BBC Charter Review (Communications Committee Report)

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Thursday 21st April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fowler (Con)]

My Lords, first, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Best, and the committee on this report. I congratulate the noble Lord on his leadership of the Communications Committee and the way that he has introduced his report. I must say, I found myself in agreement with virtually everything that he said.

It is an important report, and I hope that the Government will follow its proposals. I particularly endorse what the committee said on the principles and guidance of Lord Reith, which make clear, and above all comprehensible, that the aim of the BBC should be to inform, educate and entertain—and even reflect, which has been added. Each is important. I have always been most supportive of the aim to inform, meaning that the BBC should provide the best possible objective news coverage; a duty which to my mind, and in spite of all the sniping, it fulfils excellently. The aim to entertain must be recognised. There should be no question of that being jettisoned so that the commercial sector can fill the gap. We all know what the result of that would be: an assault on the licence fee on the basis that the BBC was not reaching the whole of the nation.

The report begins by going back to 1927 and the formation of the BBC. However, there was a stage before that. In 1925, an all-party broadcasting committee set up by the Government proposed that a public corporation should be set up to act as a trustee for the national interest in broadcasting. It added that the corporation should be set up by statute. But Governments are the same, I fear, in every age. Ministers did not like the idea of them not being in the driving seat or it being set up by statute, because that meant putting things to both Houses. They said that it would become a “creature of Parliament”. So they brought forward the proposal that it should be under a royal charter, and thus it became a creature of government. The royal charter gave the Government the ability to evade Parliament and the power for Ministers to do virtually what they liked. For that is what the royal charter means: a transfer of power to the Executive. That is the position that basically we have today: government may make fundamental changes but without the inconvenience of getting parliamentary approval. How do the Government defend this indefensible position? They say, as my noble friend said only on Tuesday:

“For nearly 90 years a royal charter has been the constitutional basis of the BBC, underlying the independence of the BBC from political interference”.—[Official Report, 19/4/16; col. 539.]

I make absolutely no criticism of my noble friend, who is one of our very best Ministers, but this is the consistent line of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and has been for the past decade and probably more. Even when it says that it is protecting the BBC from political interference, that really is the greatest nonsense. The political interference comes not from Parliament but from government. The worst political interference is that of Ministers, and so it has been during the past few decades.

It was not Parliament that handed over to the BBC a £600 million bill for free television for the over-75s; it was the Government. Governments are notorious for interfering politically. Unless one understands and accepts that, we are not going to make vast progress. Let us recognise that, quite irrespective of party, all Governments and all Prime Ministers have their views. Lady Thatcher made no effort to disguise her scepticism. At a dinner of the Cabinet, I remember her telling us that if ever she was tempted to say anything nice about the BBC, “Denis soon persuaded me out of it”. It was not that she was tempted very much in any event, but there was just the odd occasion. And then, of course, following the last election, all kinds of threatening noises came from No. 10 that now was the time to take on the BBC.

Antipathy towards BBC reporting is not confined to one party. Harold Wilson was not renowned as a great supporter of the independence of the British Broadcasting Corporation and, even more up to date, nor were Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell, who were beside themselves with rage about the corporation’s coverage of the Iraq war. In the last charter review in 2005-06—there are a number of us here who were on my committee which looked at the charter then—they invented the BBC Trust and deliberately divided responsibility at the top of the BBC.

So when the DCMS says that the charter,

“has served us so well for 90 years”,—[Official Report, 19/4/16; col. 540.]

and I fear again that I quote my noble friend, I think we are entitled to say, “Just who are you kidding?”. In 2005, I was chairman of the Select Committee which looked at charter renewal and the proposal for the BBC Trust, which provided divided leadership at the top of the corporation. Like virtually everybody else, we rejected the proposal. Of course, that had not the slightest impact on the decision. The Government, using their charter powers, imposed it. And now, 10 years later, can one see what is happening? It is going to be abolished as a bold step by the new Government. Goodness knows what the cost to the taxpayer is of this fruitless adventure, and this is the direct product of the royal charter that has served us so well.

The only sensible question to be asked now is what we can do about it. There seem to be two possible courses. We can turn the BBC into a statutory corporation like Channel 4. That has substantial attractions. With Channel 4, for example, it means that fundamental changes would have to be approved. It means that if one wanted to privatise Channel 4, and there are rumours of that kind, one would have to introduce primary legislation and bring it through both Houses of Parliament—I am not a Whip, but I would not give too many chances of that surviving all that. It means that if the Government have the slightest sense, they will not attempt such action, so it is a great check on the power of Governments to act. That is one course. The alternative is to make the charter changes subject to approval by both Houses of Parliament. In this way, the BBC Trust proposal would have had to come to Parliament and be approved by both Houses. That is an alternative and perhaps less elaborate way of doing it. My noble friend Lord Lester—I should say the noble Lord, Lord Lester, but he is my friend as well—has a plan in this regard which I shall allow him to set out.

