BBC

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Tuesday 10th July 2012 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Kawczynski]

Yes, I apologise for that, Sir Roger, but the particular gesticulating was rather irritating and I wanted to highlight it. [Laughter.] May I carry on by saying that I do have a concern about the salaries of senior BBC executives? The outgoing director-general had a salary of more than £800,000. Of course, the BBC says that that remuneration is commensurate with other levels of remuneration in the industry and that in fact it is less than that for comparable positions in other organisations. Again, I find it very difficult to comprehend how someone working in the public sector, with taxpayers’ money, can have such a large salary.

To answer the point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr Foster), which I had forgotten to do, Sky may cost more, but at least I have the option of paying or not paying for a Sky subscription. I do not have the option of not paying the BBC its licence fee—I have no option—so there is an important distinction there.

I am told that the new director-general will take a pay cut—to a mere £450,000 per annum. I do not believe that I am the only person in the country who is concerned that the director-general of the BBC will receive such an enormous salary. We must ask ourselves what is so special about running the BBC that means that the director-general receives twice the remuneration of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. We all, particularly those of us who have come from the private sector, acknowledge that we need to take pay cuts to do this job. We believe in what we do and understand that we are working in the public sector and paid with taxpayers’ money, so we cannot receive the same salaries that we received in the private sector. People in very senior positions in the BBC must also try to understand that, particularly in the very difficult economic circumstances the UK faces. It is essential for them to take a lead on this. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about increased transparency in the salaries of senior executives and what steps are being taken to cut those salaries further.

One must not forget that there are many extremely hard-working, good BBC employees in regional radio who are paid rather small salaries. I would like to highlight the great differences in remuneration between those at the very top and other people working in the BBC.

I was very upset about the BBC’s coverage of the jubilee celebrations. I watched it; I thought it was scandalous, shabby and rather unprofessional. It is part and parcel of what I call the “dumbing down” of the BBC—not treating the audience in a sophisticated way, but being what it must perceive to be modern and trendy. It did not understand its importance. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) may laugh, but this is part and parcel of debating and putting forward different and contrasting views.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman was not at street parties and had time to watch the BBC coverage of the jubilee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I congratulate the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) on securing this important debate at an excellent moment in the history of the BBC, given that it has a new director-general. I hope that the director-general will read this debate and take to heart many of the things that hon. Members have said.

All hon. Members present agree with some of the things that the hon. Gentleman has said. I think we all agree that there is too much pay inequality in the BBC. It is good that the new director-general has agreed to a reduced salary—he will be paid less than his predecessor—but I fear that the issue reflects pay inequalities in the sector in general, which seem to be, if not at banker standards, extremely high. The hon. Gentleman also has a point about aggressive and biased interviewing. I remember reading the transcript of a “Today” programme interview with Jacqui Smith when she was Home Secretary, in which she was not able to complete one single sentence. As the hon. Gentleman has said, that is not illuminating for the listener.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the possibility of privatisation and further reforms to the licence fee, but I do not believe that that is where the BBC should go. The fact is that most of the television news that people watch in this country—70% of it—is on various BBC channels, and that is because they trust the BBC news. That is a good thing, and the BBC has a good reputation. I will deal with whether it could improve its editorial quality, but its reputation is a positive. I do not think that the Panglossian view expressed by the right hon. Member for Bath (Mr Foster) is totally right. Those are the facts. We do not want the BBC to be less trusted than it is at present.

Although the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham talked about privatisation, he did not mention what was at one point the Murdoch agenda of breaking up the BBC. There have also been some discussions about whether the BBC should be treated on all fours with the commercial broadcasters when Ofcom reviews the competition rules. The Secretary of State has asked that question and, while it is worth asking it, I want to explain why the answer is that the BBC is different from the commercial broadcasters and should be treated as such.

First, there is the issue of public accountability, a point that the BBC itself made in its submission. It is a valid argument, but perhaps the BBC is not as open as it thinks it is, which has led to some of the frustrations voiced by hon. Members. Secondly, the licence fee gives the BBC a privileged position, so we can expect high standards from it.

What we are really trying to achieve in news and in television coverage in general is greater diversity. One route taken by the BBC—this should be taken into account—is to put out 25% of all production to independent producers, which means that there is internal plurality within the BBC’s programme making.

The really powerful people in television in this country, however, are the commissioning editors, a small number of whom have a huge amount of power over what we watch. They presume to know what the public want, and they measure their success according to ratings, but that is only half the story. I want the views of the public to be taken into account more directly when commissioning. In a recent experiment, Channel 4 asked the public what repeats they wanted to see, but it would be far more interesting if we asked audiences what programmes they would like to be made about subjects that they have not seen any coverage of. I am sure that if we put the same question to listeners of Radio 1 and of Radio 4, they would come up with different ideas, but we should involve the public far more in public commissioning. The hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham might then get the programmes on Mauritania that he would like to see, but perhaps not.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

The hon. Lady mentioned the important word “diversity”. Does she agree that the BBC needs to do more to ensure that senior executives are more diverse and that more of them come from more diverse backgrounds and from ethnic minorities? Senior executives are far too white, far too privileged and come from a very small section of society.

[Helen Goodman]

Diversity is the exact issue that I want to address. There are various dimensions to diversity. A big survey on how women are used in programming focused on the number of women employed by the BBC and the number of women experts whom it interviews. It found that the number of women used is way below that of men, which is not acceptable, because women also pay the licence fee. We cannot tolerate it.

Does having more men in management result in a better picture on the screen? The new director-general is, of course, a man—as Jack Lemmon was told at the end of “Some Like It Hot”, “Well, nobody’s perfect.”—but I hope that he will continue the process of enabling us to see more women on screen.

My final point on diversity relates to the regions, which many hon. Members have mentioned. With apologies to my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter), who made a devastating critique of the BBC’s property portfolio management—he seems to have renamed himself the hon. Member for White City—the BBC is, and is perceived to be, very London-centric. A major effort was made to address that by moving to Salford. The fact is that Salford and London are two places and there are many more places across the entire nation. We want to see programmes that reflect life in many other areas.

For example, it is the Durham miners ‘gala this Saturday. Eighty thousand people will be in Durham listening to speeches at this huge cultural festival, which has been going on for 125 years. I have never seen any national coverage of the miners’ gala. We will get it this year, because the leader of the Opposition, my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), will make a speech, but we should receive the coverage anyway. It should not require that speech for people to see such a major event. The regions and the issue of diversity are extremely important.

[Mr Slaughter]

I do not disagree with my hon. Friend. Had the BBC not gone to where it did in Salford, it could have gone into Moss Side or into a deprived area, which White City is, of course, although the BBC never engages with the community there. The development in Salford is utterly soulless and completely cut off from the rest of the world. Moreover, what does my hon. Friend think of the Broadcasting House development on one of the most expensive real estate sites in the world?

[Helen Goodman]

I have not yet visited the new building. There is more to say about dumbing down and received wisdom, but I am sure that the whole Chamber would like to hear from the Minister, so I will draw my remarks to a close.