BBC Charter Review (Communications Committee Report)

Lord Hart of Chilton Excerpts

Thursday 21st April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hart of Chilton (Lab)]

My Lords, I have the very great pleasure to serve on the Select Committee on Communications, under the distinguished chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Best. I also pay tribute to our assistants, clerks and special adviser, to whom he referred.

The BBC played a very important part in my life, both in my childhood and after. I must declare that interest straight away. Each day at 5 pm, while I had my tea, I listened to “Children’s Hour” with Uncle Mac. The Reithian principles of inform, educate and entertain were, so it turned out, to be a bedrock of my formative years. A favourite was “Toytown”, with Mr Growser, Larry the Lamb and Dennis the Dachshund. I immediately identified with Larry the Lamb, being a shy and mild-mannered child. I did not realise until later in my life that there are so many Mr Growsers in the world—even, as I discovered, one or two in your Lordships’ House.

I also identified with “Norman and Henry Bones”, the boy detectives. I had cousins who were very similar, called Norman and Peter, who often looked after me during the wartime air raids. They used to let me out of the air-raid shelter to see searchlights illuminate the sky, and then to listen out for the drone of the German bombers on their way to raid the docks at Ipswich. One stray bomb destroyed a house only three or four houses away. I always remember my cousins’ wise advice, “Don’t tell your mother”, which came in handy in the years to come.

On another occasion, one afternoon in the garden I noticed the sky full of planes towing gliders. It seemed ages before they passed and no one could tell me what they were. Later, however, we heard on the news that the gliders had landed at Arnhem as part of Operation Market Garden. The BBC news was an important part of our day. My father was a soldier overseas in north Africa, Italy and then Europe, building bridges. We did not hear from him very often but the BBC war correspondents wove a narrative into which my imagination inserted my father. Wynford Vaughan-Thomas, Frank Phillips, John Snagge and Richard Dimbleby were household names with their brilliant word pictures as the war progressed from depression to jubilation and the theme music for plays and serials remains with me. The intermezzo from “The Jewels of the Madonna” by Wolf-Ferrari introduced each part of “Ballet Shoes”, one of many superbly serialised books. Whenever I hear “Coronation Scot” I remember “Paul Temple”, and who can forget the introductory music to “Dick Barton, Special Agent”?

The BBC entertained us. At 1.10 pm on Saturday, “ITMA” with Tommy Handley made us laugh, and on Sunday “Down Your Way” with Franklin Engelmann introduced us to different communities. As I grew older the importance of the BBC did not diminish. All children must stare at the night sky and wonder at its enormity; I certainly did and the programme “Journey Into Space” provoked that wonder and stimulated the imagination. Laughter has always been of great importance. I think it brings wisdom and good health and well-being. Laughter and the absurd is part of the glue binding us together and a feature of a civilised society. “The Goon Show” and “Hancock’s Half Hour” were exemplars of brilliant scripts brilliantly performed and that tradition has continued and extended, with television nurturing comic talent. The sad death yesterday of Victoria Wood is a reminder of a tradition which includes “The Likely Lads”, “Not Only… But Also”, “Fawlty Towers” and many others. Your Lordships will have your own favourites.

The sheer brilliance of performers, producers and programmers at the BBC has brought entertainment, education and information to me in my lifetime; and as we listened to the evidence in the committee, I reflected on how fortunate I had been to live through times of enormous technological change, such as colour TV, HD, Freeview, YouView, iPlayer and so on, but during which the skills of programming had maintained a very high level. Today, the quality and creativity have never been higher, with programmes such as “The Night Manager”, “War & Peace” and “Line of Duty”. The ability to market programmes such as these worldwide provides an essential stream of income for the BBC and must not be harmed or diminished.

Wherever I go in the world I hear accolades for the BBC and how envied we are to have such an asset. I do not think that we appreciate sufficiently how significant this soft power is. There were many criticisms, of course. We met a focus group of young people, some of whom told us that they thought the BBC did not represent minorities and they did not see their own lives reflected on the screen, but the noble Lord, Lord Hall, for the BBC, replied that he was seeking to make a real difference on BAME representation, both onscreen and behind it. We expect the BBC to honour its commitment and encourage regional development. We were impressed by Salford Quays and the increased programme efforts at Birmingham and Cardiff. The BBC has become less London-centric and this must continue.

We did not believe that the BBC should be restricted to remedying gaps which the market does not fill. On the contrary, we concluded that the BBC must continue to be a universal broadcaster providing content that does not simply inform and educate but that also entertains. We had no evidence to support a claim that the BBC crowded out commercial competition. On the contrary, we received evidence of the benefits of the wider discovering and developing of talent and the encouragement of training. We were not persuaded that the BBC should reduce the scale or scope of its news operations, either in the United Kingdom or overseas.

Others have described our recommendations on the licence fee and on the charter period, with which I totally agree.

I end as I began. The BBC has played an important part in my life, and it continues to do so. I was once a part-time sheep farmer and each day I would begin by listening to “Farming Today”; and having spent some time each day here in your Lordships’ House, I end with “Today in Parliament”—sometimes enraged, sometimes entertained, but always a little more educated and informed. The BBC is one of our greatest assets and nothing should be done to harm it.