BBC Funding (CSR)

Graham P Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 10th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) on securing this vital debate. We all recognise the role of the BBC in the world. The then shadow Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (David Miliband), said that the World service is an independent

“credible voice in parts of the world where the only other messages blend threats and propaganda”.

That is quite true. I echo those worlds and support the World Service, which is a vital service.

The changes being made following the comprehensive spending review raise serious concerns about the future of the BBC World Service and about the BBC’s ability to continue providing a public broadcast service that is informative and represents value for money. Transferring budgetary responsibility from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office or the Treasury to the BBC opens the door to editorial cuts. There has been concern recently that the BBC World Service could be forced to pull out of certain countries, which would be a tragedy given the turbulence in Burma and Iran. I know that the BBC has reinstated its World Service in those areas, but we do not want future cuts to compromise Britain’s interests.

I recognise that the BBC, as a publicly funded body, is obliged to consider its expenditure and whether savings can be made, but that cannot be at the expense of a public service that is valuable at home and abroad. The BBC World Service is one of Britain’s most effective and vital assets and we should protect and promote it. We should not reduce our investment in international broadcasting. The National Union of Journalists has said it will fight any proposed cuts, adding that the BBC World Service is a “clear success story”. The cuts represent a threat that we can ill afford to that vital service and to jobs. We have to think of the BBC as a world employer because it does not operate only in the UK.

I am a passionate defender of the organisation and I believe not only in retaining the licence fee but in extending the BBC as a British institution. I have experienced television in many countries, most notably in the USA where freedom and open markets have resulted in massively dumbed-down television and a race to the bottom, with programmes between adverts. The quality of BBC broadcasting provides a high water mark for others to match and raises the bar of programme quality. The BBC leads the world in quality, innovation and impartiality.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the BBC is the envy of broadcasting institutions the world over and that we parliamentarians, who are being broadcast live as we speak, should be very proud of it?

[Graham Jones]

My hon. Friend is quite right: the BBC is the envy of the world and is a good business that we should promote. We should see it in that way rather than as a drain on public resources. It is one of the last great vestiges of British influence abroad. BBC online and BBC news provide the world with a British perspective and a brand that should be protected at all costs. A commercial, or part-commercially dependent, BBC would need to survive from advertising revenue and would have to focus on mass-market universal appeal, but that market is filled by ITV, Sky and Channel Five domestically. That would involve, in short, a dumbed-down, broadest-appeal schedule. I cannot support anything that undermines the BBC and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South again on securing the debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Vaizey]

The BBC has already significantly slimmed down. Job losses or future jobs will be a matter for it. The debate has been suitably non-partisan. I hate to bring it down a level or two, but I am always pleased to hear from Opposition Members about their conversion to supporters of the BBC. For those of us who remember the previous Government hounding out the BBC’s chairman and director-general over the David Kelly and Andrew Gilligan affair, such conversions always ring ever so slightly hollow. That was the greatest crisis of BBC independence in living memory, so it is worth remembering that it is not always bad news with the Conservatives. Other Governments have behaved very badly indeed towards the BBC, in my view.

However, I want to put on the record this Government’s strong support for the BBC—a complete commitment to the independence of the corporation, which, as the hon. Member for Edinburgh South said, has formed the cornerstone not only of public service broadcasting in this country, but of the success of our creative industries. I never tire of pointing out that many of our successful independent production companies and, indeed, other companies in the creative industries are often filled with people who received their training from the BBC.

The BBC is not set in aspic; it remains a dynamic and forward-looking organisation. Not only is it one of the most respected broadcasters in the world, but it continues to innovate with the BBC iPlayer; YouView, a consortium in which the corporation is the cornerstone partner; BBC Worldwide, which has taken the BBC all around the globe; and even the pioneering archive and digital archive work being taken forward by Tony Ageh, which we all admire. We also fully respect, of course, the BBC’s editorial and operational independence.

[Graham Jones]

Does the Minister approve of BBC World Service television and its commercial success? Does he think that it should be expanded as a business, or that the service should be reduced because it is not what the BBC is about?

[Mr Vaizey]

BBC Worldwide, which has a superb chief executive in John Smith, who really has transformed that organisation, occasionally causes controversy in the House. Its business is to maximise the value of the BBC’s assets, and it does so very well, but we in the House and individual politicians take views, such as on the purchase of Lonely Planet, and, as I shall say at the end of my speech, the BBC Trust has made it clear that it wants the BBC to divest itself of its magazine business, because it is very important that it leaves room for commercial operators to make a living in the media. One of the great ironies is that the BBC is so successful that it can often easily squash its competition.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

rose—

[Graham Jones]

rose—

[Mr Vaizey]

I shall take an intervention from my hon. Friend, who has not yet spoken.

[Mr Vaizey]

I absolutely accept my hon. Friend’s point, and I congratulate him on his excellent work to try to secure the future of Dover port, working with Dame Vera Lynn, who broadcast her great songs that lifted the morale of British troops during the second world war via the BBC. I also pay tribute to the many successful media companies that operate in the United Kingdom.

The hon. Member for Edinburgh South was concerned about the speed of our negotiations. I was slightly surprised by that, because I read in his biography that he used to work for an organisation called 100mph Events. I thought that he was a man who felt the need for speed, but now he wants to be in the slow lane. A year-long negotiation of the licence fee would have taken the BBC’s eye off the ball in respect of running a successful media organisation, and there would have been a year of sniping from the BBC’s competitors, with people calling into question the licence fee and so on.

[Graham Jones]

The Minister and other Government Members have mentioned crowding out, but is it not the case that The Times and The Sunday Times have a paid-for service that is beginning to wipe its face? If the BBC were impinging on the profits of the online print industry, would The Times and The Sunday Times be able to wipe their face with that paid-for service? It seems to be quite successful, and there does not seem to be any evidence of crowding out. Does he accept that point?

[Mr Vaizey]

I suggest that the hon. Gentleman talks to those at The Guardian, as it is they who usually complain about the BBC crowding them out. The Guardian website remains free, and they claim that one of the difficulties they are finding with monetising its website is the presence of the BBC.

The agreed settlement that we reached with the BBC is a good deal for all parties that reflects the current economic environment. Most importantly, of course, it is an excellent deal for licence fee payers, delivering a freeze in cash terms in the £145.50 colour licence fee for the next six years. I was interested to hear the hon. Member for Livingston (Graeme Morrice) suggest that many of his constituents are writing in, wanting to pay more for the licence fee. I am not sure that that view is held nationwide.