BBC Charter: Regional Television News

John Howell Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. My hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) has been far too modest about his achievements in broadcasting. It may come as a surprise to some Members, but he taught me all I know about broadcasting on both sides of the table. I remember appearing before him at the BBC as an interviewee, and a little later succeeding him as the presenter for BBC World Service Television broadcasts. Being a presenter for World Service Television meant that we could walk down a high street in the UK and not be recognised. However, when we got off a plane in Delhi, we were absolutely mobbed—an interesting experience.

We need to look at what right the BBC has to organise its own services. I would not want to ban the BBC from organising its own services or looking at the competition that it faces, which includes, as we have already seen, things such as Facebook, which I will come back to in a minute. It is right for the BBC to look at how we as consumers use TV and radio, but it is important for us as politicians to stand up and say what we value most in our television broadcasting, and what it would be a great shame to see end. For me, that starts and almost finishes with investigative journalism at a local level.

I am not saying this because I use “South Today” and BBC Radio Oxford, as I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury does as well. It is not for want of another forum for expressing our views, but—I pick up the point made by the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner)—when both Oxford and Cambridge are expanding so quickly and so much, it is extraordinary to see the BBC turning its back on them.

I accept the point about costs, but one question that will have occurred to the BBC is that investigative journalism is not cheap to run. It requires a lot of human costs and takes an enormous amount of time to make it work. Journalists have to go out and see, talk to and film people. When they get back to the studio, there is all the editing of the tapes as well, but the product is much the better for that personal intervention. I wonder whether anyone at the BBC has undertaken an analysis of how it manages the important elements of the charter that we have already mentioned—the impartiality of the news and information—and manages to keep them current and in place in the fight with digital broadcasters.

If we compare television news broadcasts with Facebook, we are not comparing like with like. Facebook is incredibly biased, and Twitter even more so. If that is the way the BBC is going with its digital broadcasts, I want nothing more to do with it. Like the hon. Member for Cambridge, I no longer watch BBC TV news. It is anathema to me to see the values that my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury and I were imbued with simply wasted, and I do not see that as a good line for the future. The impartiality point is a crucial one, and one that my hon. Friend did not touch on much. However, I think it is a point that we need to get right if the BBC is to make a change. I have seen nothing in the thinking of the BBC about how, in a digital age, it will preserve its impartiality. If we look at today’s news online as an example of that, there is absolute relish in the idea that tomorrow there will be a vote of no confidence in the Government. There is no objectivity about it; it is a piece of gratuitous journalism—if I can call it journalism—that does the BBC no credit whatever.

There are many aspects to the problem, and we can only touch on a few of them. However, I think it is important that we restate our commitment to local investigative journalism, which I agree does a tremendous job. I have seen such journalism at a local level develop into large-scale news programmes, because of the careful work undertaken by local journalists. I have no idea what I am going to do when I finish in Parliament. I will probably not go back into broadcasting, but if I were to, I hope that I would find the values that my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury and I grew up with still alive and present in whatever form the BBC takes, but I sincerely doubt that that will be the case.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Matt Warman)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson, and it is a pleasure to be back, however briefly. I thank hon. Members for their kind words.

I feel that I should join the ex-journalist fest. As a former journalist, I never had the pleasure of working for the BBC, but my first job was to be paid to watch its output. I promise that, as a first job out of university, being paid to watch television is less fun than it sounds, but it is pretty unusual. Among a whole host of other things, I covered the launch of BBC iPlayer in 2007 as a journalist, and in some ways I think that tells us how far the BBC has come and how much it has changed since then. It is as much a technology company as a broadcaster.

The thread that runs through all of that period, and which predates it by some way, is the value of regional news output. I think that the continued preservation of that output is something we would all like to see the BBC look to. The Government would, of course, like to see it preserve and enhance its regional output as much as possible, but that is a matter for the BBC. We have all paid tribute to our local news organisations, but I could not stand here without mentioning the giant that is Peter Levy on “Look North”.

Turning to the substance of the debate, as the Secretary of State and many others have said, the BBC is a global British brand. The Government want the BBC to continue to thrive in the decades to come and be a beacon for news and the arts around the world. The royal charter, underpinned by a more detailed framework agreement, guarantees the BBC’s current model as an independent, publicly owned, public service broadcaster.

[John Howell]

Has the Minister been struck, as I have, by the similarity between what we are asking for for local investigative journalism and how the brand operates at a global level? It seems that at the global level the BBC has appreciated that it can only achieve its aim by investigative journalism and working in small groups, which is to its credit. We see that every day on the television.

[Matt Warman]

I wonder whether my hon. Friend has read my next paragraph. The value that we have seen recently from the BBC in the reporting on the crisis in Ukraine is not the whole story. We have to look at the huge value it adds in its heroic reporting and investigating of local issues just as much as its value on the world stage.

The charter and framework agreement set the BBC’s mission and public purposes, which establish the BBC’s responsibilities and what it must do. Those responsibilities include the provision of impartial news and information to help people understand and engage with the world around them—of course, that is a world that is experienced locally, nationally and internationally.

