BBC Charter Review (Communications Committee Report)

Lord Lester of Herne Hill Excerpts

Thursday 21st April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill (LD)]

My Lords, like all noble Lords who have spoken so far in the debate, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Best, and his committee, on a very important and excellent report.

Continuing uncertainty about the Government’s plans is very harmful to the BBC and the public interest. The continuing uncertainty, and the Government’s dumping of the cost of free licences for the over-75s on the BBC, rather than taxpayers, have undermined morale within the BBC as well as public trust and confidence.

The Government are likely to replace the BBC Trust with a new unitary board, as recommended by Sir David Clementi. The new board will have executive functions relating to the content of its broadcasts. That makes it essential that the chair, deputy chair and other members of the board are independent and manifestly seem to be independent. It is essential that they are independently appointed, without ministerial influence.

The noble Lord, Lord Hall, has rightly said that the BBC needs regulation that is effective but not prescriptive. He has emphasised the importance of protecting the BBC’s independence, recalling that Willie Whitelaw gave the BBC a 15-year charter. The Government should follow that example and give the BBC a charter for the next 11 years.

What we call a royal charter is really a ministerial charter. It is a charter shaped by Ministers using the prerogative powers inherited from the Crown. We speak of parliamentary sovereignty as the cornerstone of the British constitution, but it is Ministers, and not Parliament, who determine the scope and effect of the charter. There are no overarching, binding principles approved by Parliament that Ministers or the BBC must respect. As the noble Lord, Lord Birt, former director-general and television journalist, said during the debate on 10 March, a royal charter,

“far from being a powerful symbol and safeguard of the BBC’s independence, on the contrary enables Governments to be less accountable even than medieval kings; to amend the charter through the Privy Council … and to inflict unprincipled and material change on the BBC”.—[Official Report, 10/3/16; col. 1055.]

The noble Lord, Lord Birt, agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, that it is time to place the BBC on a statutory footing. The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, on whose most powerful speech I congratulate him, the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, another former chair of the Communications Committee, and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, have each suggested that the charter is an anomaly that should be replaced by legislation, much like that which governs Channel 4. But it is inconceivable, as the Minister will confirm, that the present Government will agree to dispense with the charter.

In truth, the choice is not a binary choice between legislation and charter. A statute could and should set out the governing principles protecting the independence and effectiveness of the BBC as a public service broadcaster, and the core duties of the BBC and the Secretary of State. It should make the charter and charter changes subject to approval by both Houses of Parliament. In that way, the BBC’s independence would be protected against political interference.

So, as other noble Lords have indicated, I am fashioning a Bill to provide a framework of core principles and duties governing Ministers and the BBC, and the charter and its renewal, while leaving the detail to be covered in the charter and the accompanying agreement. I hope that it will have support in Parliament and Whitehall. Several noble Lords who cannot be here today have authorised me to indicate their support, including the noble Lords, Lord Alli, Lord Inglewood and Lord Pannick.

The Bill will provide for the BBC to be a statutory corporation established by royal charter but subject to the Bill’s criteria. It will underpin the BBC’s duty as a public service broadcaster to serve the public interest by informing, educating and entertaining the people of the United Kingdom, including its nations, regions and communities, by means of television, radio, online services and other similar services. It is important that the BBC—and nobody else—defines the scope of its public service broadcasting and its limits. The Bill will protect the BBC’s independence as regards the content of its output, the times at which and the manner in which that output is supplied, and the governance and management of its affairs. The Secretary of State, other Ministers of the Crown, the BBC and anyone else with responsibility for the BBC’s governance will have a duty to ensure that the BBC is able to operate independently from Ministers and other public authorities in the United Kingdom.

The Secretary of State will be required to make available to the BBC sufficient funds to enable it to perform its functions to promote public purposes as a public service broadcaster. The licence fee must be for the exclusive use of the BBC in performing those functions. It will be index-linked and increased at least in line with inflation. The BBC’s funding must be protected against top-slicing—as happened, for example, under the current licence fee deal, under which £150 million a year was diverted from the licence fee to subsidise BT’s rural broadband rollout. The Secretary of State will not be able to transfer public expenditure to the BBC. If Ministers and future Ministers want to change this, they will have to persuade Parliament to legislate.

The BBC’s use of the licence fee carries responsibilities, but those are matters not for the Government but for the new board and senior staff, and for the regulator. Under my Bill, there will be an independent, external regulator, whether Ofcom or another body, to oversee the performance of the BBC’s duties as a public service broadcaster, including any increase above inflation in the licence fee. The Secretary of State and other Ministers will be forbidden to seek to influence the BBC’s decisions. The Secretary of State will be required to have regard to the need to defend the BBC’s independence, to the need for the BBC to have the financial and non-financial support needed to enable it to exercise its functions, and to the need for the public interest to be considered in regard to matters relating to the BBC.

An independent board of, I suggest, no more than 14 members, including the chair and deputy chair, will govern the BBC. The members should be people with the skills, knowledge and experience needed to perform the board’s function of directing a public service broadcaster. They should be drawn from across the nations and regions of the United Kingdom, including from BBC licence fee payers and present and former members of staff. Crucially, they must not be political appointments but must be appointed by an independent appointments committee established by the Commissioner for Public Appointments. The board will be required to carry out its duties in an open and transparent manner. The royal charter and any amendments to it will not have effect or be granted unless a draft of the charter or amendment has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.

For the last six years, the BBC has seen no increase in its funding for the licence fee, so it has had to make millions of pounds of cuts in its services and staff. But reforms are needed and are being made. The number of managers remains far too high, in spite of commitments to reduce their ranks by a thousand. The BBC must not operate from an ivory tower, broadcasting to an intellectual elite. But the BBC has become over-blown and top-heavy, involved in commercial projects that could be left to others. Again, these are matters for the board, senior staff and the regulator to address, and not the Government.

As we have said in this debate repeatedly, the public enthusiastically trust the BBC and appreciate the public service it provides. The BBC’s staff do their best to deliver a first-class and balanced public service, despite the worsening financial pressures. This Government have dumped more than £600 million of public spending on to the BBC by transferring the cost of licence fees for the over-75s. This makes the BBC carry the burden of fulfilling part of the Government’s welfare policy. The BBC is faced with the serious threat of a new unitary board that is appointed politically by Ministers and may influence content.

As several noble Lords have said, the BBC is a national treasure that could easily be harmed by government interference. We all want to ensure the independence of the BBC, so that it pursues the Reithian principles that have made it the most respected broadcaster in the world. I hope that the Government will accept the need for a properly funded BBC that is independent and free from political interference, and is able with its guaranteed income to continue to produce impartial high-quality programming that is envied the world over. That is what my Bill will seek to safeguard—but, ultimately, it is the public that, to coin a phrase, must fight, and fight, and fight again for the BBC they love.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

Does the Minister appreciate that everything that she is saying makes me more and more depressed and convinced that I shall have to introduce a Bill? She has not yet made a single concession to the point that, in a parliamentary democracy, it should not be for the Government wearing the robes of the monarch to make all these decisions; it should be Parliament with external criteria. If the Minister is able to tell the House, or to tell us in a White Paper, that the Government accept the kind of criteria that I have tried to describe, I would not dream of pursuing a Bill, because it could be achieved in other ways. But she has said nothing so far to cheer me up.