BBC Transparency

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mr Campbell]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I agree with her: the campaign over the past years to get further transparency is a work in progress, and we are much more advanced than we were 10 or 12 years ago. However, as I am outlining, there is much more work to do.

The fourth area that I want to cover is BBC accuracy and honesty. The BBC prides itself on posing questions, and all of us here are subject to those questions, but it is not very good at providing answers. In two instances during the past year, there have been very serious questions for the corporation in Northern Ireland to answer.

A green energy scheme with an initial potential overspend of public money is currently subject to a public inquiry; I do not intend to trespass on issues that are best dealt with in that inquiry. However, the Executive in Northern Ireland were collapsed by Sinn Féin under the pretext of what they claimed was the mishandling of that scheme. Early this year, a BBC Radio Ulster programme carried this topic for 56 consecutive days. The presenter of that programme, who just happens to be the director of Third Street Studios, used inaccurate and outrageous commentary. I will briefly give two quotes. He said:

“One of the biggest financial scandals to have ever happened in Northern Ireland: under the government’s watch, £400million of your money has been allowed to go up in smoke”.

He also said:

“What it means is that hundreds of millions of pounds of your money cannot go into schools, education, other departments in our country because the money has been squandered, the money has been wasted.”

This situation continued for a prolonged period until I appeared on the programme and confronted this deliberate misrepresentation. As the scheme had only just begun and was scheduled to last for 20 years, I asked why the presenter kept saying that the public’s money had been “wasted” and gone “up in smoke”. Only after my appearance, which was accompanied by strong letters of protest from my party to the BBC hierarchy, was the use of this reprehensible language stopped.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a surprisingly compelling argument, but did not the scandal that he is referring to bring down the Northern Ireland Government? As such, was it not entirely newsworthy for 56 days—or more?

[Mr Campbell]

I have no objection whatsoever to any media organisation concentrating on events, particularly events of such import, but when it scandalously misrepresents things, as those comments and the comments of others did, and then the comments are changed after I and others confront the presenter about his misrepresentation, it proves that the BBC knows that it overstepped the mark in its initial comments. Nevertheless, I take the hon. Gentleman’s point. I have no quibble or argument with the BBC deliberating at length on the subject, but the issue was compounded by the presenter’s gross misrepresentation of the facts.

A substantial complaint about those inaccuracies was lodged with the BBC, and that is ongoing; the BBC has not yet comprehensively responded to the complaints, which are from eight months ago. The complaints process is obviously laborious and bureaucratic; for those who have not yet embarked on it, I can attest to that.

I will give another, very insidious example. “Spotlight” is an investigative programme in Northern Ireland that has won awards through the years. In October last year, BBC NI television broadcast an edition looking at people who had been victims of alleged shooting by police officers in the early stages of the troubles. It was critical of the police, and both serving and former officers were concerned about the one-sided picture that it portrayed.

Shortly after the broadcast, I was contacted by someone who informed me that the reporter who had conducted the interviews and carried out the broadcast on the BBC had been a serving police officer, so I wrote to the reporter in the following terms:

“I write to confirm some details regarding a recent BBC Spotlight programme. I would be grateful if you could answer the following questions.

1. Have you ever served as a police officer in Northern Ireland? If yes, please outline the circumstances that led to you leaving the police?

2. Have you ever been known by any other name than—”

And I named her. I continued: “If so, what?” My understanding was that she had married and that her surname had changed since the programme was broadcast. I continued:

“3. As the presenter of an investigative programme which was critical of the police, do you believe that you had a conflict of interest?

4. Did BBC NI ask you to complete the declaration of interest prior to this programme?

5. How much public money was paid to you for your services in that programme?”

The sixth question was the most critical:

“Does the below BBC News story from 10 years previously relate to you?”

