Economy: Broadcast Media

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 28th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, it is a great privilege and honour to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, on his maiden speech. When I heard that he was coming here, I was not surprised, not only because of his great prowess as a Paralympian and international sportsman but because of his work as a commissioner for the Disability Rights Commission, where I first met him. I recognised then that he was somebody capable of taking issues and driving something forward.

As for his sporting triumphs, if he wore all his medals, he would sink in a pool, he has been so successful. It is quite remarkable. However, I will set a new precedent: I will tell him off slightly while paying tribute to him. Where was he when the Lords were against the Commons swimming last night? My noble friend Lord Paddick won, but he might not have had the noble Lord been there. The noble Lord made a wonderful maiden speech and will make a great contribution in future. He has a grounding in many of the fields that we need in this Chamber. We can look forward to many great contributions from him. I am glad to say that he is my noble friend—certainly at the moment—and I look forward to many of his other speeches. We have a good’un there.

When I turn to the subject of the importance of the broadcasting media to our economy, I have one problem. What part of life in our society is not affected by the broadcast media? None. It is difficult to remove the broadcast media from other parts of our economy. The way we market, the way we access, the way we inform and the way we discuss comes through the media. It is now almost impossible in our society to remove yourself from the broadcast media. Increasingly, they take over virtually all the roles that the newspapers used to have. Indeed, the newspapers are also rapidly becoming part of the broadcast media. How do we define or separate those media in themselves? I come to the conclusion that we cannot.

When we talk about the media, what do we expect to get from them? What contribution do we expect them to make? Once again, those questions run into each other because the entertainment world, which they represent, and the information world are so integrated in everything else. How do we maintain that? As other noble Lords have pointed out—the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, made a great point of this— we must look to the investment in the fundamentals, such as people and technology. The Government clearly have a role here, if only in providing the right training and skills base to be able to invest. If you do not have that skills base and training at all levels, how will we get the technician level—the graduates and trainees—in place to be used? We have another debate on apprenticeships later and we could actually discuss this then. The BBC has been mentioned, and probably will be mentioned again a lot in this debate. How do we have the infrastructure in which there is, for example, that great driving engine to ensure that we have a standard up to which our media have to come?

I cannot see any way in which we could describe the BBC other than as the setter of standards for the broadcast media in this country. It is the control— the thing which we are balanced by. We find ourselves saying, “Yes, this is something to which you must aspire at least to match in terms of quality”. If the BBC is to take on that work, how are we going to encourage the other public service broadcasters, and those pay-per-view broadcasters, to continue to match the investment there and not to live at the sides of it?

The BBC may be under threat. It seems quite fashionable to have a go at it. I would say that it is quite a compliment to the BBC that it has found itself being criticised by Governments of all colours for as long as I have been old enough to remember. Indeed, it is probably the function of the BBC to annoy all Governments. After a period of time, I am sure that it will start to have a go at my own party with even greater vigour. It is primarily a body dealing with news and current affairs. The Government generate, or at least are a key part of, the news and current affairs. If you have 18 years in power, or 13 years in power, you will get criticism from this body. This unique thing that we have created with public money, effectively as a public activity, is going to criticise the Government. We should accept and embrace this. It is a form of self-chastisement that we should be encouraging because it is undoubtedly something that sets us up as a nation and defines us. It allows our economy and our whole society to operate in the way it does, and is a key part of what we do.

When I was preparing things to say for this debate, I thought, “Maybe I will be able to comment on what other people have said and should do some preparation for myself”. I did not realise, coming in at number four, that the three speakers in front of me would strip away so much of what I had prepared to say. I was going to mention sport but the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, has managed to arrive in grand style and take away much of what I was going to say about the Paralympics and Channel 4. However, I say this about the broadcast media and sport: when we talk about sport and the economy, it is a huge part of the entertainment economy. It also has a huge effect on the rest of our economy, potentially, in terms of health. There is, for instance, the role of sport in encouraging and embracing participation in sport, both by example—that is, via those who achieve and are the great gods of sport, by getting the medals and the praise in public—and by making it accessible.

At the moment the media have a challenge to try to take all the bits of our sporting culture more seriously. The current battleground seems to be drawn around women’s football, in which the BBC must both take credit for doing stuff and a little blame for being slow. Football is a universal game. As a devotee of rugby union, my having to say that association football is the “universal game” smarts slightly, but it is the truth. If the universal game does not reach that other half of our population we shall always have a bit of a problem in encouraging people to be healthy and active.

Unless we can report women’s football in a manner that gives equal kudos and status and encourages people to get out there, we will not get the investment in the sport that will allow elite performance. This investment would allow athletes to come forward and be at their absolute best in public. We must make sure that comments that they are not taking it seriously enough, that they are not doing this or that, that they are not good enough yet, or that this investment cannot be made, are not taken on board. These athletes are at the top of their game. The media and particularly the public service broadcast media must get in there and encourage others too to make sure that there is no excuse for not allowing that investment. If we make sure that this goes forward, we will start to address that factor in our society and encourage all parts of the media to take this seriously.

The public service broadcasters have the greatest duty. When my noble friend replies, I hope that he will have something to say on this. Women’s football is just the first main example. Other sports will hit other bits of our society. Unless we encourage universal coverage of all aspects of sport, we are not going to get the full benefits from a healthy society. This is one part of the jigsaw and I hope that we will embrace bringing this forward.