On 17 January, the Secretary of State announced in Parliament that the licence fee would be frozen for the next two years. The BBC will continue to receive around £3.7 billion in annual public funding, allowing it to deliver its mission and public purposes and continue doing what it does best. Under the terms of the charter, the BBC is operationally and editorially independent from Government—quite right, too. As Members have acknowledged today, there is no provision for the Government to intervene on the BBC’s day-to-day operations. That means that it is for the BBC, subject to Ofcom’s regulation, to decide how best to use its funding as it delivers its remit and meets its mission and public purposes. Of course, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) implied, as Ofcom is set up by the Government, there is a role for the Government within this. However, I have to stress that Ofcom regulates that aspect of the BBC, rather than the Government.

On 26 May 2022, Tim Davie set out his vision for keeping the BBC relevant and offering value to all audiences in the on-demand age, with a particular focus, as has been referred to, on a digital-first BBC. This included an announcement that while the BBC will maintain its overall investment in local and regional content, some services and bulletins will be merged or ended, as we have discussed today. In the BBC’s explanation for this change, it set out that a small number of changes to its regional TV output will help strike a better balance between broadcast and freeing up money to invest online.

The announcement also confirmed that the BBC will continue to support the local news sector through the £8 million it spends each year on the local news partnerships and the Local Democracy Reporting Service, and that it will increase investment in local current affairs by creating a new network of journalists to focus on investigative journalism in communities across England. Of course, the Government welcome the maintenance of support for the LDRS during this charter period. It is an effective model for collaborative working between the BBC and local commercial news outlets.

As the BBC’s independent regulator, Ofcom is responsible for setting out the regulatory conditions that it considers appropriate for requiring the BBC to fulfil the mission and public purposes that my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury referred to. Those conditions are set out in the operating licence, and Ofcom is conducting a public consultation on proposed changes to the current licence.

The Government firmly believe that public service broadcasting plays an important role in reflecting and representing people and communities from all over the UK. The BBC has a particular role to play and must ensure that it meets the responsibilities set out in its charter. That will be regulated by Ofcom, including through an annual assessment of the BBC’s performance.

Regional news and local current affairs play a vital role in bringing communities together—as the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) said—and providing shared experiences across the UK. In that context, we recognise the continued requirement for the BBC to produce and schedule regional news programmes on traditional platforms. The value of television remains immense; whatever the changing figures of its reach, for a large number of people, it is obviously hugely and uniquely valuable.

We also recognise that the remits of all PSBs, including the BBC, must be updated to reflect the rapidly changing sector, where that mixture of online and digital distribution is of increasing importance. We therefore welcome Ofcom’s consultation on the BBC’s operating licence to ensure that the BBC continues to be allowed to innovate and respond to changing audience needs through greater recognition of those online services. We look forward to seeing the consultation’s results in due course.

It goes without saying that the BBC needs to consider whether local news meets the needs of local communities. That is, of course, its ambition and what Ofcom looks to ensure that it achieves. However, in my own community for instance, people in Boston will think that Hull is a very long way away, just as people in Oxford and Cambridge may think they do not have much in common with the Isle of Wight, as the hon. Member for Cambridge pointed out.

Among the actions we are taking to support the sector, we have committed to a series of measures that we intend to deliver through a media Bill. It will support PSBs by updating decades-old rules to give them more flexibility in how they deliver on their remits across their services. They will also have their online prominence guaranteed.

While there are some excellent examples of effective news services provided by local TV, the picture is more mixed for local TV as a whole. A number of local stations have been granted permission by Ofcom over the past few years to reduce local news and local content production to sustain services. By the end of the year, we will consult on the process for licensing local TV after 2025, and will gather views on whether to offer renewals, and the terms under which they should be offered. We will consider whether to set minimum local news requirements as a condition of renewal.

The Government also fund the community radio fund, which gives grants to help fund the core costs of running Ofcom-licensed community radio stations, such as management and administration. As my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury mentioned, those radio stations reflect a diverse mix of cultures and interests and provide a rich mix of mostly locally produced content, typically covering a small geographical area. Their value in the mix cannot be overstated. However, specifically on the BBC, we are evaluating how the BBC and Ofcom assess the market impact and public value of the BBC in the local news market through the mid-term review.

To conclude, noting our manifesto commitment to support local newspapers as vital pillars of our communities, it is important, in a debate about regional TV programming, to consider the sustainability challenges faced across the broader local news market, and the extent to which the BBC can help. My hon. Friend will be aware that the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee is conducting an inquiry into the sustainability of local journalism, and I look forward to seeing its report in due course.

We all know that the BBC is a great national institution; we all want to see it thrive. Over the past 100 years, as has been said already, it has touched the lives of almost everyone in the UK and made a unique contribution to our cultural heritage. The Government are clear that the BBC must continue to adapt if it is to thrive in the decades to come, but, of course, we all want to see it serve local, regional and international audiences to the best of its ability. I think we would all like to see it define that in ways that are understood by the general public.

The BBC needs to represent, reflect and serve audiences, taking into account the needs of diverse communities of all the UK nations and regions. It is vital that the BBC continues to meet that requirement, and it is vital that it is held to the highest standards in doing so. On that note, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury on securing the debate, which has been an important part of holding the BBC to those standards, alongside the work of Ofcom and others.