Broadcasting

Louise Haigh Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

It is a great privilege to close the debate this afternoon. As most hon. Members have acknowledged, the BBC is a great British achievement. It is truly a national treasure: a hugely precious communal possession. We all own the BBC, so it is natural that so many of us have such strong views about changing it. As an organisation with such reach and power, it is entirely right that the BBC’s new royal charter is the cause of intense debate, so I welcome the interesting and important points made here today from all parts of the House.

It has been particularly heartening to see such agreement across the House on the need for the BBC to improve its diversity commitments. The former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), the right hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey), a former Minister, the SNP Front Benchers, the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) all spoke passionately about the need for the BBC to do better. The hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald made the important point that there is no Ofcom information sheet on diversity and equal opportunities, and that full transparency is necessary to drive diversity. She looks forward, as we do, to tougher action from the new Ofcom chief executive, Sharon White, and a stronger challenge to the BBC, particularly on the publication of data.

The hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins)—I would not want to be accused of partiality in the reporting of what was said by the two Members who are in competition to be Chair of the Select Committee—equally championed transparency as being vital to the charter. He rightly praised the BBC for taking risks that no other broadcaster would. However, as was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham, who is not yet back in his place, the BBC has never published an evaluation of its diversity policy, despite more than 30 initiatives. He is an assiduous campaigner and he will not let the Front Benchers on either side of the House take their foot off the pedal on diversity progress in the BBC.

Criticism has come from several Members who have substantial experience in this policy area, no one less than the former Minister, the right hon. Member for Wantage. We are sorry that he has been taken off the Front Bench, but pleased that he has been liberated on the Back Benches, and completely support his comments that the contestable fund is too small and risks creating additional bureaucracy. That money should go back to the BBC with a condition that it is spent on specific diverse content, such as children’s broadcasting.

The former shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), gave a passionate defence of the BBC. We are incredibly grateful to her for her tireless work on scrutinising the Government’s reforms to the BBC charter. She sought reassurance from the Government on three key areas: the specific definition of distinctiveness from Ofcom; what additional resource will be provided to Ofcom in its new role; and what changes the mini charter review will be empowered to make.

Similarly, my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), another former shadow Minister, raised concerns about the potential for interference in editorial content and decision making and about opening up the BBC to anti-competition challenges. We look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments on those matters.

I particularly enjoyed the speech from the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) and what amounted to little more than SNP baiting across the Chamber. I would not like to get in between the two—I certainly would not fancy my chances. The hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Kelly Tolhurst) made the important but quite fundamental point about the BBC being our greatest and proudest export. The hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston) gave an excellent speech, which was appreciated by Members on both sides of the House. He made the important point that the Select Committee will have a role in overseeing the appointment of the chair of the new board, which is a welcome improvement on the appointment of the chair of the trust, which provoked criticism all round.

The hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng) made the case for us to hold the BBC’s feet to the fire on diversity, and not simply rely on a vague impression that we have improved. Last but not least, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) listed sporting events and the 95% threshold. I can assure him that we will consider that matter in the Digital Economy Bill Committee when it reaches scrutiny of part 4 next week. I hope that the Minister has been listening and that he will seek to amend that piece of legislation himself. If he does not, we have an amendment that is ready to go in the line by line scrutiny next week.

I welcome the opportunity to add my own contribution to that of my hon. Friends. The charter renewal process is a chance to strengthen and adapt the BBC’s position as it heads into each new decade, so that it remains a crucial part of our national conversation. As my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson) has said, we on these Benches broadly approve of this new version. Of course we have our concerns about the role of the NAO and the distinctiveness requirement and the interpretation of that by Ofcom. On the whole, this charter is a welcome confirmation of the BBC’s scope and the principle of universality. It is a confirmation that the BBC should continue doing what it does so well, which is providing something for everyone from “Gardeners World” to “Doctor Who”, “The One Show” to “The Life Scientific” and “Woman’s Hour” to “Charlie and Lola”. It is a welcome removal of the BBC from the political cycle, which can only help safeguard its independence—the independence that we know that the public value so highly. It is also a welcome redoubling of the BBC’s diversity obligations.

The BBC must go into its second century with a much better representation—on screen and off—of race, sex, age and ability. It is only right that all licence fee payers should see themselves in the programmes for which they are paying, so the BBC’s commitment to diversity must get even broader. It must learn to seek out talent across all the social classes. There is a stereotype of the sort of person who makes the telly: the white posh kid with a good education and the right contacts. The BBC needs to blast that stereotype apart and make it as old-fashioned a concept as continuity announcers wearing dinner jackets. It should be seen as a funny piece of outdated nonsense that has nothing to do with the modern BBC. I look forward to seeing that happen and working constructively with the Government on how we monitor and enforce genuine diversity in all its forms across the BBC.

I also join hon Members in applauding the emphasis placed in the charter on accurately reporting and portraying the lives of all people in all the regions of the UK. Let me make the point again that we all pay for the BBC, so it is only right that the BBC should repay that investment by commissioning and making programmes in and for all the nations of this country.

In truth, there is much to approve of in this new charter. The positives almost make up for the underhand, aggressive, bully-boy way this Government negotiated the last licence-fee settlement. The BBC should not have been given the responsibility for funding a Tory party manifesto pledge and nor should it have been given responsibility for delivering the Government's social policy on free TV licences for the over-75s. It should have felt able to reject even the suggestion that it take on the cost of those free TV licences. That it did not—that it ended up in essence agreeing to become an arm of the Department for Work and Pensions—says a lot about the cavalier, overbearing, menacing way that this Government treated an organisation that they should cherish. It is the equivalent of outsourcing children’s services to Virgin Care and asking Richard Branson to administer child benefit and who should get it. Virgin would not accept such a proposal, seeing it as a threat to its reputation, and the BBC should not have to do so either.

The Labour party will not support Government cowardice in outsourcing welfare policy to an unaccountable organisation. If the Conservatives wanted to cut TV licence fees for over-75s, they should have had the guts to put that in their manifesto and they should have campaigned on it, but they did not. So although we support the charter, we will return to the matter in the Committee stage of the Digital Economy Bill. Despite public outcry, this Government have still not ruled out further such stick-ups. They have refused to establish a transparent process to set the licence fees of the future. Without such a reassurance, we do not consider the matter a done deal.

We shall consider the issue again as the Digital Economy Bill goes through Committee because we on the Labour Benches are committed to the cause of a strong, independent, well funded national broadcaster. It is nothing less than the British public deserve and we shall not let this Government hollow out, purely for petty political gain, an institution that the British people prize so highly.