BBC: Government Role in Impartiality

Lord Bassam of Brighton Excerpts

Wednesday 15th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government claim not to have interfered in the BBC’s affairs this past weekend. We take that at face value, even if Downing Street had no problem with Conservative MPs applying their own pressure on the BBC. According to leaked messages, it is clear Downing Street has interfered in the corporation’s news output, both during the pandemic and at the beginning of the Ukraine conflict. Is not the Minister concerned by this quote from a BBC insider, who said:

“Particularly on the website, our headlines have been determined by calls from Downing Street on a very regular basis.”


Does not this bring us once again to the wholly inappropriate relationship between Boris Johnson and the man he appointed as chair of the BBC, and does not this tell us everything we need to know about the Government’s paper-thin commitment to the notion of impartiality?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay) (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord will know that political parties, whether in government or in opposition, regularly contact the BBC and other broadcasters in relation to what they broadcast as part and parcel of the news content they provide, but the public service broadcasters do a brilliant job presenting impartial news which continues to inform people, whatever their political views or persuasions. The impartiality of the BBC as a publicly funded broadcaster goes to the very heart of the contract between it and the licence fee payers it serves. It is set out in the royal charter, along with the underpinning framework agreement, and the Government fully support the BBC in the action it takes to uphold that impartiality.