Scotland: Independence

Lord Birt Excerpts

Tuesday 24th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Birt (CB)]

My Lords, the United Kingdom is an extraordinary crucible of ideas, learning and creativity. Part of our strength is that, although we can speak with one voice when fighting totalitarianism or at the opening night of the Olympics, we are also heterogeneous; we can celebrate difference and speak in harmony with many voices.

I am as proud to be a Liverpudlian—I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, did not mention Bill Shankly—as I am to be British. I am proud of that willingness to challenge convention that inspired Alan Bleasdale, Ken Dodd and the Beatles, but I recognise, too, just how enriched I am by Yorkshire’s writers and artists, by Northern Ireland’s poets or by the new powerful contributions that post-war immigration to the UK has brought us. Through the multiplicity of all those subtly different voices and accents, we can also hear something that we have in common: something distinctively British. That is something that the rest of the world can and does recognise too.

No part of the United Kingdom has made a greater contribution to the whole than the people from Scotland. We have heard that in abundance today in this remarkable, eloquent debate. The list of those who have made contributions is too long to repeat, but perhaps I may be allowed to mention some: Adam Smith and James Boswell, JM Barrie and Arthur Conan Doyle, Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson, Muriel Spark and Carol Ann Duffy, Ian Rankin and Alexander McCall Smith, Ludovic Kennedy and Andrew Marr, Billy Connolly and David Tennant, Armando Iannucci and Irvine Welsh. I note that Irvine Welsh once said that he loved the “density and complexity” of Jane Austen and George Eliot. That can be no surprise, for they are all part of the same British literary tradition.

One reason for Britain’s exceptional creative and intellectual vitality is our genius for founding institutions which channel and foster our national talent. None of those bodies is more effective than the BBC. Illuminatingly and tellingly, the BBC was founded and critically shaped by a young Scot of vision, a can-do engineer and a curmudgeonly son of the manse, John Reith. It was that bold Scot who bequeathed the BBC an enduring conviction, a stubborn commitment to excellence and a lasting set of values.

As we have heard today, there would be many consequences if Scotland were to become independent, but let us be clear what they would be for the BBC and for broadcasting in Scotland and in the rest of the United Kingdom. First—I do not think that this has yet been properly recognised in the debate today—the BBC, like other national institutions, would lose 10% of its income. The recent brand-new obligations placed on the BBC to fund the World Service, S4C and other activities from the licence fee will in short order take a further 15% out of the pot currently utilised for funding TV, radio and online services. In the space of just a few years, if Scotland became independent, the BBC as we know it would effectively lose one quarter of its funding. Changes to BBC services would be unavoidable.

Secondly, the BBC buys programmes of distinction from other countries—most notably recently from Scandinavia. Even with its diminished revenues, the BBC would no doubt buy some programmes from an independent Scotland but, as with other countries, only programmes in the “outstanding” category would be purchased.

Thirdly, a smaller BBC would no doubt make some programmes in and about Scotland, as it does now in other countries, but that would be exceptional, unlike now, when, as a matter of policy, a proportionate slice of its budget is spent in Scotland on programming for the whole of the UK. If Scotland were independent, I am very sorry to say that it would no longer be much reflected on our screens and airwaves in the rest of the United Kingdom.

Fourthly, the new Scottish publicly funded broadcaster —the SBS—would have about a tenth of the BBC’s current budget. Like other countries with populations of about 5 million, the SBS would tailor its programmes and services to its limited means.

Fifthly, like other broadcasters, I expect that the SBS would want to acquire programmes from the BBC, not least those loved intensely by Scottish audiences. The BBC is, thankfully, independent of government, so whatever is said wishfully by some, the BBC will have no alternative whatever but to act in the interests of its licence fee payers and to seek the best possible commercial terms for the sale of its programmes in Scotland, not least because of the aforementioned financial impoverishment that it will just have suffered.

Finally, as for the availability in Scotland of the BBC’s continuing services for the rest of the United Kingdom, there will of course be some transmission spillover at the border, and BBC channels and services will certainly be accessible more widely in Scotland, but encrypted and available only on commercial terms.

Those who will vote for independence identify and expect many gains, but I suggest that many of the advantages that the most creative and inspiring talents in Scotland have enjoyed for 300 years—of making a massive impact on a big stage to global acclaim—will simply be lost.

If Scotland votes for independence, the rest of the United Kingdom will lose too, for in all sorts of different ways the UK will make a lesser contribution to the wider world. Our status and standing will be diminished. Worst of all, we will suffer the loss of the Scots at the very heart of our affairs as admired and appreciated allies, collaborators and friends.