BBC: Finance and Independence

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fowler (Con)]

I hope that that has not come out of my four minutes.

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, who has a distinguished broadcasting career, on that speech. I do not agree with all of it, but I agree with much of what she has to say.

Given the time, I have two points to make. The first is basically this. The Government, in their consultation on the BBC royal charter, skirt around the most basic question, the 20th question: do we need a royal charter at all? The noble Baroness touched on that. It all sounds very grand. It sounds as if it is a defensive mechanism against political interference—the kind of recognition that should be given to an organisation as important and venerable as the BBC. In fact, the royal charter means that the BBC is the plaything of any Government who happen to be in power as the 10-year renewal comes around. It is not just Conservative Governments, but Labour Governments as well. Last time it was Mr Blair, spluttering with indignation over the reporting of the Iraq war, who gave us the BBC Trust, in spite of all the arguments in the consultation at the time that that was the wrong way to go and that it would provide a divided structure at the top of the BBC, which is precisely what has taken place.

The Privy Council guidance makes crystal-clear the position. Once a body is incorporated by a royal charter it automatically means,

“a significant degree of government regulation”.

The royal charter gives to the Government an absolute power that is totally out of place in a democratic society—the kind of power that any self-respecting United Nations committee would condemn. If noble Lords compare it with the Freedom of Information Act—also being examined, and there are similar criticisms of the advice going to the review—they will see that the difference is this: if the Government decide to propose changes to the Freedom of Information Act, they need a Bill to go before Parliament. With the charter and the agreement that goes with it, the Government rule. That is the position. Obviously time does not allow me in four minutes to go into what I propose instead, but what it means today—as we have the charter today and we are not going to change it in this debate—is that the BBC is operating in a cold climate. Any argument that we put forward needs to be strong in principle and in practice.

That brings me rapidly to my second point. I hope we can all agree that, with so many parts of the world in crisis, there is an urgent need for us in Britain to be fully informed by trusted and independent media companies. That is why the BBC has never been more important. Of course there are other excellent news organisations, such as ITN and Sky, but no other British broadcaster has the range and depth of the BBC. No other broadcaster has the number of overseas bureaux or the number of foreign correspondents. I applaud the domestic decision to put more resources into local reporting, in co-operation with the regional press, but it would be a terrible mistake if there were to be sweeping cuts in the other BBC news services, radio or television at home or overseas.

I have never understood why some in this country refuse to take pride in a world-leading broadcasting organisation that is both British-run and British-owned. If you cross the Atlantic you find many American broadcasters who would give their hind teeth to have a system like this. I hope that the Government recognise that the legacy they have is a very proud and great one that they must maintain.