Future of the BBC

Steve Brine Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Alun Cairns]

My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point. She names Elan Closs Stephens and I would certainly underline her contribution. The BBC’s commitment to S4C and its funding as a channel is extremely important. My right hon. Friend also suggests one of the ways in which more effective scrutiny could be brought about.

The BBC has in the past covered some sensitive areas of public and private life extremely successfully. Domestic violence, rape, racism and other issues have been part of its education programmes. That education has been done through dramas, news reports and other means. The most notable was the education and information campaign on HIV. Before the BBC took an active role in informing viewers, the public’s understanding of contracting HIV was confused, to say the least. Factual programmes combined with drama, such as Mark Fowler on “EastEnders”, played a significant part. With its unique status the BBC can play an important part in helping frame a decent society.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

On that unique position, does my hon. Friend recognise that when BBC local radio was threatened a couple of years ago in one of the BBC’s many reviews, the response from Members across the House and across the country showed how much they respect, trust and value BBC local radio, which plays a very important role in what the corporation does for our constituents? Here is one suggestion—

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[Mr Whittingdale]

I certainly agree that there have been failures by individuals, both in BBC senior management and in the trust. Whether we can draw from that a more fundamental problem with the model of governance is open for debate. I was opposed to that model of governance when the right hon. Lady created it some time ago, so I can at least claim consistency. It is clearly something we will need to consider and debate in the run-up to charter renewal.

I hope that this discussion and the Select Committee inquiry will begin a debate about the role of the BBC today. The BBC is good at displaying all it does. It has a huge range of TV channels and radio stations, and it is expanding online and launching more services on the iPlayer. However, the world has changed—and is changing—so much in the media. There has been an explosion in the past few years in the number of different content outlets, and that is continuing. We now have a successful ITV commissioning really good content.

[Steve Brine]

I know my hon. Friend is a great thinker on this issue, so let me run a point by him. Is the sheer scale and size of the BBC some of its problem? My constituents pay for highly commercial ventures such as “Strictly Come Dancing” and Radio 2, which could survive well in a commercial environment. The BBC also does great investigative journalism, and things such as “BBC introducing”, which Radio 1 does so well. If the BBC got out of some of the ratings chasing and competing with the “X Factor” on Saturday night, it could do so many more good things such as local radio and the other things I have mentioned.

[Mr Whittingdale]

I agree with my hon. Friend, and the point I was coming to is that that issue should be part of the debate about what the BBC should be doing—and, indeed, what it should no longer be doing—in this new environment. I have referred to ITV’s success, and we now have Sky investing a huge amount in original content and British programming—my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans) mentioned Sky Arts. Perhaps even more excitingly, BT is entering the content provision market, and possibly in due course Liberty Global, which has just acquired Virgin Media, will go into content. We do not know, but that seems possible.

A rapid change is taking place, and we therefore need to look at how the BBC fits into the new media world. As my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) was saying, there are areas where the BBC appears to replicate content that is already available in a number of different commercial places, and it is not clear to me why the licence fee payer should pay for programming that the market already supplies. We need to address that important part of the debate.

The other part of the debate concerns whether the licence fee is still the most appropriate way to finance the BBC. I have always been critical of the licence fee, which is highly regressive, inefficient and evaded by a large number of people. The BBC director-general is now announcing that some programmes will be made available on the iPlayer before they are broadcast. That raises questions because the traditional licence fee model means that someone needs a licence if they own a television set in their corner. More and more people are now accessing content through iPlayer on catch-up, which is outside the original definition of what the licence fee should be for. Whether the licence fee is sustainable is cast into question in that different world. There is no easy answer to the question of what we put in its place—perhaps straight Exchequer subsidy is a better solution than a flat-rate poll tax, which is what the licence fee essentially is—but it should be an important part of the debate we need to have as charter renewal approaches.

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[Mr Leech]

I recognise that Birmingham has done badly out of the move to the regions, but the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, as a Manchester MP, for welcoming investment in Greater Manchester. Nevertheless, I accept his point.

If the BBC is to continue to succeed and maintain its position and reputation, the Government must commit to its long-term future. It is unrealistic for the BBC to expect a real-terms increase in its funding after 2017, but at the same time it is unrealistic for the Government to expect that further real-term cuts can be sustained without damaging the BBC and compromising the quality of programming.

[Steve Brine]

Although it might be unrealistic to expect those things, further to the point I made to the Chairman of the Select Committee, does the hon. Gentleman accept that it might be realistic for the BBC to stop doing some things, in certain creative spaces, and focus on doing what it is good at and what a “public broadcaster” should be doing?

[Mr Leech]

I disagree with the hon. Gentleman, because there is strong evidence to suggest that the BBC producing such content actually drives quality in the commercial market. There is little doubt in my mind that further funding cuts would be seriously damaging to the future quality of programming.