BBC and Public Service Broadcasting

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Young, has tabled an important and timely debate. I start with a quote from a recent Radio 4 interview with the media analyst Claire Enders, who said:

“The BBC … has a civic purpose. Netflix does not”.


This is the primary distinguishing characteristic of the BBC, implicit in its original mission statement. The BBC provides a public space for public debate through informing, through education, through the arts and entertainment. Other public broadcasters and the more commercial channels do some of this, but those who believe there should be a more level playing field misunderstand the nature of the relationship between the BBC and other services, including the video-on-demand services. As a purely non-commercial service, the BBC keeps the others honest and has done so for many decades, through being able to focus entirely on the notion of quality and now, globally, on areas other than world news. This is less a marketplace and more a richly productive ecosystem. The Government should not forget the considerable soft power that accrues from the BBC’s place in this ecosystem.

Mistakes are made. I point to a recent one: the Government have taken a leaf straight out of the Trump playbook in effectively no-platforming the public broadcasters, including the “Today” programme. They would rather continue to campaign to stay in power through social media, including Twitter, than debate the issues of the day through broadcasters. This is deeply insulting to the public. In my view, “Today” should have responded immediately by interviewing shadow Secretaries of State and effectively empty-chairing the relevant Ministers. The Government would have changed their tune fairly quickly, but this is a minor quibble in the scheme of things. “Today” will now have Times Radio on its tail, although I am sure that the BBC will rise to this challenge boldly.

“Core values” as a term applied to the BBC makes me uneasy, since it suggests that you can strip back to the core. A diminished BBC would be a blander BBC and make us a considerably poorer country. The BBC echoes the wider values of society because, at its best, it speaks to and for everyone by virtue of it being a public platform. This is true even if it is left to individuals to pay for the licence fee, rather than everyone doing so through their taxes. The BBC’s ethos informs all parts of its output. There is immense value still in a commercial-free zone, including for young children. It is a choice that viewers and listeners ought to have the right to.

I am not certain that the public are properly aware of what the licence fee continues to provide, although I am sure we will hear much of this today. It should be food for thought: a nexus of broadcasting; original programming—although this should be proportionately more, in my view; creative development; events and festivals; orchestras and choirs; and much more. These are aspects of a unique culture which most people will access or be a part of, even if, at a particular time in their lives, they are not always tuning in. A recent poll shows that 79% of the public would like the Government to continue to pay for the over-75s but, if we lost the licence fee or—more to the point—the moneys that the licence fee brings, we would not have this unique and extraordinary service, which continues to be a huge creative force and a force for good in not only this country, but the world.