BBC and Public Service Broadcasting

Lord Gilbert of Panteg Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gilbert of Panteg (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome this timely debate and congratulate the Labour Party on securing it and the noble Lord, Lord Young, on opening it so comprehensively. It is also a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord McNally, whose contribution was typically passionate and informed.

I am privileged to chair your Lordships’ Communications and Digital Select Committee. We recently published a report on the future of PSBs; in the time available, I will highlight only a few of our conclusions. Last year, as chair of the committee, I attended the Royal Television Society Cambridge conference as a guest of ITV and attended a Hyde Park concert as an audience member and guest of the BBC. The noble Lord, Lord Young, is right to highlight the economic as well as the creative role of PSBs and the BBC in particular. Many noble Lords who are speaking today have made notable contributions to our nation’s creative life, and I look forward to hearing from them. I will dwell not on the huge cultural contributions of PSBs but on their critical and economic role.

Our creative industries are huge, growing and world-class. We have all seen the superlatives. They are central to our economy and will provide the jobs of the future. In a post-AI world, creativity in all its forms will drive future job growth and provide satisfying and fulfilling careers for future generations as other professions and skills decline in the age of automation. Right at the heart of our creative sector is the rapidly growing and changing UK film and TV production sector.

When we started taking evidence, I thought that we would produce a report with recommendations on how we might help PSBs simply to survive in this rapidly changing world, in which they would be bound to decline. However, witness after witness, from the SVODs investing so heavily in UK production to independent producers and non-PSB commercial broadcasters, highlighted that it was the mixed ecology that made the UK such an attractive place for them in which to invest and create jobs. So it seemed that the question was not what we could do to help PSBs to survive but how to help them to thrive and continue to play a critical role at the heart of our creative industries, nurturing talent, taking risks and reflecting Britain in all its diversity. To me, that says that these industries must be at the heart of our future industrial strategy and central to our economic policy. I hope that the Minister will tell us whether the Government take that view.

In our report, we said we would miss the PSBs when they had gone and, as I said, we highlighted what needed to be done to ensure that that did not happen. That is not down to the Government alone. The PSBs, most particularly the BBC, have to change and adapt. I agree with the Secretary of State, who said today that diversity is about more than reaching younger and BAME audiences, critical though that is; it is about having fair and broad on-screen representation across all communities and reflecting the views of people outside London. Genuine impartiality is about having genuine diversity of thought and experience.

I pay tribute to the select committee that I chair. It is typical of your Lordships’ House: expert, experienced and diligent. We produced a comprehensive report and I have had only a moment or two to touch on a few of our recommendations. However, I want to touch on the issue of the future funding of the BBC. We looked at the evidence and took the view that the licence fee continues to be the best way to fund the BBC. We found that the BBC should not have been asked, nor should it have agreed, to take on the funding of over-75 free licences. However, while we were critical of the Government, we were also critical of the BBC, which negotiated that settlement, which came as part of a wider package that it welcomed at the time. We felt strongly that the way in which the BBC is funded needs to be open and transparent on all sides. We called for a funding commission. The Government may not agree with that or think that it is the right way forward, but does the Minister agree with Margot James, the then Minister, who said in evidence to the Committee that there was

“clearly a case for greater transparency”?

Does the Minister agree that the right way to have this debate is to start by asking what we as a society want the BBC to do, work out what that will cost and then, and only then, look at how that cost can be met? Does she agree that, while the BBC faces huge challenges and most certainly makes mistakes, it has a vital role in our human lives and our future economy, and that our task is to help it to meet those challenges and to thrive?

Lastly, does the Minister agree that finding someone to fill the inestimable boots of the noble Lord, Lord Hall, whom I thank warmly for his services as director-general, is going to be one tough task, and one that is for the BBC alone?