Televised Election Debates

Steve Double Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 228572 relating to an independent commission on televised election debates.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I start by thanking the petitioner, Jonathan Levy from Sky News, who began this petition as part of the Sky News “Make Debates Happen” campaign, and also the more than 130,000 members of the public who have signed the petition since September 2018, which has led to this debate today. The e-petition states:

“Genuine leaders’ debates took place in 2010, but in the next two elections didn’t happen.”

It calls for the electoral laws to be amended to make it mandatory for party leaders to take part in televised debates, and also proposes establishing an independent debates commission to set the rules and format of such debates, which the petition states

“would take decision making out of the politicians and broadcasters’ hands and ensure TV debates become a regular fixture of UK elections.”

It is worth noting that the Sky News “Make Debates Happen” campaign has received a fair amount of cross-party support from some prominent Members of the House, and I want to acknowledge the work that my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) has been carrying out on his private Member’s Bill, which will be shortly coming before the House, to make general election leaders’ debates take place. I am sure we all look forward to hearing his contribution to this debate in due course.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

I whole-heartedly commend Sky News and others for their initiative for an independent commission on televised election debates. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there should be an independent commission rather than this being left to the Prime Minister of the day’s political whims as to what is in their best interest, and that maybe we should also have deputy leaders’ debates within that framework?

[Steve Double]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point, which I will develop later. If we are to have regular leaders’ debates and formalise that process, it is absolutely right that that be managed by an independent commission—as he rightly says—to take it out of the hands of politicians and ensure that it is carried out in an orderly and fair manner. On extending this to deputy leaders, I am not sure I would go that far, but I believe that the deputy leader of the hon. Gentleman’s party is indeed keen for such a debate to take place.

We are here today to debate having debates, and I believe that this petition is very timely in its coming to the House, because there is no doubt that the nature of politics in this country has changed considerably in recent times. The growth of the 24-hour news cycle and the development of social media mean that what the public have come to expect of their political leaders has changed. We now generally expect our leaders to be much more visible and accessible than they were in previous generations. I believe that it is in this context that the matter of holding leaders’ debates must find its place.

Only last month we saw what can happen, when a debate was proposed between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition on the EU withdrawal vote. After various to-ings and fro-ings, it proved very difficult to find agreement on that debate and it ended up not happening. I am not sure that what we saw take place last month reflected very well on our democratic process.

It is also interesting and worth noting that the petition had at that time reached around 60,000 signatures, and the number of signatures it was attracting had really slowed up. After that debate was proposed and then failed to take place, there was a sudden surge of signatures that pushed the petition well over the 100,000 mark very quickly. That shows the interest among the public in televised leaders’ debates, but also perhaps demonstrates the frustration that many people felt—the to-ing and fro-ing and horse-trading that went on at that time did not materialise into a debate taking place. There is clear evidence of an appetite among a large part of the public to see our political leaders debate on TV.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

I apologise for missing the start of the hon. Gentleman’s speech. I agree that what happened last month did not reflect particularly well on politics in the British state, but one of the big problems with that episode was that it was seen as a debate between just the Labour party and the Conservative party. Does he agree that if we are to have these formalised television debates—they are vital for democracy—every single party contesting those elections should have a part to play?

[Steve Double]

I am not at all surprised at the point the hon. Gentleman makes, for obvious reasons, and that is one of the big challenges and questions that would need to be addressed. It is right that it be addressed by an independent commission, because clearly there is a tension and a balance that has to be struck on leaders’ debates when it comes to who is included, how many debates there are and so forth.

We need to ensure that we strike the right balance between all political parties in that process, and also meet the expectation of a large part of the public—they want to see a debate between people who have a realistic chance of being the future Prime Minister. That is one of the big tensions that leaders’ debates create, and it would need to be addressed by the independent commission, but I absolutely take on board the hon. Gentleman’s point.

The fact is that fewer and fewer of our constituents vote for us, our political parties or indeed our leaders based simply on what they read in the leaflets we put through their doors or in newspapers. There have been significant changes to the way we interact with one another and to how we gain the information we need through the media, as well as through social media, to inform ourselves before we decide how to vote. There is a clear expectation among the public that politicians, and particularly leaders of political parties, be much more visible and accessible than they were previously.

I believe the public want greater opportunities to see the political leaders in action and interacting with each other to build up a more complete picture of who they are and what they stand for. Party leaders have been at the forefront of some of the changes that have taken place and the election campaigns of all main parties now focus much more on the leader than was previously the case. Often, their style of leadership is scrutinised carefully. Televised debates are a great opportunity for our political leaders to present their case and communicate directly with voters through the TV screen, into their living rooms and on their smartphones. They are also a way for leaders to showcase the rigorous debates on important national matters that we see week after week here in Parliament while putting them into a format that is much more accessible for the public.

