BBC Charter White Paper

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for repeating the response to the Urgent Question. As we have heard, the White Paper will be published tomorrow. However, the pre-briefing over the last few weeks has, in my opinion, been extremely unhelpful. It makes me wonder whether the strategy is to make it sound so awful that the not-so-bad outcome becomes acceptable.

The Secretary of State reassured my noble friend in the other place that the White Paper would pass the three key tests that many noble Lords in this House have set for the White Paper’s impact on the BBC: financial independence, editorial independence and maintaining programmes and services that inform, educate and entertain. I hope that the noble Baroness will reassure us that proper time will be set aside for a full debate in addition to the Statement tomorrow. But irrespective of the debate, what opportunity will Parliament have to challenge or remedy proposals if it finds that the White Paper fails to reassure noble Lords on independence?

Does the Minister think that government appointments to a new unitary board, which would have responsibility for editorial decision-making, would pass the test for the BBC’s independence? Also, organisations as big and as broad as the BBC need time to implement change and the independence to do so. Therefore, does the Minister really believe that it is in the interests of the viewing public to conduct a review every five years, which will inevitably mean the BBC focusing resources on that rather than on making popular programmes that we all enjoy? Does the Minister believe that the introduction of this five-year review will enhance or diminish the BBC’s independence?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

My Lords, I also dislike pre-briefing. Of course, the last Labour Government did a lot of pre-briefing, and I think that perhaps changed the culture a little. However, I do not always believe what I read in the newspapers. We have to wait until tomorrow for the White Paper and the Statement, which we had planned. I very much look forward to answering some of the detailed questions tomorrow that the noble Lord has set out. What I will say is that proper time will be set aside for a full debate. That is important. Everybody in this House values the BBC and will want to have an input into the Government’s conclusions on all these points. Editorial independence is of course paramount, and I look forward to presenting the proposals tomorrow.