BBC: Diversity
Debate between Chuka Umunna and Andrew Turner
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) on securing this Back-Bench debate. He focused on the important and interesting topic of black and ethnic minority diversity in the BBC, and I can see that he is worried that he will just get plans; he wants action.
I would like specifically to consider diversity of opinion on the BBC. Britain has always been proud to have a broadcaster free from advertisements and Government interference, but I cannot be proud of a supposedly impartial public service that, time after time, takes the opportunity to promote political opinions. This relentless promotion of opinion is not right, mainly because impartiality is supposed to be at the core of the BBC’s commitment to its audience. Impartiality should ensure that its output can be trusted by people of all political opinions in the UK’s cities, towns and villages, but I believe that that trust is increasingly being lost.
Last December, the European Scrutiny Committee, of which I am a member, took evidence from Rona Fairhead and Richard Ayre of the BBC Trust. During the sessions, it became clear that the BBC’s impartiality relied on three safeguards: the editorial judgment of programme makers using the editorial guidelines, the impartiality reviews, and the feedback from
“50 million viewers and listeners”.
First, there are the trust’s editorial guidelines, which are intended to help editors and producers to produce work that meets the highest ethical and editorial standards. They include a chapter on impartiality, because the royal charter requires impartial coverage. However, the chapter is only a framework enabling editors and producers to interpret the impartiality requirements. In an organisation as large as the BBC, that is simply not sufficient as a primary safeguard. Furthermore, it has been shown that minor editorial decisions build up to form a larger pattern that, cumulatively, creates unintentional bias.
Secondly, there are the trust’s regular impartiality reviews, which are intended to serve as studies to establish how content evolves over a significant period, and are also said to produce objective and in-depth analysis. The Bridcut report of 2007 is quite a good example of how an impartiality review should not be conducted. Almost 70% of the committee that produced the report consisted of BBC staff and trustees. Its members did not aim to look for systematic bias, so, unsurprisingly, they did not find it.
Then there was the Prebble review of 2012, which was intended to be a
“Review of the Breadth of Opinion…in the BBC’s Output”.
In other words, the authors of that report were also not directly looking for systematic bias. News-watch, the public service monitor, has found that problems were ignored by the researchers. For instance, the report failed to explain a 50% drop in the number of UK Independence party appearances during the five years between 2007 and the time leading up to the report. Instead, it suggested that the UKIP’s views were represented by the Conservative party. I am quite sure that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister would disagree robustly with that conclusion.
The final safeguard is supposedly the complaints procedure, with feedback received from those
“millions of views and listeners”.
However, the complaints procedure is patronising, complicated and inefficient. In fact, News-watch went so far as to say that the procedure’s automatic response was to discourage and dismiss complainants.
The next issue that I wish to raise involves programme content. The BBC is not allowed to express opinions on current affairs. Can it be right that, as the Daily Mail tells us, Jonathan Dimbleby urged his audience to write to their MPs to save the BBC from further cuts? The alleged incident took place just a week after the Culture, Media and Sport Committee published a critical report about the BBC. Dimbleby’s call to arms was made at the end of “Any Questions?”, in front of the Hereford audience.
Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)
Let me first congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) on initiating the debate. Does the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) really believe that the Daily Mail is the best arbiter of the impartiality or otherwise of a great institution like the BBC?
Mr Turner
I was not requiring it to do that. I was requiring it to quote what Mr Dimbleby said, and what he said was a fact, quoted by the Daily Mail. What he said was never broadcast by the BBC, because that would have been a massive breach of its agreement.
There are still many people who believe in the BBC’s strong ethos of impartiality, and believe that editors’ judgment is enough to protect it. The impartiality of the BBC is ingrained in our national psyche. However, we see the BBC fail in that regard over and over again. Earlier this year, the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) resigned from his post as a shadow Foreign Office Minister live on “Daily Politics”. The programme was criticised for the decision to broadcast the Minister’s resignation. The BBC defended itself, saying that it was supposed to break news stories, but an output editor on “Daily Politics”, Andrew Alexander, revealed in a blog that BBC News political editor Laura Kuenssberg had made a deal with the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth on his resignation before the show was filmed. The fact that the blog post was later deleted suggests that the BBC was not breaking the news, but planning to create a central bit of the news story; that is the difference.
For most television, viewings and awards determine the right to exist. Programme makers follow the sensational path to attract an audience, and that is understandable, but the BBC does not need to create sensation, as its existence is protected through the royal charter and the accompanying agreement; on the contrary, the BBC is charged with reflecting the UK’s diversity, being independent and upholding impartiality.
Robert Mosey, a former editorial director and the director of London 2012 at the BBC, gave his view on 25 February in the New Statesman:
“I do not believe that there is systemic bias. The BBC will be meticulous in allocating airtime for contributors and its journalists will display their characteristic professionalism – but they will also need to have some empathy with the opposing camps.”
That is correct. Mosey unintentionally demonstrates a point. Systemic bias is difficult to detect, and it is especially difficult to detect when it is a minor decision that leads to a larger pattern of systemic bias. It is obvious that the employees of a company will determine the tone of the output, and that is what is fundamentally wrong with the BBC. It is the inability of staff to be objective about the overall output. What has the BBC done to rectify those issues when they have been voiced? It has done nothing other than discourage and dismiss them. The BBC’s bias is a big issue, but it is not the thing that worries me most; it is its unwillingness to examine itself and its output critically that worries me. If the BBC’s own complaints procedure lacks independence and the organisation rejects criticism, something must be fundamentally wrong.
Finally, this is not a criticism of the majority of staff and editors working for the BBC. They cannot be expected to solve a problem that has been created by the system in which they work. The answer must be stronger and more efficient safeguards; consideration of the cumulative output of the BBC, rather than of individual programmes; and a new willingness to look self-critically to ensure that it continues to deserve its unique and privileged position. All of that can come only from the trustees.