Christopher Pincher
Main Page: Christopher Pincher (Independent - Tamworth)Broadcasting (Public Service Content) Bill
Christopher Pincher Excerpts
Mr Bone
It was remiss of me not to address that earlier, but I omitted to do so because I wanted to make swift progress. The problem I identified with the previous Bill—and I think this is why the Minister, who was the shadow Minister at the time, did not welcome it entirely in the last debate we had on the issue—was the fact that the licence fee was stuck with the BBC. The former Bill reduced the licence fee, but that was still only paid to the BBC. Therefore, although there would be all the advantages of the licence fee being payable only for public service content—which is, in essence, what this Bill is about—it would still be restricted to the BBC alone. The new Bill changes the wording so that the measures apply to all broadcasters rather than just the BBC. The logic of that change is clear. If the licence fee is payable for public service content, it should be open to all broadcasters. Therefore, an independent local radio station—Connect FM in Northampton, for instance—would have the same right to that funding as BBC Radio Northampton. It is a very small, but a very important, change, as I hope will become clear when I address some of my more detailed points.
The Bill is essentially about public service content. That is addressed in clause 1(1), which states:
“For the purposes of the Communications Act 2003 ‘public service television broadcasting’ shall be construed as broadcasting material with public service content, as defined in subsection (2).”
This measure gives the phrase “public service television broadcasting” in the 2003 Act a proper definition, and thereby improves that piece of legislation.
The BBC used to try to say, “Everything we do is public service broadcasting.” [Interruption.] No, I am not going down that route as there are too many examples of programmes about which people would say, “That was smutty, and had no public service content.” “EastEnders” is a very good programme, and I have certainly watched it more times than the new chairman of the BBC, because I think the last time he watched it was the last time he bought a McDonald’s meal—I believe that is what he said to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee. “EastEnders” is entertainment, however; it is not a programme that has public service content.
Clause 1(2) addresses the core of the definition of public service content, and it states:
“‘Public service content’ is content which is primarily produced in the United Kingdom and which satisfies one or more of the following criteria”.
I have stressed that the content should be primarily produced in the UK because if we are forcing UK taxpayers to pay a fee, the least we can do is ensure that the programmes are made in this country. That is especially the case at a time of economic crisis, but even if we were not in an economic crisis, I still think it is right that UK licence fee money should go to UK-produced programmes.
The definition of public service content is divided into four categories. The first is that
“it comprises local, national, international news or current affairs which is impartial, factual and objective.”
I have spent some time outlining why some of the BBC news programmes would fall foul of that, and would therefore not get any licence fee money. However, other programmes such as “Question Time” and “Newsnight” clearly would qualify for that funding.
Something else I notice about the BBC, which, again, shows its institutional bias against anyone from the right, is that the people its news channel invites to review the newspapers are invariably lefties with some bizarre left-wing view. When is a normal citizen there? I have never been invited on one of these programmes; I am willing to turn up and do that at some unearthly hour, but I am never asked. That institutional bias is one of the reasons I think the BBC would have a problem getting all its news output paid for by the licence fee.
The second definition of public service content is that
“its primary purpose is to inform, educate or entertain children”.
I think most of us would agree that that is a reasonable definition. You, Mr Deputy Speaker, are far too young to remember this, but I can remember television going off air and the test card coming on the screen at 5 o’clock so children could do their homework. I am not suggesting we go back to that, but would it not be nice if we had some better children’s programmes? I understand broadcasters do not want to go down that route at present because they are not commercially viable.
Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)
My hon. Friend is taking us on a trip down memory lane. Would he also like televisions to broadcast in black and white, so that he can relive those memories of the 1950s?
Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)
May I say how pleasing, if not ironic, it is that in a debate on the future of broadcasting the Member introducing the Bill—my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone)—should be a virtual promoter, and not the actual promoter, who is my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope)?
