TV Licence Fee

Debate between Damian Collins and Gregory Campbell

Monday 20th November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mr Campbell]

Indeed, but why has that not been happening for years? Why did the BBC have to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into revealing presenters’ salaries? When we discovered those salaries, there was outrage at the disparity between men and women, but was the BBC asked when it would lower the salaries of male presenters? No, it was asked when it would raise the salaries of female presenters. The BBC has a lot of questions to answer. I hope that it is moving, slowly but inexorably, towards greater transparency. If so, that is a very good thing.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

May I introduce a note of hope? As the hon. Gentleman knows, the BBC now makes a declaration of talent pay, following a recommendation made by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, accepted by the Government and included in the charter. That shows that when we clearly voice the reform we want, it is possible to get it.

[Mr Campbell]

I am glad that has happened. Some of us have been campaigning on the issue for many years, so I am glad that there has been some success.

I have raised commissioning many times, privately and publicly, within the BBC and externally. As hon. Members are probably aware, there is a commissioning process in the BBC’s regions, under which independent media companies—small or large—are entitled to apply for commissions; so are people who work for the BBC, many of whose applications are successful. I have endeavoured to find out whether having worked for the BBC for some time gives people an unfair advantage because they know their way around the system—how the sound people work, how the video cameras work and so on—but once again I have found it difficult to get answers. Why do private companies find it difficult to get on commissioning shortlists, while internal BBC companies and individuals seem to get on them frequently? Can we have more openness and transparency about that? Will the BBC explain it? When I have complained to the BBC about the nature of commissioning, I have been told repeatedly that it has a robust and transparent internal process.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Campbell]

I agree totally. If a political party in this House were in receipt of public money from a variety of sources for commissioning opinion polls and so on, and the BBC said, “We would like to question you about your spending of public money, because there seems to be a lack of transparency,” just imagine its response if the party replied that it had robust internal mechanisms to ensure that the money was spent appropriately! Yet that is what the BBC tells me about its internal commissioning process and the complaints engendered by it: “Leave it to us; we know how to spend public money, and we have very efficient internal employees to ensure that it is accounted for.” That is not good enough.

[Damian Collins]

The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful case on commissioning, but does he accept that, apart from news programmes, all BBC programmes, whether new or repeats, require competition in the commissioning process? In fact, since the changes in the royal charter, the highest profile recommissioning case has been that of “Songs of Praise”, which the BBC has lost to a commercial competitor.

[Mr Campbell]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point, but I come back to this one: whenever we complain about a commissioning process, it would be infinitely preferable if the BBC opened up its system. If it has a fully accountable and transparent system for assessing the commissioning process, we will be able to see it. We can analyse it, we can look at it and we can say, “Is that value for money for the licence fee payer, or is there something else at work?” I do not know that there is something else at work, but I know that there have been complaints and that there needs to be greater transparency.

In short, and to conclude, the BBC used to be a wonderfully independent and impartial public service broadcaster. I want to see it return to those days, because I think that it has fallen short in recent days—I had a debate in this Chamber only recently along similar lines. We need to keep pressing the BBC. We also need a wider debate: were we to move away from the licence fee, what would be a better way of doing things? I fully concede there are no simple, easy solutions, but we need accountability and transparency for almost £4 billion of public money.

FIFA

Debate between Damian Collins and Gregory Campbell

Wednesday 10th June 2015 Westminster Hall

[Damian Collins]

We have seen allegations of corruption going back for almost the entirety of Sepp Blatter’s presidency of FIFA, and before that, too. The process that concluded in 2010 for the rights to host the tournaments in 2018 and 2022 was on a previously unseen level. The Football Association may have been aware of some of the murky waters it was getting into in bidding for the World cup but nevertheless thought that it could make a good, strong case. The fact that England had the strongest technical bid but received only two votes is testimony to the fact that footballing grounds were not the key defining factor for the members of the executive committee who voted. It should also be noted that seven of the 22 people who voted on where the World cup should be played have already had to resign from their positions in world football due to corruption, and others are still under investigation.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

rose—

[Damian Collins]

I give way to the hon. Gentleman.

