BBC (Proposed Cuts)

John McDonnell Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2011 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I want to speak about the decision-making process that has been taking place over the past couple of years, which has, to be frank, been a nightmare. I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for giving us the opportunity to hold this debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) set out the overall implications of Delivering Quality First. He chairs the National Union of Journalists parliamentary group, of which I am the secretary. We have lived with the process for the last two years. We have met the staff who have lost their jobs already, and the staff whose careers are now at risk.

What comes out of every one of these debates is a consensual view across the House about the importance of the BBC. It is always described as a jewel in the crown of British culture, and as setting world standards in public service broadcasting. Many Members have emphasised its critical role as a foundation stone of local and national democracy. However, as a result of Delivering Quality First, as Members have set out, there will be significant cuts over time, which not only undermines the BBC’s potential to maintain those standards but shows that there is an agenda about the long-term future of the BBC itself.

It is important to discuss how we got here. There is a lesson for future Governments about how decisions are made on the issue. Never again should we have to go through this process. This is not just a budgetary exercise. The assault on the BBC is driven by an agenda that has been set elsewhere. I remember the James Murdoch lecture in 2009 at the Edinburgh television festival, in which he set out an agenda which, regrettably, the Government are following almost to the letter. He set out the objective of the Murdoch empire to deregulate the media overall and undermine the BBC by cutting its supply of funds.

[Alun Cairns]

Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that the freezing of the licence fee has made the BBC look at its activities and, at the very least, has reduced the salaries of some of the highest-paid people in broadcasting?

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[John McDonnell]

There are always benefits from a process like this. My concern is about the long-term future and some of the short-term implications that the hon. Gentleman himself pointed out. We should not wander into this debate naively, because there is a separate agenda, which was set by James Murdoch at that time. The tone of sheer arrogance in that speech somewhat contrasts with the tone of his performance in the hearings by the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport. In that speech, he proclaimed his advocacy of Darwinism, and he said that he believed in natural selection in all things, particularly within the media market. It was like Gordon Gekko in “Wall Street” saying, “Greed…is good.” James Murdoch proclaimed that the law of the jungle worked. It was almost Orwellian. I shall quote him exactly:

“There is an inescapable conclusion that we must reach if we are to have a better society. The only reliable, durable and perpetual guarantor of independence of the media is profit.”

That is exactly the agenda that was set. It is that philosophy in other sections of the media that has led us all the way down to the Leveson inquiry and the descent of parts of the media into the gutter. This is not a conspiracy theory. I do not need to mention the 11 occasions on which the Prime Minister has met Murdoch’s News International. I do not need to mention the six occasions on which the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport has done so, or the three occasions on which the Deputy Prime Minister has done so. I do not think that it is part of those meetings; I do not think that it is part of a conspiracy. I simply think that the Government share that agenda.

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

Until the hon. Gentleman began to personalise this and mention individuals, I was prepared to share some of his concerns about the Murdoch speech and some of the claims that were made. Two things should be perfectly clear. First, many Government Members feel very warmly towards the BBC, and want to enfranchise and support the tradition of public service broadcasting, which it does better than anyone else in the world. That comes not just from Back-Bench Members but, I am thrilled to say, from the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister.

The second thing is—

--- Later in debate ---

[John McDonnell]

The hon. Gentleman is a new Member, and I understand the point that he has made. Other Members have made that point. I do not want to criticise him, but if he had been here throughout the debate, he would have heard them make those specific points. I want to make my specific points, not seek to replicate or repeat other points that have been made, if that is okay with the hon. Gentleman.

I simply make this point. My concern is that this is not just a cost-cutting exercise. It is part of a political agenda that, in the long term, is aimed at undermining the BBC. It has been set outside Government—not in Government—but the Government concur with it. Secondly, I was here with the right hon. Member for Bath (Mr Foster) and my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby, and was involved in discussions on the licence fee settlement. I never ever want to go through that exercise again, because it put at risk the future of a whole range of people, and that was not taken into account.

