BBC News Impartiality: Government's Role

Simon Jupp Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2024 Westminster Hall

[Sir Michael Ellis]

My right hon. Friend makes a good point, and I shall come on to that in more detail momentarily.

BBC News has been roundly and deservedly ridiculed for its abject failure to identify Hamas as a terrorist group. Under immense pressure, the BBC eventually chose to acknowledge in its ongoing coverage that Hamas is proscribed in the United Kingdom, but it still refuses to explicitly label it as a terror group. That double standard was clear for all to see just weeks after Hamas’s heinous pogrom on 7 October, when BBC News immediately reported on its website an incident in Brussels as a “terror attack” linked to Daesh. Not only is the BBC failing to uphold the law of this country when it refers to Hamas as anything other than a terror group, it is effectively becoming complicit in Hamas’s well-orchestrated disinformation campaign.

The most dangerous example of the dissemination of disinformation during the current conflict came on 17 October—as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) has said—when the BBC inaccurately reported that Israel was responsible for an explosion in the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital. BBC News’ breaking news Twitter account hurriedly notified its 51 million followers:

“Hundreds feared dead or injured in Israeli airstrike on hospital in Gaza, Palestinian officials say.”

BBC News’ international editor Jeremy Bowen told television audiences that “hundreds” had been killed and “thousands” injured after the hospital was “destroyed” in what he described as “the attack”—terminology that would clearly lead viewers towards the wrong impression that Israel was responsible.

There was an urgent Israeli investigation into the explosion at the hospital, subsequently independently confirmed by non-Israeli sources, which revealed that the incident was in fact caused by a misfired terrorist rocket launched by Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Even then however, BBC News saw fit to present claims and counter claims on its website, as if there was some sort of moral equivalence between a democratic state whose leaders are elected by their people and whose courts deal with their government, and a genocidal terrorist group that oppresses its people and murders children and innocent civilians.

[Simon Jupp (East Devon) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Sir Michael Ellis]

I will in a moment.

That particular incident at Al-Ahli Arab hospital had profound real-world implications. It led to the cancellation of a Head of State-level regional peace summit and violent protests erupting across the middle east, and the World Jewish Congress said it contributed to a spike in antisemitism globally—including the burning of synagogues in Tunisia and Germany. Such were the repercussions of that one misreport.

Reasonable people accept that mistakes can be made in any profession. However, it was the dismissive nature of the BBC’s response to the Al-Ahli coverage debacle, and the continuing pattern of troubling output since then, that does not reassure that lessons have been learned. Disgracefully, when Jeremy Bowen was interviewed about the incident he dismissively said he did not “regret one thing”, and that he did not

“feel particularly bothered about that.”

Bowen seemingly downplayed Israel’s discovery of evidence—including guns—that confirmed Hamas’s military operations within Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital, saying it was “not convincing”. Perversely though, he said

“wherever you go in the Middle East you see an awful lot of Kalashnikovs and it’s not inconceivable that…I dunno…perhaps the security department of the hospital might have them.”

Repeated preparedness by the BBC to disseminate unverified claims provided by a proscribed terrorist group with a track record of disinformation should trouble us all.

[Simon Jupp]

My right hon. and learned Friend is making a great speech detailing some of the failures of BBC editorial policy. However, it is not just the BBC that does not describe Hamas as a terrorist organisation, other public service broadcasters such as ITV and Channel 4 do not do so either.

As politicians, we have to be a bit careful about asking broadcasters to bow to our whims as Members of Parliament when it comes to proscribing things and making editorial decisions. As a former BBC journalist myself, I think there is a real need to balance that with editorial justification and impartiality—and I am sure my right hon. and learned Friend will come on to that in his speech. It is important to recognise that other public service broadcasters also do not describe Hamas as a terrorist organisation.

[Hannah Bardell (in the Chair)]

Before the right hon. and learned Gentleman continues, I remind Members that interventions should be short and brief.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I congratulate the right hon. and learned Member for Northampton North (Sir Michael Ellis) on securing this debate. I will start, as indeed he did, by quoting what anyone can get if they go on Google and ascertain the BBC’s main contribution to wider society on its website:

“The BBC is the world’s leading public service broadcaster. We’re impartial and independent, and every day we create distinctive, world-class programmes and content which inform, educate and entertain millions of people in the UK and around the world.”

That was indeed the case many years ago. I hope that the BBC can salvage something of its reputation and return to that high-sounding statement of what it sets itself up to be.

The right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton North alluded to the high-profile on-screen talent, as they are called. The most expensive, well-paid employee in the BBC is Gary “Multimillionaire Lefty” Lineker. Mr Lineker was taken to task whenever he made his initial contribution, which it was felt breached the guidelines. The BBC agreed that he did indeed breach the guidelines to which he and others were expected to adhere. Within a few hours, however, some of Mr Lineker’s on-screen friends—some of whom were in his employ—decided to down tools, and they walked out. We had one edition of “Match of the Day” without Gary Lineker in situ. Then the director general of the BBC caved in, instead of saying to Mr Lineker and those who were with him, “There’s the door. If you don’t like the guidelines, off you go and get jobs elsewhere.” That is what the director general should have said—and did not. He caved in, and Mr Lineker returned, smirking at his ability to thumb his nose at the guidelines.

Then the BBC revised the guidelines and Mr Tim Davie was asked: if Mr Lineker says again, under the guise of the new guidelines, what was in breach of the old guidelines, is he in breach of the new ones? The director general could not really answer the question. I do not know whether Mr Lineker decided to test the water again, but off he went. The right hon. and learned Member for Northampton North alluded to what he said the next time; and, of course, no action was taken. Unfortunately, this is a blatant example of how the BBC seems to be prepared to take whatever the woke or the leftist agenda is as something they must endorse. If there is a breach of the guidelines, it turns a blind eye to it.

[Simon Jupp]

The hon. Member is making a very good point about high-grade staff at the BBC. Does he agree that, whether someone is a staff member or a star, the social media guidelines for working in the BBC should be exactly the same?