Football Clubs (Insolvency)

Debate between Damian Collins and Gregory Campbell

Tuesday 18th March 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this timely debate. Does he agree that on some occasions, the problem has been not only the rule to which he refers, but that in some cases, particularly high-profile cases, chairmen and others in charge of football clubs have spent anticipated revenues, including television money and European money, such as champions league money, long before they are in receipt of it, so that there is very little to distribute even before the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow fails to materialise?

[Damian Collins]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, which gets to the heart of my great concern about how the football creditors rule works in practice. Although the rule is an administrative tool used to protect football, what it encourages is profligate spending, because football debts are guaranteed by the Football League and the Premier League. A club selling a player to another club will not particularly worry about whether the buying club can afford the transfer fee that they have engaged to pay, and the selling club will not mind if the payment of those fees is spread out in instalments over a number of years, because they know that the money is guaranteed by the football authorities. Similarly, players signing lucrative contracts with a club will not need to inquire too much into the finances of that club because they know that the money is guaranteed. There is no other area of business where that is true, because no other area of business has that sort of protection, which I believe encourages massive profligacy and spending within the game of football—there is no element of shared risk, and there are no consequences or downsides.

I also believe that that is why the level of insolvency in football is so high. There are no other industries in this country in which one would look at the companies trading in it and say that it would be normal for the insolvency rate to be 46%. The practical way in which the football creditors rule is implemented is driving that culture and practice. Getting rid of it would stop that culture and practice.

It may well be that the football creditors rule would have to be phased out over a couple of years, to give clubs a chance to rebalance. If the financial fair play rules were properly enforced across all the top tiers of football, in many ways the football creditors rule may not be needed anyway. If enforced, financial fair play would create a culture of correct spending in which clubs would not be able to live beyond their means. They would be unable, year after year, to gamble tomorrow’s money for success today in the hope of moving further up the football pyramid.

We can take action to address that culture by getting rid of the football creditors rule. If the football authorities did not want to get rid of the football creditors rule entirely, they could consider creating a sinking fund to guarantee that unsecured creditors such as local businesses that are owed relatively small amounts of money are always compensated in full, instead of receiving the derisory penny in the pound that they often receive at the moment, which is completely unjust and unfair. For a game that is as wealthy as football, there can be no moral justification for that situation.

Later this week, I will publish my private Member’s Bill on football governance. I am grateful for the support of a number of hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) and my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), who are all in the Chamber. In that Bill, I set out my view of how insolvency law could be amended to practically eliminate the football creditors rule. I believe that if the football authorities will not demonstrate their desire to do that themselves, it would be a legitimate course of action for us to use Parliament and the law to get rid of the rule.

My Bill also addresses a couple of other important areas related to the insolvency of football clubs and to the culture and practice that I believe drive that insolvency. In addition to getting rid of the football creditors rule, I suggest that there should be a test, which would be particularly relevant to cases such as that of Coventry City, whereby there should be a public declaration of the identity of the owners and investors in a club. I do not think there has ever been a case where the owners of a club have been shrouded in mystery and that club has been a financial success. People rightly question the motivation of people who obscure their identity, often through myriad dummy companies all registered and trading offshore. People question the reasons for that. Football fans should have the right to know the identity of the people who own their club and where their money comes from, which should also be a matter of public investigation.

Alongside that system, we should have a fit and proper person test that is robust and that has teeth, to be administered at the discretion of the football authorities. The situation we have now is ridiculous. In the case of Leeds United in particular, Mr Cellino wants to buy the club. He was formerly convicted of fraud and faces another conviction today, but the Football League might have to wait nine months until the Italian courts hear his appeal case before deciding whether or not to allow him to buy the club. That is totally ludicrous. It should be entirely at the discretion of the football authorities, including the Football Association, as to whether they feel that someone is a fit and proper person.

There is already a helpful precedent for that: the way in which the fit and proper person test is administered by Ofcom with regard to people who may hold a broadcasting licence in the UK. That power was created by the Broadcasting Act 1990 and is administered entirely at the discretion of Ofcom, based on its consideration of whether someone can or is likely to comply with UK broadcasting law, and therefore of whether they are a fit and proper person to hold a broadcasting licence.