tender, given that EU procurement regulations now exempt collaborations between two public sector entities?

[Mr Vaizey]

I will certainly consider the point that the hon. Lady makes. It may well be that the contract was de minimis anyway in terms of those procurement rules, and it may well be that the savings the BBC thinks it can make by procuring weather services from another supplier mean that even the social aspects were not of the utmost concern to them. Nevertheless, I, or perhaps even the BBC itself, will write to the hon. Lady to address her point.

This has been a very useful debate. Although it has been disappointing in some respects, in that I was unable to pull a rabbit out of the hat and put the Met Office back in play with the BBC, it is right that we respect the BBC’s independence in this area. We cannot always say whether the BBC’s decisions are right or wrong, and it must be a particular frustration for someone working at the BBC or even leading it to be constantly second-guessed. I second-guessed the BBC on the closure of 6 Music and with hindsight I think I have been proved right; that was a service to save. Many people are now second-guessing the BBC on its moving BBC3 from terrestrial television to the internet. Equally, it is perhaps a testament to the standing of both the Met Office and the BBC that a parliamentary debate should be called to consider the BBC’s decision not to procure its weather services from the Met Office.

In a sense, I will conclude in the way that I started, by saying that my final congratulations must go to the Met Office on accurately predicting the weather for all the Rugby World cup matches. Unfortunately, that did not help the northern hemisphere teams, but I look forward to an accurate prediction of the weather for Didcot Town versus Exeter, and I put on the record now my own prediction that Didcot will win 2-0.