BBC Mid-term Charter Review

Julia Lopez Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Media, Tourism and Creative Industries (Julia Lopez)]

I thank all hon. Members who have contributed to what has been a genuinely interesting and rich discussion. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) on securing this important debate on our mid-term review of the BBC. As I approach my—ahem—40th birthday in just under four weeks’ time, I would rather be celebrating his 40th anniversary as a parliamentarian, which passed only days ago. He will be retiring from this place when the general election comes calling, leaving behind four decades of service to our nation and a legacy of relentless campaigning, the crowning achievement of which will be his efforts to restore sovereignty to this place. He has been a parliamentarian of substance and impact, and a parliamentarian who has understood his fundamental role, which is first and foremost to serve the people and interests of this our great nation.

One of my hon. Friend’s techniques as a relentless campaigner—I hope he will not mind my saying this—is lying in wait for Ministers and pouncing on them, with surprising agility for an octogenarian, in darkened corridors or voting Lobbies to advance the causes closest to his heart. So it has been that on many occasions we have discussed BBC impartiality. Of course, his interest in this subject extends well beyond my three years as Media Minister—he referenced 1984, 1990 and 2003—because it is a cause he has championed for decades. Why? Because, as he implied, it goes to the heart of the special contract between the British people and the BBC: that the BBC will be funded in a unique way, via the licence fee, because it has unique duties in how it covers national events, produces content, reports on and shapes public debate, and imbues the British values of fairness, free speech and rigour into the BBC World Service as an international projection of our nation.

As my hon. Friend reflected in a debate last month, he played an important role in putting the issue of BBC impartiality at the centre of the current charter. I regret that he will not be here in the next Parliament with his institutional knowledge, when a new generation of MPs will need to make some very big decisions about the future of the BBC as its next royal charter is drawn up, the foundations for which we are laying now. The mid-term review has been one of the staging posts to that moment, and it will be a huge moment for UK broadcasters, audiences and creators because the world is changing around us, and changing very rapidly.

The question that has preoccupied public debate on the BBC’s future the most is the sustainability of the licence fee, which has been mentioned several times. Be in no doubt but that that will be a big part of the discussion on the charter renewal. The numbers paying the licence fee are falling whether or not people are advocates of it. The way audiences, particularly younger audiences, consume content is breaking their traditional relationship with the linear broadcasters, weakening the loyalty to and the love of the institution. Audiences feel that the BBC is not adequately reflecting them, as has also been touched on. As a consequence, they have lost trust in it and are starting to not want to pay the licence fee.

The fact that most television will be received over the internet will introduce new gatekeepers and promoters of content, and none of us quite knows how AI will shape the information industry. The hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) spoke about these challenges with great clarity, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins), who brings his considerable expertise to this debate. Before I turn in more detail to the mid-term review, my ask of this House, if I may make one, as we debate the BBC in the coming months and years is that we do not lose focus on the very big picture as we fret over the urgent or everyday matters surrounding the BBC, its coverage and its presenters.

Since the second world war, we have understood our country and its values in part through the strength of its great institutions, as was mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green). The BBC is surely one of them, but it is not enough simply to will it to have a future and expect that to be the case. As the world changes around us, those institutions whose strength we have perhaps complacently relied upon must go through a process of renewal—a renewal that provides clarity of purpose and a sense of mission for the next decades of the 21st century—and, dare I say it, that includes the Conservative party and a renewal of centre-right thinking.

In the BBC’s case, that mission must surely include the vigorous pursuit of truth in a world in which information and facts are blurred with increasing sophistication and intent. It must not just provide audiences with a narrow diet of content that suits an individual’s taste or caters to their own worldview, but challenge, inform, educate and provoke curiosity in a way that pulls people out of their silos and in a way that serves all audiences, but especially our children, as a counter to malign elements of the online world and the pull of addictive entertainment over nourishing educational content that helps them navigate the real world around them. As this House has made patently clear, that includes local audiences, and my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter) has campaigned particularly strongly on that.

One of the most interesting parts of the director-general’s recent speech about the future of the BBC was about algorithms, which are designed by many organisations to monetise controversy. He set out how the BBC in the 21st century is developing unique ethical algorithms that do not simply double down on an individual’s narrow preferences but guide them into a broader, richer catalogue and bring people together.

At charter renewal, there might also be interesting questions about how we can best create and deliver public service content if younger audiences are moving elsewhere, and about whether a wider range of outlets and creators are well placed to deliver that. My hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe touched on that.