That news story was about a serving police officer who was in court and faced a charge—not a terrorist charge. In his concluding remarks, the judge said to that police officer that she should have known better than to give her sister’s name instead of her name. He bound her over to be of good behaviour for a year on her own bond of £500, and warned her that she could forfeit some or all of that money if she breached the order. I am informed that the person who was in court subsequently left the police, joined the BBC and did a programme that was critical of the police. No explanation has been given as to why it is critical, or why that reporter did what she did. Did she state on a declaration of interest that she was a former police officer? Did the BBC know that and then allow her to do a programme that was critical of the police?

I leave you to guesstimate, Mr Bone, what would happen in the public arena if it was discovered, after I or anyone else in this House raised an issue, that we had an interest in it that we did not declare. That is why we, and the BBC, have declarations of interest.

I did not receive an answer to any of those questions. I did not even receive an acknowledgment. I submitted a request for this debate in March, but it did not go ahead at that stage. I asked the same questions, but did not receive a response then either.

Strange to say, this week, after I had applied for the debate a third time, I received a reply from the aforementioned Mr Mark Adair, who said:

“We have been made aware of your emails to a named BBC journalist”.

Nine months after I began this process, and 24 hours before a debate, I receive a response saying that the BBC has become “aware” of my emails! The reply continued:

“the BBC has robust arrangements in place to avoid any potential conflicts of interest…we would be grateful if you direct any future correspondence about BBC staff and/or policy to me or to our Directors Office.”

That avoided the question again.

The fifth and final area I wish to cover is declarations of interest. In Parliament, MPs, Ministers and civil servants are very aware of the need to declare interests and, as I said, the BBC also has a process for its journalists to declare any interests. When a constituent, using freedom of information powers, asked to see the declarations of interests of some BBC presenters and senior staff, the reply said:

“All staff are required to complete a Declaration of Personal Interests upon joining the BBC”.

That is good as far as it goes, but it went on to say:

“We will not be disclosing...because the information that you have requested is excluded from the Act because it is held for the purposes of”—

guess what?—

“‘journalism, art or literature.’”

That seems to cover everything. When someone does not want to answer questions, they use the cloak of “journalism, art or literature”.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Grogan (Keighley) (Lab)]

I am delighted to take part in this debate. In fact, given my majority of 249, I am delighted to be anywhere. It is a great pleasure to follow the very passionate and informative contribution of the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mims Davies). I want to talk about three issues relating to the transparency of the BBC: the transparency of the regulation of the BBC, its finances and Northern Ireland.

The transparency of the regulator is absolutely important. Parliament and the Government took a really big step when they set up an independent regulator of the BBC—Ofcom. I was surprised over the summer to see that the Secretary of State had written to the regulator to say that she is rather in favour of more quotas for TV and radio content. A DCMS spokesman or spokeswoman said that a number of stakeholders had made representations —I do not know whether that was at Wimbledon or some other event over the summer. Perhaps the permanent secretary was away when that letter was sent, because that seems bad practice. The regulation of the BBC has just become independent in its totality, and we must have confidence in it. I hope the Government will exercise more restraint and will respect the regulator’s independence in the future, now that we have set that up.

On the issue of the BBC’s finances, pay gaps and so on, I welcome the fact that the BBC publishes an extensive annual report. It is now subject to the National Audit Office in its entirety, and there are many value for money surveys. The BBC is absolutely right to recognise that it has to press down on top pay—whether executive pay or talent pay. My scrutiny of the BBC’s accounts leads me to think that pay for the top talent is down by about 10% over the past year, and for the very top talent it is down by about 40%. Clearly, the revelations over the past few months have shown a completely indefensible gap between the pay of men and women.

Incidentally, which other broadcaster in the world would lead day after day on that issue, as the BBC did? There are only so many “Today” programmes about Jeremy Vine’s pay that someone can wake up to and take an interest in, but the BBC did that day after day. I do not think News International would focus on the pay of Sky presenters in quite the same way.

[Christian Matheson]

Or its owners.

[John Grogan]

Or its owners.

It is now the responsibility of Tony Hall, who said—he will be held to this—that by 2020, which is not very far away, the pay gap has to go. That is on screen and off, as I understand it.