Gaza: BBC Coverage

Paul Waugh Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Nandy]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for bringing this matter to the House, and also for raising it with me. As he knows, I have a long history of taking antisemitism extremely seriously—for instance, when it poisoned my own party—and I will always speak out without fear or favour when I see it raise its ugly head. I am, however, deeply disappointed by his attempts to pretend that the Government have been anything other than robust on this. He will know that in the media interviews to which he referred, I made it crystal clear that the UK Government and I believe, and have believed for a long time, that Hamas is not only a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK but a terrorist organisation, and we will continue to describe it as such. He will also know that in one of those interviews I made it clear that I had requested a meeting with the director general of the BBC to discuss the matter.

“Of course, the BBC is not there as an instrument of Government. Ministers seeking to interfere with editorial decisions or the day-to-day running of the organisation would be in nobody’s interests, in seeking to build the trust that is so fundamental to its core purpose.”—[Official Report, 27 February 2024; Vol. 746, c. 103WH.]

Those are not my words but the words of the last media Minister, the hon. Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Julia Lopez), whom the right hon. Gentleman served alongside. He was a Minister in that Government. The hon. Lady is now the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition. If he disagrees with her, I suggest that he take that up with her, but this is far too important an issue to be treated as a political football.

[Paul Waugh (Rochdale) (Lab/Co-op)]

Along with several other Members, I visited Israel and the occupied west bank last week, but there was no access to Gaza for us. In fact, the closest we got to it was viewing the utter devastation of Gaza City through a telescope. Over the last year during the war, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 162 Palestinian journalists have been killed in Gaza, and the BBC and other journalists have had no access to Gaza whatsoever. Does the Secretary of State agree that that is as unacceptable as any attacks on the independence of the BBC?

[Lisa Nandy]

Yes. The duty to report on what is happening to people in Gaza is absolutely fundamental, and my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has raised the issue of journalists, access and protection and safety a number of times. That is why the Government believe that the BBC and others have the utmost duty to exercise care and due diligence in the way in which they report on this conflict. It is in no one’s interests for the public not to have confidence in the information that they are receiving.