Future of the BBC
Debate between John Whittingdale and Nigel Evans
Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) on his success in obtaining this debate, which comes at a time when some serious questions need to be addressed. I do not want to detain the House for too long, because the Culture, Media and Sport Committee will take evidence tomorrow morning from the chairman of the BBC Trust and the director-general, so we will cover a lot of the issues in detail. We have also announced that we intend to hold a full inquiry into the future of the BBC, and that is likely to commence in the new year. That will provide an opportunity to examine these matters and I do not want to prejudge the inquiry. It is, however, worth spending a little time on the subject, because there have been some very difficult issues raised, and some very clear failures by, the BBC over the past year.
It is important not just to focus on criticisms, but to recognise that the BBC remains one of the finest broadcasters in the world and that, at its best, it is unequalled. That is not to say that one should just point at the successes. It is important that we look at the failures and see how they can be prevented from happening again.
Mr Nigel Evans
There was once a time when people said that only the BBC could do the arts and that it could not be done commercially. Does my hon. Friend agree that Sky Arts is now doing a tremendous job in providing arts to the masses, and that Classic FM on the radio provides classical music to a group of people who perhaps would never previously have listened to Radio 3? The onus is therefore on the BBC to keep raising the game. It does not have to chase the ratings, but it needs to ensure that it keeps providing high-quality programmes.
Mr Whittingdale
I am not in the least surprised to find that I agree completely with my hon. Friend, who was an excellent member of the Committee for a time. I will come on to this issue, but he is absolutely right that there has been a change in terms of the amount and diversity of content available. The advent of Classic FM, which is hugely successful, means that Radio 3 should no longer need to occupy the same space, but concentrate, as it does most of the time, on a little more challenging and difficult classical music than the more commercial Classic FM output. That applies equally in other areas.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has described this as having been an annus horribilis for the BBC, and she is certainly correct. Reference has been made to the Jimmy Savile exposure. We have seen the Pollard report and my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan is right that, given that a lot of money has been spent and a great deal of evidence taken, it is worrying that questions remain, particularly about the evidence submitted to Pollard by Helen Boaden and its apparent conflict with that supplied by Mark Thompson. Pollard did not really address that and I know that others may wish to pursue it.
Of course, the bigger question was not about the Pollard review, which examined why “Newsnight” came not to be broadcast, but about how Jimmy Savile was able to operate in the way that he did for so long. We await the findings of Dame Janet Smith’s review of the culture of the time. That may prove to be rather more shocking and it may have greater lessons of which we will need to take account.
The next failure, which was certainly as shocking, was the Lord McAlpine programme. It would have been the most catastrophic failure of editorial judgment at any time, but it defied belief that it happened such a short time after the failure to broadcast the Savile programme. Obviously, that led to the resignation of the then director-general, but there was a failure in editorial standards right across the news and current affairs division, and it is still not clear to me that everybody responsible has been identified or that sufficient action has been taken.
Another issue is the so-called respect at work inquiry into the bullying practices that apparently took place over a long period and the failure of management to take any action when presented with worrying findings about the way in which some employees at the BBC were treated. The right hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Dame Tessa Jowell) said that those were historical episodes. There is evidence that the bullying is not an historical, but a recent practice. The Select Committee will pursue that matter with the management of the BBC.
A lot of attention has been given to the level of the pay-offs and salaries. Those are serious matters. A culture appeared to exist whereby a small group of people at the top of the BBC awarded each other pay-offs when they came to leave. Those severance payments far exceeded any contractual liabilities.