[Hugh Gaffney (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned TV channels. Is not the problem which TV channel would get the debate? They are all looking for that prize.

[Steve Double]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point that the independent commission would need to decide on. I believe it is important that we have a commission that is independent of politicians and broadcasters to manage the process and decide who would be involved in the debates and who would broadcast them. I think the debates should be accessible and shared across as many broadcasters as possible, but the independent commission would have to manage that.

It is probably inevitable that debates will become a regular feature of our elections in the future. Although not everyone will welcome that, that is clearly the direction of travel. Debates took place in 2010 and were generally well received by the public. I believe that the public now expect debates to happen regularly, so it would be better to embrace that expectation and put a proper process in place for debates, rather than go through the dance we have seen at every recent election.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

Can my hon. Friend point to any evidence that supports that comment? That is quite a sweeping statement and it would be interesting if he backed it up with some evidence or proof.

[Steve Double]

Which statement is my hon. Friend asking me to clarify?

[Simon Hart]

My hon. Friend’s claim that the televised debates were well received by the public. The extent to which the public viewed them would be an interesting add-on to his comments.

[Steve Double]

If I remember the figures correctly, I think that about 10 million watched the leaders’ debates in 2010. I base that comment on what I perceived from the voting public—I was out campaigning in that election for someone else, and I saw on the doorstep that the debates sparked a great deal of interest—and on the fact that many people were disappointed that debates did not happen recently. I take my hon. Friend’s point that views on debates are mixed—they are not universal—but I believe that the public have a growing appetite for them.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on introducing the debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee. To back up what he is saying, this is what the Hansard Society found in its 2018 “Audit of Political Engagement”:

“Among different sources of news and information respondents used to inform their decision-making at the 2017 general election, party leaders’ debates and political interviews were the most important”.

Although the process was imperfect in 2017, voters nevertheless said that debates were among the most important sources informing their decision making.

[Steve Double]

I agree. There is a growing appetite and many more voters today use leaders’ appearances on television, whether in head-to-head debates or in other formats, to get the information they need to make an informed decision.

I feel that the current situation, with horse-trading between the parties and a sense that no one really knows whether debates will happen or not—people set out their criteria, and we cannot be sure how serious anyone is about wanting the debates to take place—is not helpful and does not reflect well on our democratic process. I therefore believe that it is time to embrace debates and formalise the process so everyone is clear about the expectations. They should be taken out of the political sphere and put into the hands of an independent body that can hopefully manage the process much better.

Sky News laid out some proposals for the independent commission that is proposed to manage this process. It said that the commission should be established by parliamentary statute and funded solely by agreed contributions by UK broadcasters—I am sure we would all agree that the taxpayer should not fund the commission or the debates; they must be paid for by the broadcasters. It said that the commission should be made up of former judges, civil servants, broadcasters and other public figures who have experience in the media and politics, and overseen by a Cross-Bench peer with relevant experience, and that it should ensure that the general public have the opportunity to see the leaders of the political parties that could form a Government debate each other by including at least one televised debate between electorally realistic candidates for Prime Minister before every general election. I believe that those sensible proposals would put in place a framework that would ensure that the process is managed well and happens in an orderly and fair manner.

[Simon Hart]

I am not being awkward for the sake of it. A televised debate is just one means that a party or leader has of communicating with voters in the run-up to an election. What is so special about that form of media? Why should the independent commission not have any say over any of the other methods through which we communicate with our potential voters? It seems strange to isolate television as the preferred means by which to impose this new regime and to disregard social media, for example, which probably reaches as many people—I do not know the exact figures—just as effectively. Why would we stick with just one?

[Steve Double]

Leaders’ debates on television are unique because the leaders of political parties go head to head with each other. On social media, political parties primarily promote their own leader or policies. Head-to-head debates, which clearly need to be managed and adjudicated fairly and transparently, are quite different from parties’ campaigning on other media platforms. Party political broadcasts on TV are already regulated, and this proposal is an extension of that. The head-to-head nature of TV debates means that they are a slightly different animal from regular campaigning.

I think we should embrace debates. As has been mentioned, we must balance any decision to formalise regular leaders’ debates with people’s legitimate concerns. We have to acknowledge that not everyone believes that this is a positive step or the right way forward. In the run-up to this debate, the House of Commons social media team carried out a very quick, unscientific survey on its Facebook page. It asked:

“Should party leaders have to take part in a TV debate before a general election?”

