BBC White Paper
Debate between Dawn Butler and Maria Eagle
Maria Eagle
I think that competition between private and commercial broadcasters and public broadcasters in this country on the basis of high-quality programming benefits all sectors, the British public and our creative industries. I do not accept that the BBC being able to make good-quality programmes, perhaps over an extended number of years, somehow compromises the capacity of the rest of our broadcasting and TV industry to do similar things. It gives us a better, bigger, richer broadcasting ecology.
If the Secretary of State, who is a free marketeer by instinct, wishes to intervene by micromanaging the public sector elements of our broadcasting industry, he is making a very big mistake, as well as turning into a statist, interfering Minister who should leave our broadcasters to get on with the job that they do so well, particularly those who work in the BBC.
Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)
My hon. Friend talks about the Secretary of State micromanaging the BBC. Is she as disappointed as I am that, although there is a lot of micromanagement, there is not much micromanagement to make sure that there is more diversity at the BBC in respect of its programmes, producers and so on?
Maria Eagle
I agree with my hon. Friend that the BBC needs to do more on diversity. To be fair to the Secretary of State—I want to be fair to him, of course—he is concerned about that too. It is perfectly reasonable to expect the BBC to achieve results. The difficulty is when Ministers start telling it precisely how it should achieve those results. That is when we run into difficulties. It is perfectly reasonable, as he has said, to expect the BBC to do better in that regard. I think we all expect that.
We should be in no doubt about the scale of the public’s support for the BBC. Some 192,000 people participated in the public consultation on the charter, which is the second largest response to a Government consultation ever. More than four fifths of the responses indicated that the BBC is serving its audiences well; 66% indicated that the BBC has a positive wider impact on the market; and approximately two thirds indicated that BBC expansion was justified, rather than its diminution. Although the public’s overwhelming support for the BBC cannot be in any doubt, the Secretary of State should recall that there is concern about some of the Government’s proposals. For example, 62% of over-60s are suspicious of the Government’s intentions towards the BBC.
I hope that the Secretary of State will consider fully the widespread concerns among the public, industry professionals and parliamentarians about his proposals, and take steps genuinely to change them to reassure those of us who care about the future of the BBC over the next charter period. If he does so, he will be able to look back on his time in office as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport knowing that he boosted the BBC. If he does not, I believe that his legacy will be seen as rather more disruptive.