The point is that the charter as it now stands needs either fundamental reform or total abolition. It is utterly undemocratic; it makes a nonsense of parliamentary sovereignty and it hands all power to Ministers. I would not have thought that that was what anyone in this country really wanted.

I have not tried to cover the whole of the BBC waterfront, but, in conclusion, perhaps I may be allowed just to say this. I am passionately in favour of an independent BBC absolutely free from government interference; of a BBC with a place in the world and a strong BBC World Service; of a BBC where news reporting is put high and the reporting skills of correspondents are properly valued; of a BBC with a licence fee and not some subscription model; of a BBC which is subject to check, but not the check of the BBC Trust, particularly when we have a perfectly good regulator in Ofcom; and, above all perhaps, of a BBC where the director-general and an independent board make decisions regarding the corporation inside the budget that they are given.

What I do not want is for a board for the BBC to be set up consisting of government placement of one kind or another. The other thing that I really do not want is five-year reviews rather than 10-year reviews. All that would mean was that the BBC was not only constantly under review but constantly under the threat of change. It would also mean that government’s involvement in the corporation would become greater rather than less, and I do not think that that is what the public in this country want.

My hope is that the Government will recognise the importance of the BBC and its national and international reputation. My hope is that the Government seek to strengthen the BBC, not to weaken it. My hope is also that the Government will follow the advice of this excellent report from the Communications Committee and implement the proposals within it.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Best, for introducing this very timely debate. I join the House in congratulating him, the entire Communications Committee and their staff on their excellent report. After a busy week it has been an enjoyable, interesting and important afternoon. I will ensure a further opportunity for a debate on the charter this year. I am in discussion with the usual channels about the timing and the detail.

The report endorses the Reithian principles that the BBC should be about information, education and entertainment. The committee proposes adding an extra dimension with the fourth word “reflect” to commit the BBC to reflecting,

“the different opinions, lifestyles, beliefs and values of the nations, regions and diverse communities of the UK”.

This has been endorsed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford, the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, and by inference by the noble Lord, Lord Bragg. The Government agree that the BBC must serve every corner and community of the country, and next month’s White Paper will elaborate on that.

As a former businesswoman I was very taken by the eloquent deconstruction of the panoply of missions, activities and objectives by my noble friend Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury. As a gardener, I know that heavy garden shears do wonders to help the light in. The Committee’s report rightly advocates greater transparency and a simpler accountability framework for the BBC. These are themes that we have heard throughout the charter review and they are extremely important.

I am glad that, once again, the House has shown its full-throated commitment to the BBC. The Government share this commitment. The BBC is the finest broadcaster in the world. It is an indispensable part of our national life and makes an enormous contribution to our standing in the world. The 192,000 responses to the culture department’s consultation and countless surveys demonstrate the fact that the public care intensely about the BBC. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury, about that and, indeed, about its huge contribution to our creative industries.

The proof of the pudding, of course, is always in the eating, and some 97% of Britons use the BBC’s services on a weekly basis, for an average of more than 18 hours. I enjoyed the way that the noble Lord, Lord Hart of Chilton, took us on a walk down memory lane. I was, of course, another fan of “Ballet Shoes”. Programmes such as “The Night Manager”, “The Great British Bake Off”, “Sherlock”, “Doctor Who”, the new sports that the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, spoke of and “University Challenge” all bring great delight to millions. And, of course, BBC radio should not be forgotten because it hits commanding heights as well. What would we do without “You and Yours” and “The Archers”? Both show how the BBC provides insightful, popular programming day after day, week after week. All inform, educate or entertain. Like the noble Lord, Lord Foster, I am a critical friend.

I am always interested in global perspectives, because of the way the world is changing and because of the interdependencies which were mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Judd. BBC international services now reach 308 million people across the globe every week. This is higher than the weekly reach of the international group of broadcasters which includes Voice of America, China Central TV and Al Jazeera.

The BBC World Service is consistently recognised as the most accurate and highest-quality news outlet on earth and is also a much-needed corrective to state-run broadcasters that are controlled by despots. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley of Knighton, hinted at that. It reached 210 million people in 2014-15. In the words of the noble Lord, Lord Best, and my noble friend Lord Selsdon, it is an extraordinary source of soft power. It helps—even more importantly, perhaps—to ensure the continued prominence of the language of Shakespeare in this year of his 400th anniversary. BBC global news operates in more than 170 countries and was accessed by 283 million people in 2014-15.