I had some sympathy with the Bill when I first read it, and I had some sympathy with it when I first heard my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough speak. However, as his speech went on, I lost some of my sympathy. The Reithian principles underpinning the BBC to “inform, educate and entertain” have changed down the years, and the BBC itself is no longer the colossus of information that it used to be. Sundays no longer stop for “Hancock’s Half Hour” as they did in the 1950s and we do not all sit down to “Morecambe and Wise” on Christmas day as we did in the 1970s. The BBC provided those programmes. Today, young people in particular get their information, news and entertainment from a diverse set of media, largely digital. The BBC needs to take account of that.
However, I was concerned that one reason my hon. Friend gave for not scrapping but reducing the licence fee was that a gang of little armies in the BBC visit recalcitrant licence payers, saying, “I’ll be back—until you pay.” That is no reason for saying hasta la vista to the BBC, which, I think, the Bill is designed to achieve.
I am uncomfortable with the Bill especially because of the definition of public service content. I was particularly struck by the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh), which cannot be improved on, and his consideration of what public sector broadcasting is and the fact that any definition is subjective. One man’s demotic entertainment is another man’s vital public service.
Who is to say what constitutes that vital public service? For example, is satire a public service? Some of us here might not think that it is, but many of our constituents may believe that satire is a vital public service. What about “Lark Rise to Candleford”? I personally think that it is one of the most tedious and interminable programmes on the BBC, but others may say, “It’s educational and should be provided free of charge.” My hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) mentioned “Top Gear”. Some may say that it is childish and inane, whereas others may say that Jeremy Clarkson is a national treasure who should be preserved, and that the programme is a public service that should be provided free of charge. What about “Just a Minute” on the radio? My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough spoke for not one minute without hesitation, deviation or repetition, but about 67. Is that programme just a bit of fun or does it provide listeners with a good educational service, which improves their English if nothing else?
Christopher Pincher
I leap to its defence. I am a great fan of “Just a Minute” and I want it to continue and Nicholas Parsons to remain in the chair for as long as possible. I certainly do not want it taken off the air because some people say that it is not public service broadcasting, that it should pay its own way and, if it cannot, that it should go.
My hon. Friend mentioned “Test Match Special”. Does he think that it is impartial? I would say that it is not. When England play Australia, Aggers is particularly partial. Would my hon. Friend therefore strike the programme from the list of public service broadcasting? I hope that he would not. He seemed to say that he supported it.
My hon. Friend appears to want to turn the Secretary of State, the National Audit Office or both into some sort of latter-day Lord Chamberlain’s Office, to adjudicate on what is appropriate for public service broadcasting. We could end up with programme makers, uncertain about whether the programme that they wish to put on air will qualify for public service subsidy, going script in hand to the Secretary of State, saying, “Here you are, sir. Read this. Do you think you’ll give us the money for it?” That would put the Secretary of State or the NAO in an invidious position. Neither are equipped for that role and they should not be asked to undertake it.
On the basis that I do not think that we can properly define public service and that the Secretary of State or the NAO should not be responsible for deciding what is aired and what is paid for, I oppose the Bill. I would rather have Lord Patten, who is a big man who can take it on the chin, trying to sort out the BBC, and my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough examining closely the way in which the BBC spends our money—how much more than other broadcasters it spends on sending journalists and technicians off, for example, to the Olympics or to Libya—than try to interfere in editorial content.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough understands my reasons for opposing the Bill and that he will consider withdrawing his support for it.
Mr Nuttall
There is that point. One might ask why it was not asked to reduce the licence fee, but it did take on additional responsibilities, as I understand it. That was covered in the letter from the Secretary of State to Sir Michael Lyons in which he reaffirmed the Government’s respect for the BBC’s editorial and operational independence, but made it clear that, as part of the new settlement, the BBC would have to provide funding for new broadcasting activities. That includes local media, to which I will return later. However, the thing that has received most publicity is that it will take over funding for the World Service, BBC Monitoring and S4C. So the Government have asked the BBC to take on new responsibilities, so, in effect, there will be a reduction.
