BBC Commissioning

Debate between Gregory Campbell and Lord Vaizey of Didcot

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mr Campbell]

Yes, I unequivocally agree with that. The only addendum I would make is that the BBC is not exempt from scrutiny itself—that is the point.

It is an appalling reflection on BBC Northern Ireland’s management that a Member of Parliament who has taken a keen interest in these issues both in Parliament and outside has had to take the steps that I have over many months to escalate concerns to the National Audit Office.

[Mr Edward Vaizey (Wantage) (Con)]

May I support the case that the hon. Gentleman is making? When we did the BBC charter review, we were keen to get independent regulation of the BBC through Ofcom and to open up the BBC’s books to the National Audit Office, which it resisted. The BBC can be opaque and not transparent. That said, does the hon. Gentleman agree with me that it does not advance the argument for accountability and transparency simply to accuse the BBC, as some hon. Members have done, of bias? I think it tries very hard to present a balanced picture.

[Mr Campbell]

I accept the right hon. Gentleman’s point, but I invite him to look at more of the BBC’s content. Perhaps then he will reflect on his view. I am sure we will have another debate on that in the coming months.

I will now move on to the specific example I have raised. Third Street Studios has a director who is also a prominent BBC Northern Ireland presenter: Mr Stephen Nolan. The BBC claims that Mr Nolan’s company is an average, independent production company. That is patent nonsense. Mr Nolan quite regularly advertises the television programmes made by his company on his BBC radio show, which is part of his £450,000-a-year job, funded by the licence fee. This is a clear and unfair advantage over other independent production companies, which cannot promote their programmes in the same way.

If an independent production company gets a contract from the BBC, it has to go away, make the programme, supply it to the BBC and hope that the quality of the production will shine through. However, in this instance, as I have outlined, someone who works in the BBC—who has the inside track and knows how it works—can get a contract and then advertise on the BBC for his so-called independent production company, which won the contract from the BBC. That is clearly an unfair advantage.

Since the BBC is effectively funded through the public purse, it must adhere to the same standards as are demanded in other areas of public life. The contract was from 2014—five years ago. I have been asking questions about it for two years, and yet I still do not know basic details about the contract, which we all pay for through the licence fee. The public have paid for it, and therefore they have the right to know the details of how it was awarded and how the expenditure was accounted for. At the moment, we do not know the answers. Why should a contract that was awarded five years ago remain secret? Why not publish all documentation relevant to that series, after five years have passed, unless there is something to hide? That is why the National Audit Office is digging—digging deep, I hope—into the BBC.

The irony is that BBC Northern Ireland programmes continue to investigate the use of public money by Government, as outlined by the hon. Member for Keighley (John Grogan), and they are quite right to do that. No one should misunderstand the nature of this debate. The BBC and others are right to conduct such investigations, but we are equally right to hold it to the standard that it holds others to. The BBC is not, and must not be, exempt.

As many will know, the concerns that I and others have do not just stretch to the process of commissioning programmes. I have long campaigned for maximum transparency in relation to pay. We now know that there exists a gender pay gap, but it took a decade for the BBC to come to the point of publishing the salaries of presenters who earned more than £150,000 per year. Does the BBC hope that if it strings people along on the issue of commissioning contracts, the pay issue might disappear? Does the BBC think that just as it dragged its feet on transparency around salaries, it can drag its feet on this? The BBC must think again. It seems to feel as though it can pose questions, but it does not have to answer them; apparently, answering questions is only for the little people. The BBC must—and will—answer these questions.

The National Audit Office sent me a letter dated 30 January 2019. Coincidentally, that was the day after this debate was announced; I will leave people to draw their own conclusions. In that letter, the NAO said,

“the BBC centrally decided to carry out a targeted review of the commissioning process in BBC Northern Ireland.”

The NAO added:

“We are currently reviewing information collected as part of this review and are following up with some specific questions.”

The National Audit Office has confirmed that it will provide answers by the end of February to the questions that were originally asked of the BBC in 2016. In trying to protect and defend those involved, the BBC has further undermined trust in the organisation.

I look forward to the completion of the National Audit Office investigation. I understand that the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport will visit Northern Ireland next month, as he said in his answer to my parliamentary question last week, and I hope he will take the opportunity to get questions answered by the BBC in Northern Ireland. In the past, the Minister has been responsive and helpful in answering questions. I hope that she will deal with this issue in any discussions that she may have with the BBC in the run-up to the mid-term charter review, which will take place in the next two years.

I hope that my worst fears are not confirmed, but the information I have gleaned to date does not fill me with hope, and neither do all the stonewalling, all the delaying or all the attempts to avoid answering questions. I hope the National Audit Office will get to the truth of these matters. If there are serious questions to answer about the lack of transparency not just in BBC Northern Ireland, but across the nation as a whole, it will be a national scandal and there will have to be serious consequences for the entire BBC hierarchy.