BBC Accountability and Transparency

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered BBC accountability and transparency to Government and licence fee payers.

The BBC traditionally was a world-leading news and current affairs broadcaster—paid for, of course, by the licence fee. When I have raised issues such as the one that I will raise today, the Government have said that it is for the BBC to deal with how it allocates and spends our licence fee moneys. I understand and accept that. The problem is that when I and others raise very important issues such as the lack of transparency and the lack of accountability and I and others go to places such as our regional BBC, we do not get answers. Then we come to BBC London and we do not get answers. Then we go to the National Audit Office and we do not get answers. Then we go to Ofcom and we do not get answers. The buck has to stop somewhere, and eventually the buck stops with the Government, Parliament and all of us who, on the public’s behalf, have to try to hold the BBC to account.

A few years ago, as the Minister and others will remember, we had the term “on-screen talent”, which sometimes is a misnomer. There was an issue about the on-screen talent having huge salaries about which no one knew anything. I and others campaigned long and hard to get those salaries brought into the public domain. We all remember programmes in which publicly paid broadcasters were asking us as MPs how we allocated our overheads and how we spent our salaries, how we divvied up our salaries. On rare occasions, Ministers would say, “Just hang on a minute, Mr Dimbleby. How do you spend your money, given that you get it from the licence fee?” Unfortunately, very few people did that, although some of us did. The BBC is very good at asking questions, but it is not very good at answering them. That eventually worked its way through and the BBC now has a banding process whereby it announces the salaries of on-screen talent in certain bands, which is some progress but not sufficient.

Then, on the topic of accountability, we moved on to the issue of outside interests. That resulted in the BBC putting an external events register on their website 18 months ago. I quote:

“As announced in October 2020, the BBC will publish a quarterly summary of the paid-for external events undertaken by on-air staff in journalism and senior leaders, in order to promote the highest standards of impartiality.”

That sounds very good.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on having secured this debate. He has mentioned two issues in relation to wages and others, but he also referred to impartiality. Does my hon. Friend agree that people are now aware that the political agenda of the BBC is premium, and while we have heard about the revamp of attitude, we have seen little fruit? The BBC’s coverage of the Democratic Unionist party—my party and that of my hon. Friend—before the election has been pointed and, indeed, pointedly detrimental. Does he agree that this is an indication that the culture in the BBC remains the same—biased, bitter carping by too many producers?

[Mr Campbell]

Indeed. On many occasions, a stark contrast can be seen between the interruptions, constant bickering and trying to misinterpret what is being said by certain of us, and the kid gloves used with others.

For that external events register, the BBC initially put out two columns: if a presenter was undertaking external tasks, they were either paid under £5,000 or over £5,000. That is not really much of a guide, because we do not know whether that person got £25 for speaking at an event or £4,995. The BBC then relented under some pressure, and there are now four categories: under £1,000, between £1,000 and £5,000, between £5,000 and £10,000, and over £10,000. That is an improvement, but unfortunately the BBC has to be dragged into making these simple changes, almost like bringing it from the latter part of the previous century into the 21st century. A simpler approach would be for the BBC to say at the end of the year how much every presenter who undertakes external appointments earned in total—did they earn £565, £10,400, or much more? That would be a much simpler approach, because there are hundreds of these references in the BBC’s register.

I will now move to an issue that is even more significant than external events: the commissioning of programmes for the BBC. In Northern Ireland and across the UK, we have a flourishing independent media sector. It is right and proper that we help to promote the people—young people in particular, but others as well—who establish small independent companies and want to get products from those companies on to either commercial radio and television, or BBC radio and television, because that is where the next generation of media producers, backroom people and camera people will all eventually come from. However, that small independent sector comes up against a huge brick wall, because in some regions of the BBC, there are BBC personnel who have “independent” companies of their own. They apply for commissioning contracts and, remarkably, are very successful in getting them.

That is very good if there is a level playing field—if independents can apply for those contracts, and people who work for the BBC can also apply for them. The problem is that the level playing field does not remain level. There are a small number of BBC personnel who have their own companies and, when they get contracts and a programme emerges on the BBC, can then use their own programme to advertise their privately commissioned programme that is on that evening. We have all repeatedly heard things like, “You may want to tune in at 10.35 tonight, when there is a programme on”, and then the next day when the BBC presenter is on, someone gets in touch and says, “I really enjoyed your television programme last night.” Yes, a programme paid for by us, the licence fee payers, and advertised freely on the BBC to the disadvantage of independent media companies that merely want to operate on a level playing field.

The issue has not been resolved. After holding numerous meetings with the BBC, the NAO and Ofcom, I was told that an additional safeguard would be brought in to protect and safeguard against any abuse of the system. That happened three years ago, in 2019. If there was a commissioning process that was open to all and sundry to apply for, and an internal BBC person with their own company applied for it and was successful in getting through the various stages, there would be a further stage of approval before the awarding of the contract and that person received the commission.

That further stage is an internal stage. The regional head of the BBC looks at the application—from a person that he or she knows, because that person is in his or her employ, and has received numerous commissions in the past. They have to rubber-stamp the application.

We are led to believe that that is a further safeguard. I do not think so. It is not independent; it is not transparent; and it certainly does not stand up to scrutiny. It has been in place for three years. Obviously, we have had the pandemic for two of those years, so we are unaware of the success or otherwise of that safeguard. I have watched closely and have seen the same small number of internal BBC employees receive a similar number of successful contracts since the safeguard was in place, so the BBC needs to answer the questions.

I hope the Minister can raise these important matters with the BBC. As we all know, there is an ongoing issue. The Secretary of State has made it clear that the BBC will have questions to answer and that, as we go into the future, there is a severe question mark over the licence fee—we understand that—but people are angry and annoyed that they pay for a service that they either do not receive, do not want or cannot opt out of. If they watch or listen to any live BBC broadcast, they are automatically liable to pay the BBC licence fee.