Economy: Broadcast Media

Lord Birt Excerpts

Thursday 28th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Birt (CB)]

My Lords, it is my very real privilege to follow the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, as well as the amusing and assured earlier contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond. The noble Baroness brings to this House wide experience of the charity and corporate sectors, but she is best known as a long-standing, dedicated and loyal servant of her party. All parties have their ups and downs and their trials and tribulations, but the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, has emerged unscathed and widely respected within her party and beyond, not least for her famous and skilful handling of her one-time party leader, the formidable noble Lord, Lord Ashdown. I recall that she was the head of communications for her party in 1997 when my task was to ensure that the general election coverage was properly fair and impartial to all parties; I can only hope that she brings no grudges to the House. The noble Baroness’s maiden speech today showed that she will bring to our deliberations real wisdom, knowledge and wit.

We thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, not for the first time, for her tireless championing of public service broadcasting and for her sage comments earlier today on the BBC. I also note the frank but loyal critique of the noble Lord, Lord Sugar, baring everything but his own tattoo, of the BBC. Today, however, I shall speak to the Motion more generally.

The contribution to the UK economy of our creative industries in general and of our broadcasters in particular is simply incalculable. Every nation must surely start with an equal measure of natural talent and many countries around the world excite, engage and entice us with their cultural endeavour. However, few, and perhaps none, reach our heights in so many different creative fields. Heston is a global kitemark for cutting-edge cuisine. Monty Python will shortly fill the O2 Stadium for five nights, launching their new venture this week with the characteristically cheeky slogan, “One dead, five to go”. Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst and Francis Bacon are collected the world over. James Bond and Harry Potter are global brands. ITV’s Mr Bean is instantly recognised in China. Our popular music has been among the world’s most inventive for 50 years and our classical music scene is unsurpassed. Our comic, eccentric and very British superhero, Doctor Who, who rightly has been much mentioned today, reached 50 last Saturday with a near-simultaneous broadcast in 94 different countries, as the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, mentioned. Nothing like that has ever happened before.

Our advertising industry has long led the field for imagination. No other country matches British theatre for consistent quality. Try the incredibly bold and ambitious “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” or Roald Dahl’s “Matilda”—a delicious treat that I strongly recommend for your Lordships’ grandchildren. Our designers and our architects, our arts craftsmen and craftswomen, attain extraordinary heights. Tech City thrives in east London. In west London last week I spent a wonderful half day as the guest of BBC Future Media. If there is any other large concentration of creative technologists working on such spellbinding, groundbreaking ventures on such a scale, anywhere else in the world, I would like to know about it.

We succeed creatively in the UK because we have developed over a century the right mix of funding, regulation and institutions—for example, our art colleges, the Arts Council, or our national theatre, opera and dance companies, and, of course, the triumph of the BBC, much mentioned today, whose proud director-general I once was. Every area of creativity in the UK feeds off every other. Each draws strength and inspiration from the vitality of every other part. Broadcasting is a vital, binding ingredient of that intoxicating mix. The sheer exuberance of the UK’s all-round creative endeavour is evident the world over and brings both direct and indirect economic benefits.

When I worked as Tony Blair’s strategy adviser at No. 10, I led inter alia a strategic study on London and the south-east, the very engine house of the UK economy. Our work identified, unsurprisingly, that London is a magnet for some of the world’s best talents, including in the powerful financial and business services sectors. Equally unsurprisingly, we uncovered a key factor that draws top talent to London: that city’s sheer cultural vitality. In critical ways our creativity is our national spark, which infuses and enriches the whole of our lives. We must do everything that we can to maintain it.