The response was mixed. More commenters were opposed to televised leaders’ debates than were in favour. Many felt that TV debates are largely about performance and that they facilitate judgments based on personality, appearance and media-savviness, rather than on a leader’s capacity to be Prime Minister. Some referred to the Americanisation of British politics and suggested that debates could result in a more presidential style of politics, which runs contrary to our parliamentary institutions and tradition. Others pointed to the perceived gap between politicians and voters, and said that canvassing constituents and other forms of direct engagement would be far more useful. It is right to acknowledge that not everyone is entirely enthusiastic about this proposal and we must balance those views. It is important that we weigh up the genuine concerns and reflect on them before any decision to press ahead is made. I have personally considered the pros and cons of regular debates. Although I believe that we will inevitably reach that point and that it is probably better to embrace and shape the idea rather than resist it, a number of important points need to be considered.

It is important that we do not allow leaders’ debates to dominate political campaigning in general elections. Debates should not replace other forms of campaigning and should complement the election campaign, rather than replace or dominate it, so there must be careful consideration of how many debates are scheduled. We had in three in 2010, which was probably too many. I think it would more naturally sit at one or two.

It is also important that we think carefully about the timing of debates. During the 2010 campaign and the debates that took place then, I was very much aware of the role of postal votes. Today, increasing numbers of voters choose to vote by post, and we need to recognise that for many millions of people across the country, polling day is not election day. It happens several days before election day, when their postal votes land on their doorsteps. We need to take that into account. It was wrong that in 2010 some of the debates happened after the postal votes had landed, and some people had already voted before all the debates took place. Certainly, if I had any role in this, I would strongly recommend that all leaders’ debates took place on television before postal votes were dispatched, to ensure that every voter had a chance to see the televised debates before they had the opportunity to vote.

Another benefit is that that would free up the last couple of weeks of the campaign. Those final two weeks of the campaign would not be dominated by televised leaders’ debates but by the other, more traditional forms of campaigning. I think that would be the right thing to do. I am sure that many of us remember David Cameron’s comments when reflecting on the 2010 debates. He said that

“they took all the life out of the…campaign”

in those final weeks because they sucked in so much energy and attention. Avoiding that would be very welcome.

Sound and informed debates are one of the fundamental pillars of our parliamentary democracy, and it makes sense that the voting public can see our political leaders in debate during general election campaigns. We need to accept that our politics continue to change, and to adapt to changes in how people communicate and inform themselves. We should embrace that change in our election campaigning. Leaders’ debates are a good format for making politicians more accessible to voters and, should we decide to formalise regular leaders’ debates, it is absolutely right that responsibility for managing the process is taken out of the hands of politicians and broadcasters and put into the hands of an independent commission. It should be completely funded by broadcasters, and the bill should not in any way come to rest on the taxpayer.

I trust that the debate will prove a useful opportunity to consider the matter. Once again, I thank Sky News for initiating the petition, as well as the 130,000 people who signed it. I look forward to the contributions of other hon. Members and to hearing the Minister’s response.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I commend the organisers of the petition, the Petitions Committee for allowing time for the debate and my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double), who introduced the motion so effectively.

I agree with the former Deputy Prime Minister Lord Whitelaw, who said in the House of Lords in 1990 that Sky News had “a very high reputation”, adding:

“I admire it as do many other people.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 9 October 1990; Vol. 522, c. 195.]

Those comments are relevant today. Sky News is an award-winning broadcaster, picking up awards from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts and the Royal Television Society; it has won the RTS news channel of the year award. It therefore has a strong reputation for news coverage. That strength comes from the quality of its journalists, including Beth Rigby, Ed Conway, Mark Stone and Mark White. It undoubtedly has a team of top-notch journalists and is one of the main sources of news in my household. I cannot understand why the channel has threatened an enviable reputation by devoting so much coverage and air time to its own campaign and petition for the leaders’ debates commission.

I am now going to shatter what has so far been the consensus in the debate. In this day and age, when we are all concerned about fake news and the reliability of what we read, watch and interact with, I question the editorial decision by Sky News to report constantly on its own campaign, as if it were actual news rather than simply an attempt to gather more signatures.

The campaign and petition on the Parliament website started in early September 2018, ahead of the party conference season. Since then, Sky News has been reporting on its progress almost every half hour and certainly every hour. Latterly, there has been a running total of the number of signatures in the top left-hand corner of the Sky News screen together with its campaign hashtag. During critical moments of the Brexit debate in this place, and at moments of crisis, either for the Government here or elsewhere in the world when wildfires were sweeping California or conflict was raging in Yemen, Sky News still found time to insert and promote its campaign for election debates.

