BBC Charter

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, brilliant discipline has given us short speeches but many important points, and I hope the Minister has been listening hard. I would like to make three.

The people have spoken, and such a large and passionate response has surely seen off the original plan to cut the BBC down to size. But the battle is not over. Last week the Culture Secretary’s call for the BBC to become “more distinctive” revealed the strategy: use the charter review to make it so minority-interest and “distinctive” that hardly anyone likes it at all—something that few people would miss—and then privatise it. Really?

The BBC is the keystone of the UK’s broadcasting ecology and the envy of the world. The public want the BBC to inform, educate and entertain, and to survive and thrive. Popular BBC programmes and services inform and educate as well as entertain. The BBC needs reform, but that is something that we should have confidence that it can do itself. It ain’t broke.