Broadcasting
Debate between Peter Heaton-Jones and Gregory Campbell
Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for your indulgence in calling me to speak. I had to step out of the Chamber for a time this afternoon to take part in a debate elsewhere about my constituency. There was no discourtesy meant to the House, so thank you for calling me.
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans). Like the hon. Gentleman’s wife, I was of the view when I was broadcasting on the BBC that if my manager received equal amounts of complaints about my broadcasting from both sides of politics, that was probably okay, and I was probably being about fair and equal. That was my personal experience.
I worked for the BBC in radio—for which I have the perfect face—for 20 years. For most of that time, I was in local radio, and I will come on to make some remarks specifically about local radio. As some Members have said, it is a vital part of what the BBC does, but we perhaps sometimes swamp it out of these debates.
I seek to be a critical friend of the BBC, if I can put it like that. I am in no doubt whatever that the BBC is the best broadcaster in the world, and I believe that having worked for the corporation for many years and being an ardent audience member for all the BBC’s output.
As an opening summary, I would say this: there is far more agreement between the Government and the BBC than some have perhaps sought to imply here. On the issue of the BBC paying for free licences for over-75s, the corporation has said that that is a good deal—it is one that it supports. On appointments to the new unitary board, the Government have listened. There is unanimity now between the Government and the corporation, and significant changes have been made following representations from the BBC. Overall, the BBC characterises the charter renewal and the licence agreement as follows:
“It will deliver the strong and creative BBC the public believes in.”
So there is significant agreement, and for that reason, let alone any others, we must support the motion and the charter renewal process.
My starting point when considering the BBC and the matters before us today has to be funding. I take a very clear line on this, and it is one that I have articulated in various debates. The corporation receives £3.7 billion of public money every year; that is a guaranteed and growing income. It is simply not credible to say that the BBC cannot afford to provide all the services it currently provides and to fund free TV licences for over-75s. Of course it can—especially given the additional £18 billion in income up to 2021 that this licence fee settlement, delivered by this Conservative Government, provides.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that when considering the services the BBC can afford to deliver, it should look more often, for example, at some of the large sporting events, to which it often sends hundreds of reporters when a much smaller number would do?
Peter Heaton-Jones
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. I will come later to some of the ways the BBC should, and indeed should not, be saving money. It is an internal decision-making process for the BBC.
That £3.7 billion is a very large amount, by any measure. It is more than the budget of several Departments. Imagine the outcry if a Department decided it was not going to be open and transparent about the way it spends taxpayers’ money. Quite rightly, that is something up with which we would not put. Yet, still, the BBC seeks to argue that it should not disclose how much public money it pays its top talent. Of course it should. In 2014, 91 BBC directors were paid more than the Prime Minister, and 39 on-air staff were paid more than a quarter of a million pounds a year.
I do not buy the argument that by revealing those individual salaries the BBC would somehow risk losing its stars to the competition. That does not stack up, because in many cases there are no other outlets that would require, want, or have the means to poach those stars. For instance, no other national radio station exists that would consider employing some of the highest-paid talent on Radio 1 or Radio 2. The BBC has to be more open and transparent about how it spends its money, because it is not the BBC’s money—it is the licence fee payer’s money. I therefore support the Government in seeking to build this into the charter.
Radio is the area of the BBC that I know best—specifically, local radio. I worked for the BBC for 20 years, for the majority of that time in local radio. BBC Radio Devon, serving my constituency, is a fine example of BBC local radio at its best. Local radio, in general, is an underfunded service within an underfunded directorate of the BBC—that of regional broadcasting. For about 6% of the licence fee, the English regions directorate produces about 52% of all BBC output. In other words, it is an incredibly efficient service. That includes daily regional TV news in 12 regions, including “Spotlight” in the south-west, weekly current affairs and politics shows in 11 regions, 39 local radio stations and 42 local websites.
By any measure, that amount of output for that relatively small slice of the BBC’s budget must represent value for money. Yet time and again regional services, and local radio in particular, are singled out by BBC managers for cuts. Perhaps we could understand why if we merely looked at figures on a spreadsheet. The BBC is fond of looking at a figure of cost per listener per hour. Seen purely in those terms, it does seem as though local radio is a relatively expensive service for the BBC to provide. There is a reason for that—it comprises 39 different stations, each a stand-alone operation with its own costs, buildings and overheads. It is entirely unfair, however, to look at it like that and think that the solution is therefore to reduce the hours of local broadcasting that a station provides, to combine stations or to replace truly local programmes with regional or even national shows.
A programme that I once presented has fallen victim to that and no longer exists as a stand-alone local breakfast programme. Members can decide for themselves whether that is to do with the fact that I once presented it, but it is not—it is to do with somebody looking at a line on a spreadsheet and saying, “We can save money by cutting this.” The effect is to take away from our constituents what should be a good local service of news, current affairs and journalism. The BBC should not be doing this. The solution is not to combine stations and replace truly local programmes with regional or even national shows; it is to fund local radio fairly in the first place. The BBC has internally the power and the funding necessary to make that decision.
Local radio fits perfectly into the new requirement for distinctiveness built into the charter by the Government. No other organisation is providing local radio services anything like those provided by the BBC. Commercial radio stations provide nothing close to the news, current affairs and local journalism that BBC local radio provides. Before I entered the BBC, I worked for commercial radio—30 years ago, believe it or not. [Interruption.] I know—it is hard to believe, but true. I started very young. In those days, commercial radio had something approaching a proper newsroom in each of its local stations, but not any more. Now commercial radio has perhaps a regional newsroom with a very small number of journalists providing news and current affairs across a very wide area. No other organisation is doing what the BBC is doing in local radio. The director-general has said that he wants the BBC’s feet held firmly to the fire on distinctiveness. The place to start is to look at local radio and to acknowledge the distinctive service of local journalism that it provides.
I have two brief points to make in conclusion; I am aware of your strictures on time, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Government have got it absolutely right in making Ofcom the BBC’s external regulator. In my view, having worked for the BBC for all those years, it was always complete nonsense that one body—either the governors or, more recently, the trust—was responsible for both the regulation and the governance of the BBC. That was a classic case of being both poacher and gamekeeper —or both dancer and judge, to use the euphemism du jour—at the same time. The new arrangements are fairer and more transparent.
I end as I began by saying that I love the BBC. It is the best broadcasting organisation in the world, second to none. This Conservative Government also love the BBC. All the nonsense that we heard on certain awards nights and in certain letters to certain papers that this Government sought to in some way hang the BBC out to dry was, to be frank, fiction worthy of one of the drama programmes that the BBC is so good at producing. The BBC is an organisation of which we can be proud. The Government fully support it, as do I, both as a former employee and now as an avid listener and viewer. I commend the licence fee settlement and the charter renewal to the House.