It is because the Government recognise how much the BBC matters that we want it to be as efficient and effective as possible. At the time of the last charter review, most households had access to five television channels. Now the BBC has eight channels and one online channel and the media landscape has changed beyond all recognition.

The BBC’s status as a pre-eminent player, both domestically and internationally, is not in doubt. Far from wishing to threaten this status, the Government want to solidify it.

One of the fundamental issues that the White Paper must address is the constitutional basis of the BBC. Some, including my noble friend Lord Fowler, and the noble Lord, Lord Lester, take the view that the royal charter affords too much power to the Government and that the BBC should be established under statute. As I said in the House earlier in the week, the charter has been the basis of the BBC for nearly 90 years, ensuring, in my view, the BBC’s independence. We have consulted on the way the BBC is enshrined and no strong argument has come through in that consultation to change the approach of a charter which has served the BBC well over the past century. That included the Communication Committee’s own report.

Moreover, the BBC Trust has set out concerns about a statutory basis. Far from protecting the BBC, it would mean that the BBC could be subject to amendment, or at least the threat of it, at any time. I agree with the view expressed by my noble friend Lord Sherbourne, who is very experienced, that a statutory approach could in practice be more political and less independent. The noble Lord, Lord Lester, kindly described an array of mechanisms by which legislation that he is hoping to bring forward might secure the independence of the BBC. I share the view that independence is central to the BBC’s future. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Williams, suggested, there are many ways in which the charter may achieve the same effect of securing independence. As someone who has a passion for good government, I am not convinced that legislation is necessarily the way to deliver independence or the best possible outcome for the BBC.

I assure the House that this Administration takes editorial independence extremely seriously. The BBC must have the freedom and independence to take creative risks so that it can inform, educate and entertain. It must be free to be robust and critical in holding power to account through its hard-hitting journalism. The Government have been clear throughout the charter review that independence is not negotiable, and will set out their plans in the White Paper shortly. Of course, the BBC is in receipt of nearly £4 billion— £3.7 billion—of public money, as was said by the noble Lord, Lord Desai. It also has a very significant impact on the commercial sector, although it is also important to acknowledge—and I think we should do so—that the BBC spends more than a billion pounds a year in the external creative economy, which I think is absolutely vital.

The White Paper, which we plan to release in May with a view to the new charter being in place for the beginning of next year, will strike a balance between giving the BBC the space and independence it needs to thrive and ensuring that it is efficient and fit for purpose in a much-changed media landscape. It is for this reason that we do not agree with the committee’s suggestion that the licence fee should be set by a regulator. To respond to the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green, the licence fee is essentially a tax and should therefore be government-led. The funding of free licences for the over-75s was agreed between the Government and the BBC. As a public institution in receipt of £3.7 billion a year, it is right that it should play some part in balancing the books.

As Ofcom has noted, some areas of public service broadcasting, such as children’s TV, are at risk, and there have been calls from some quarters to allow part of the licence fee—or some other form of public funding—to be made available for public service broadcasting to organisations other than the BBC. That is the contestable funding model. This could introduce greater competition and allow more creative risks to be taken. We have heard these calls and the concerns articulated so clearly by the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, this evening. I share her passion for children’s television, which she has done so much to advance. That model is under discussion and our plans will be set out in the White Paper.

The Communications Committee has also called for future BBC charters to last for 11 years in order to decouple them from the electoral cycle and avoid the review acting as a sword of Damocles, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Best, said. This is an interesting idea, and we are looking at the length of future charters, recognising the need for stability within the fast-changing industry, which several noble Lords have mentioned.

There is widespread acceptance, including from the BBC, that governance has not worked properly. The Jimmy Savile outrage, the excessive payouts mentioned in the debate, the complaints procedure and other failings have naturally caused consternation and concern. The opacity and complexity of the current governance system make it far harder to find out what has gone wrong, and sort it out, than should be the case for such a vitally important and influential institution.

Noble Lords have made it clear that they feel strongly that BBC appointments should be wholly independent of government. The Government currently appoint, through a public appointments process, all members of the BBC Trust. As has been noted, all members of the executive board are appointed by the BBC Trust itself. The independent report published by Sir David Clementi recommended a unitary board for the BBC and found that the Government have a legitimate role in appointments. We are looking at this issue very carefully and will of course set out our proposals in the White Paper.

[Lord Fowler]

So far, my noble friend has said that there is basically going to be no change—certainly not to the government control of the charter. But when she and the Government come to make their proposals in the White Paper, is it their intention that they will be put to the vote in the House of Commons and House of Lords?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

As I said right at the beginning, the detail and nature of the parliamentary scrutiny of the charter is a matter being considered by the usual channels.