There is, however, plenty of scope for cuts to the BBC’s budget. The amounts involved are eye-watering. I realise that £145.50 does not sound like very much. People would think, “That’s pretty good value, isn’t it?” It might well be good value, but the point is that it is multiplied across the whole nation. Let us consider houses split into separate flats and households. Each needs a separate television licence. In large cities, such as Sheffield, Manchester and London, there are houses that have been divided into flats, and there could be six, eight, 10 or even more individual units, each paying a £145.50. It is therefore quite feasible for the BBC to receive more than £1,000 from just one small block.
It is also notable that the licence fee has never gone down. Most technologies are expensive to start with, but as more and more people are drawn into the market, the costs come down.
Christopher Pincher
Does my hon. Friend accept that although the price of the licence fee has not gone down, its cost as a proportion of individuals’ incomes has?
Mr Nuttall
I do not know what the relative cost of a 10 shilling licence was as a proportion of weekly income in—
Mr Nuttall
So yes, on that basis, the licence fee is probably more affordable now. However, that is not to say that my underlying point about the wealth, assets and financial power of the BBC is not entirely valid.
Indeed, it might benefit the House to look at how, in very broad terms, the licence fee was spent in 2009-10 and how that equates to a monthly cost for each household. For example, the cost of the television service—which covers the main BBC channels, CBBC, CBeebies, BBC News, BBC Parliament, the HD service and the red button service—was £2.351 billion. That means that two thirds of the licence fee went on television. The radio service—Radios 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7—took up 17% of the licence fee, at a cost of £604 million. Online services—BBC online, iPlayer and BBC Mobile—cost £199 million, at 6% of the fee. One might think, “Well, what’s left?”, but under the final heading, “Other”, £406 million was spent on, for instance, “digital”, investing in new technology—one might ask what that has to do with public service broadcasting—running costs and collecting the licence fee. To break that down into monthly costs for each household, the television service costs £7.85, radio costs £2.01, online services cost 67p, and “Other”, including collection, costs £1.35. Those are important figures to bear in mind for what I will say later about what I see as the future of broadcasting in this country.
Since its early days, the BBC has developed because it has benefited from a constant, annual, fixed flow of income. It has not had to worry about marketing its services—although it has, of course, through BBC Worldwide and its commercial arms. Indeed, in many ways, part of the problem is that the BBC has been encouraged to become more than just a public service broadcaster, and is now a quasi-commercial animal. It sells its programmes around the world and takes on new roles all the time. Incidentally, I have never been convinced that it was necessary—and no one has been able to explain to me why it was necessary—for the BBC, a broadcaster, to purchase the Lonely Planet travel guides. But we do not want to turn this into a debate about what is right and wrong with the BBC. It performs an excellent role, but the future is surely going to be more about the local TV network, which this Government are doing so much to develop. That is why I support the Bill. Under the terms of the settlement, only a small amount of money will go from the licence fee into local television. I think that it is about £200 million, which is small beer when we consider that the BBC’s total income is £3.5 billion. I honestly think that it could afford to do much more than that.
It has been pointed out that the licence fee is the equivalent of a poll tax, in that anyone who has a television has no choice about paying it. In return for paying it, they are guaranteed a certain level of programming from the BBC, based on the Communications Act 2003, which contains the crucial requirement that the broadcast programmes of the BBC must comply with section 264 of the Act. This is central to our debate today, because the definition of public service broadcasting lies at the root of the problem, as I said in an earlier intervention.
The problem is that section 264 is drafted so widely that it covers virtually everything. I cannot think of anything that would not be covered by it. Subsection (4) of the provision states:
“(4) The purposes of public service television broadcasting in the United Kingdom are—
(a) the provision of relevant television services which secure that programmes dealing with a wide range of subject-matters are made available for viewing;
(b) the provision of relevant television services in a manner which (having regard to the days on which they are shown and the times of day at which they are shown) is likely to meet the needs and satisfy the interests of as many different audiences as practicable;
(c) the provision of relevant television services which (taken together and having regard to the same matters) are properly balanced, so far as their nature and subject-matters are concerned, for meeting the needs and satisfying the interests of the available audiences; and
(d) the provision of relevant television services which (taken together) maintain high general standards with respect to the programmes included in them, and, in particular with respect to—
(i) the contents of the programmes;
(ii) the quality of the programme making; and
(iii) the professional skill and editorial integrity applied in the making of the programmes.”
