Media Bill

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 8th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

My Lords, I support the first four amendments in this group—Amendments 1 to 3 and 7—and will not repeat what has been said so far in the excellent two speeches. However, I support them for a different reason: I think that they lay the ground for later amendments, particularly Amendments 9, 13 and 32. I will make a serious point about those amendments now, partly because I may have to be on a train when the Committee gets to them.

If we take seriously the Reithian principles to inform, educate and entertain, it means doing what the inscription from George Orwell outside the BBC spells out: that people are enabled to be confronted by, or to hear and see things, that

“they do not want to hear”.

That is essential to public service broadcasting and democratic education. That is also why, when we get to Amendments 9, 13 and 32, it becomes so important to cite in the Bill some of the genres that need to be not just glossed over or assumed but recognised as essential to inform, educate and broadcast in an entertaining way. As was said earlier, not everything has to be serious; often we are informed and educated by being entertained. The reference to “EastEnders” was pertinent: we gauge the public conversation by what we see being conversed about in things such as soap operas.

That is why—I would say this, wouldn’t I?—portrayal of religion is so important and needs to be named, as well as children, the arts, science, and so on. These are often called minority interests but in fact, because something is of interest to minorities does not mean that the majority should not be aware of what those interests are. Whenever we talk about religious broadcasting —I refer to my previous interest as the chairman of the Sandford St Martin Trust for nine years—it is not about proselytism or propagating a particular world view; it is recognising that you cannot live in the world and understand it if you do not understand religion. That should be obvious, given what is going on in the world at the moment. We cannot understand the Sunni/Shia divide and how that impacts on politics in the United Kingdom if we do not get informed and educated about that. So it is not about proselytism; it is about education, social cohesion and so on.

That raises another question that I wish to put at this point. How is Ofcom supposed to be able to report on whether PSBs are fulfilling their remit if there are no metrics in the Bill to say what fulfilment of the remit might be? At Second Reading we were told that it will be left to “flexibility”. Flexibility is as flexible as you want it to be, but it is quite possible to go through a whole year and just have a subjective account of what constitutes, for example, religious broadcasting or children’s broadcasting, which puts it into a narrow silo and which, for example, counts out entertainment as a medium for these things. If there are no metrics, how are we and Ofcom to know whether the remit has been fulfilled? I have been told that it cannot be the number of hours you allot to a particular genre, or a percentage quota. I am very happy with that, but what are the metrics going to be? There have to be some; otherwise, it is totally subjective.

We can speak nobly about creative industries, the creative process and what ought to constitute public service broadcasting, but if we do not put some detail in and nail down those things, name the genres and say something about metrics other than flexibility, we cannot guarantee that the remit is being fulfilled.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support all my noble friend Lady Bull’s amendments.

The world has changed somewhat since about a century ago. My great-grandfather, Stanley Baldwin, who was the then Prime Minister, would go round to Cowley Street, just around the corner, sit down with Sir John Reith, as he then was, and discuss in some detail exactly how best to use the radio to deliver what he wanted to deliver. He was the first Prime Minister to use public sector broadcasting as a means of mass communication to the electorate. Things have moved on somewhat since then, to the extent that I believe that in recent times certain members of the Cabinet have even refused to appear on the public sector broadcaster, which is a strange development, to put it mildly.

I did some research, and I do not think it is an accident that 43% of the 35 speakers at Second Reading referred directly to the issue we are talking about in this group of amendments. If one wants a metric for the depth, strength and breadth of feeling across the House about this set of principles, that is evidence enough.