I remember the Secretary of State advising the director-general of the BBC in August 2010 that there would be a long consultation on the BBC licence fee, which would be determined the following spring. However, I also remember—my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby has alluded to this—that weekend in October, and the 48 hours in which the Government brought the BBC in and threatened it. The right hon. Member for Bath is right: the BBC was threatened either with the licence for the over-75s being taken over—in other words, a £530 million cut immediately—or it had to take on proposals on the World Service, BBC Monitor and the Secretary of State’s grandiose plans for the future of television development. It was placed in an invidious position and there were threats of resignation, which created pandemonium in the settlement process. We had thought that the process would be a rational debate that this House could shape or influence in some way, but in fact it was the grubbiest deal we have seen in any public sector settlement of recent years. The people least taken account of were the workers who supply the service itself, which I think was disgraceful. If we learn nothing else across the parties, we should learn to behave in such instances in future.

What are the implications? One implication is that the management must now implement another 1,000 job cuts on top of the 7,000 that have been made since 2004. They are implementing those cuts with exceptionally limited consultation or engagement with the unions. Agreements are being torn up before workers’ eyes with minimal consultation.

My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby referred to the meeting of BBC NUJ reps in Belfast on 14 October, which involved all staff, who were anxious about the process. I can quote the director-general—the problem with speaking in front of trained journalists is that they normally know shorthand—who said:

“If you’re really that unhappy, if you think that you can’t do your best work here then leave—no-one is forcing you to stay.”

That is real management empathy—unfortunately, Hansard does not do irony—with people, many of whom are about to lose their jobs. Such behaviour by management would be unacceptable in any structure, whether public or private. It resulted, for the first time in the BBC’s history, in a vote of no confidence by the staff in the director-general and his competence to manage the organisation.

I urge the BBC to pull back and start engaging in proper discussions and consultations. Otherwise, as the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) said in relation to Scotland, some unions might move towards industrial action unless there are proper negotiations and their views are taken account of properly. I agree that that raises the issue of salaries in the BBC, and not just for the stars, but for management overall. I think that it is obscene that the director-general earns four times more than the Prime Minister. As has been said, we should consider the high level of salaries throughout and, in particular, the inequality between the high and low salaries. In a public organisation that is simply unacceptable.

A number of Members have raised concerns about local radio services, and we could list them and put the lists in the House Library for Members to see, but the cuts to stations right across the piece are effectively undermining local radio as we know it. It has recently been praised very affectionately in two debates, yet BBC management does not seem to take account of the views of Members expressed here. I do not believe that S4C is safe in the long term or that the deal will hold. I think that the Government will come back for more cuts. It is not about freezing the licence fee, as I think they will come back for further cuts in future years.

I am also anxious about the World Service. The right hon. Member for Bath has worked with us on that and there has been excellent cross-party work to try to protect as much of the World Service as we can, but there have already been cuts and I think that it is still in jeopardy overall. Political coverage is being undermined not only in the regions, but nationally, as we have seen 2,000 jobs going in some of the BBC’s core political reportage.

Overall, I am deeply anxious about the settlement. The only way now is to have a proper discussion—the discussion we should have had last year. Instead of it being bounced through in 48 hours, there should have been a proper discussion and consultation, and I believe that the only way forward now is to reopen the licence fee debate.

Let me say just one final thing on two parochial matters. Several hon. Friends have mentioned the Asian Network, a service that has grown over the years into one of the country’s most popular and well received stations and brought about social cohesion as the BBC is meant to, but a 50% cut in the Asian Network will, as every Member knows, undermine that service, and it will be picked off. That is salami-slicing, and it undermines the viability of particular services.

On my local BBC radio station, Radio London, sport is one of its most popular elements, but we are now told that cricket, rugby league and rugby union will no longer be covered, and that football coverage will be curtailed. As a result of such cuts, a station eventually loses its listenership, and that in turn threatens the viability of the station itself.

That is what we are fighting for. We are fighting not just against marginal cuts, but for the future of the BBC, the future of local radio, the future of specialist services such as the Asian Network and the future of services for the nations, regions and principalities that are under threat in the longer term. The only way in which they can be saved is by breaking the Murdoch agenda, by getting back to a discussion about the BBC as a public service, the jewel in the crown, and by reopening the debate about the licence fee—so that we can have a viable BBC for the long term.