Subsection (6) states:
“(6) A manner of fulfilling the purposes of public service television broadcasting in the United Kingdom is compatible with this subsection if it ensures—
(a) that the relevant television services (taken together) comprise a public service for the dissemination of information and for the provision of education and entertainment;
(b) that cultural activity in the United Kingdom, and its diversity, are reflected, supported and stimulated by the representation in those services (taken together) of drama, comedy and music”.
Given that statutory definition, it is not surprising that the BBC is able to broadcast anything it can think of.
It was said earlier that it is not for politicians to define public service broadcasting, but with great respect to those who said that, I contend that that is exactly what politicians have tried to do. If someone has to do the defining, who else could it be other than politicians who are elected to this place to make those sorts of judgments? What matters is that, having provided the definition, we then give broadcasters the independence and freedom to make programmes that comply with the terms that we have set down.
The definition in clause 1(2) is much narrower. It mentions the importance of “impartial, factual and objective” as well as
“local, national, international news and current affairs”
programmes. It also refers to the purpose of informing, educating and entertaining of children and programmes whose
“primary content is charitable or religious”.
That is perfectly adequate to cover those areas that might not properly be provided for in the competitive marketplace.
We are where we are with broadcasting. Although the BBC strides the stage like a colossus in broadcasting in this country, fortunately it has not completely shut out other broadcasters. These other broadcasters are, however, shut out from having any share of the licence fee. That is why I support the Bill. It cannot be right that a small, independent broadcaster that wanted to put on, for example, a religious programme on a Sunday afternoon which might attract only a few thousand people should be excluded from access to the vast funds that the BBC has simply because of how our broadcasting system is established.
I support the Government’s actions in trying to introduce more diversity into our television network. I suspect that, in years to come, this whole debate will become completely out of date and irrelevant. We are already seeing the morphing of television and the internet into one seamless product. Already, high-end, top-level specification televisions are being introduced with the ability to take in content down the line from the internet. I have a television that can be plugged into the internet to download extra things, but I am not proficient enough to be quite there yet. We all will be, however, in years to come. Perhaps if I did not spend as much time on my feet in this place and went home to fiddle with my telly for a few hours, I would be able to do that. I see the Minister nodding.
All that brings enormous challenges to the BBC. If I were looking at it from the BBC’s point of view, I would say, “Look, in future, how are we going to be able to raise our revenue when nobody will really want to bother with a licence fee?” It will be considered more and more anachronistic as time goes on. It will become out of date and out of place in modern, 21st-century Britain.
Television will eventually have a series of online channels that will be accessed through broadband and provided by a range of organisations. People may well access them by means of a code or a special encrypted key for which they will pay a small subscription fee, and which may be connected with an individual provider or even an individual programme. Someone might, for example, be interested in “Test Match Special”, as I am. There would be nothing to prevent “Test Match Special” from being made available, perhaps not by the BBC but by A. N. Other organisation, which would charge a small subscription fee to those who wanted to access it through their digital radios—which are becoming far more common, and are installed in most modern vehicles almost as a matter of course—through their televisions, though long wave, or online through their computers.
That strikes me as an entirely feasible funding model. If people were not paying £145 a year for a licence, they would be able to choose which programmes to watch and to subscribe to on a much more interest and subject-specific basis. At present there is a “one size fits all” arrangement whereby people must pay for everything, whether they are interested in it or not and whether they watch it or not.
Let us be honest about this. The figures that I read out earlier show that a vast proportion of the billions that go into the BBC each year is spent on programmes that are not, by any stretch of the imagination, what most people outside the House would regard as public service broadcasting. I have already mentioned soap operas such as “EastEnders” and “Coronation Street”, and I will not pursue that line again, but I will say that, by definition, the very fact that soap operas are so popular and attract millions of viewers means that they are capable of standing on their own two feet.