We will need to look at the BBC World Service as a force for projecting our values globally as malign states seek rapidly to up the stakes in the battle for hearts and minds. Finally, there will be important questions about the BBC’s vital role in feeding the wider broadcasting and creative ecology in a way that will allow us in the UK to continue as a world leader in creativity and to retain our cultural voice. That is an aspect of the BBC debate that is often overlooked or misunderstood when we discuss its value. It has led the director-general to describe the BBC as

“a growth and innovation fund for the UK…to back British storytelling.”

The mid-term review touches on some of these issues, but it should be seen as the staging post that it is—a new innovation introduced at the last charter to understand whether the BBC is operating in the way envisaged at the last charter review, but also to signal where we think things may need to change by 2027. I understand that for some Members, my hon. Friend the Member for Stone included, the mid-term review did not go far enough on issues close to their hearts and I want gently to challenge that view. The mid-term review delivered a number of significant and necessary reforms, focusing on editorial standards and impartiality, whether the BBC has the right complaints model, and the distinctiveness of the BBC’s content in relation to competition and market impact.

I want to be clear that the discussions within the mid-term review with the BBC and Ofcom, led by my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State, resulted in recommendations she got over the line, with the licence fee payer always at front of mind. Our review was unambiguous that there is scope for material improvement across a variety of areas and it made 39 recommendations for meaningful change.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Stone has previously mentioned, impartiality was at the heart of the mid-term review and we concluded that it continues to be a major challenge for the BBC. Following direct and constructive dialogue with us in Government, the BBC is implementing major reforms building on the Serota review, and that includes thematic reviews of output—most recently, we saw one this week on migration coverage.

A key feature of the mid-term review is the recommendation for Ofcom’s regulatory responsibilities, including its oversight of due impartiality, to be extended to key areas of the BBC’s online public service material, which is where many now go for their content. The BBC also has an important tool at its disposal in its efforts to continue building trust in its relationships with its audiences and that is the complaints process. As Members will know, the BBC is unique among broadcasters in having the chance—indeed, the responsibility—to try and resolve audience complaints about its content first before they are considered by the independent regulator Ofcom. The ongoing feedback of licence fee payers to the BBC and how that feedback flows directly to staff and programme makers is invaluable in helping the BBC understand what its audiences care about and how to make its services better.

We have heard concerns through the MTR about complaints, and that is why they formed a key focus of our review, and it is the area where we made the most recommendations. I recognise the strength of feeling among some Members. For those colleagues, fundamental questions remain about the appropriateness of the “BBC First” principle, and that is why at charter review we have committed to examining whether “BBC First” remains the right complaints model to enable the BBC to deliver against its responsibilities to serve all audiences.

My hon. Friends the Members for Warrington South (Andy Carter) and for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) talked about the BBC’s role in the market and the impact on commercial competitors, and that was also raised in the mid-term review. The charter does not preclude the BBC having an adverse impact on the market, if the BBC and Ofcom believe that is necessary for the effective fulfilment of the BBC’s mission and public purposes. We talked extensively with industry during the review, and we found that a lack of effective engagement has the potential to risk the BBC’s and Ofcom’s decision-making process. We are clear that the BBC needs to drive higher standards for that stake- holder engagement and transparency so that businesses operating in the same markets can be supported. We have therefore made recommendations to ensure that the BBC strengthens that engagement with competitors in the media. In particular, that should include commercial radio stations and local newspapers, especially when it makes decisions that impact them.

While the mid-term review will deliver material improvements in the BBC’s governance and regulation, I reiterate that it is only one part of the Government’s ongoing programme of work to scrutinise the BBC, with more to come as we move towards charter review. This will be a significantly broader process than the mid-term review, considering what the BBC is for and how it is funded. That is why, before charter review, the next major step in our roadmap is the funding model review.

Over its 100-year history, the BBC has proven to be one of the most adaptable, innovative and forward- thinking media organisations on our planet. Across time, the BBC has shown its ability to open itself up to external scrutiny, reflect on challenges and find learning opportunities. We trust it will do so again, absorbing the findings of the mid-term review and improving its structures and processes—not as an end in itself, but to maintain the support of audiences and underline its purposes for truth telling and trust. We all rely on the BBC being the best it can be, and we need to set the foundations for its renewal in the 21st century as a vital British institution, not to protect the institution for its own sake, but because its purpose of truth seeking and having the highest quality content has been renewed and accepted as vital by the people and the nation we are elected here to serve.