If the petition was gathering huge support it might be argued that that should be reported by Sky News. However, if one looks at the other petitions on the Parliament petitions website that argument falls flat. A petition calling for a ban on the sale of fireworks has 297,000 signatures, which is twice the support that the Sky News petition has. A petition asking for the UK to leave the EU without a deal has the support of almost 300,000 people. Another petition, set up by a young cancer sufferer and calling for the lowering of the age for smear tests from 25 to 18, so as to prevent cancer, has 93,000 signatures.

My point is that but for the fact that Sky News was the promoter of the debate campaign, it would not have been gathering the air time and signatures it has. I have struggled to find any coverage of any of the other petitions, which have either attracted more support or are arguably more worthy, on any Sky News outlet. One hundred and sixty-five of my 74,000 constituents signed the petition and, despite the best efforts of Sky News, only one asked me to attend today’s debate. I felt so strongly about the misuse of Sky News’s position in the broadcast media to promote its own campaign and petition that I had to come and speak.

As to my views on leaders’ debates and the idea of setting up a commission, general elections in the United Kingdom are not about electing a president. Voters elect 650 individual MPs, and from them a Government is formed. My experience of previous elections—to this place and to the Scottish Parliament—is that leaders’ debates suck the oxygen away from local campaigns. The focus on the doorsteps, instead of being on the merits of each candidate and on local issues, is on what will happen or has just happened in the debates. The media reporting is all about how well each leader performed. Who looked good? Who answered the questions best? How did the broadcasters or newsreaders appear? It is not about the substantive issues of the election campaign.

For a period, journalists are not reporting on the critical issues of the election. They become more like commentators at a boxing match. In 2010, as several hon. Members have mentioned, it was perceived that Nick Clegg had performed well in the debate. That resulted in hours of coverage of the so-called Liberal Democrat bounce. However, the actual result showed little or no change in Liberal Democrat support, so how much influence do the debates have? In my view, the drive for leaders’ debates is simply about the media machine and journalists trying to insert themselves into an election campaign rather than doing their job of reporting on the key election issues of the day. They provide little new information to voters.

In the United Kingdom, we have the added complication of four nations with differing political perspectives. If a leaders’ debate is about assessing how potential Prime Ministers perform, how does that model accommodate smaller parties, such as the Scottish National party, the Democratic Unionist party and Plaid Cymru? Other Members have already commented on that issue.

Those parties might have significant support in their own parts of the country, but there is no prospect of their leaders occupying Downing Street. The Sky News proposal does not accommodate what is essentially a way to scrutinise presidential candidates. I note that my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) proposed an alternative, but I do not think that accurately reflects the huge regional variations in how we vote as between the different parts of the United Kingdom. Why, for example, should voters in Cornwall have to listen to the leader of the Scottish National party, when none of the voters in Cornwall has any prospect of voting for the leader of the Scottish National party, whether or not they have any desire to do so?

In the letter that we all received from John Ryley, the head of Sky News, before this debate, we were told that an

“independent commission would remove the ability of political leaders to block debates because of narrow political interest.”

My question is this: if it is the politicians who are blocking this, where are the BBC and ITV in all this? They have been pretty quiet ahead of this debate, which I think is telling. I have had private discussions with the BBC and ITV, and I think a number of hon. Members will have done likewise.

[Steve Double]

As a matter of accuracy and balance, my hon. Friend might be interested to know that I was interviewed this morning by BBC Scotland about this debate, and there was a great deal of interest in this from the BBC in Scotland.

[John Lamont]

I am grateful for that comment, but from my constituents’ perspective there has not been much interest. My point was more about the management within ITV, the BBC and BBC Scotland, who are not as supportive as the editorial team behind Sky News appears to have been in pushing this campaign; certainly they do not have equivalent petitions running and have not added their support to the petition being run by Sky News.

I look forward to hearing the rest of the debate and the Minister’s response. I could have said more, only I thought that more colleagues would have wanted to contribute to this debate, given that it is headline news—but it would seem that it is headline news for Sky News and very few other people.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Double]

I thank all Members who have participated in this debate. It has been a good debate with a good number of thoughtful and well-presented contributions. I again thank Sky for its role in bringing forward the petition, which has enabled us to have this debate. It is right that we have had the debate; the issue needs careful consideration, and I hope the debate has made a useful contribution. I thank the Minister for her response laying out the Government’s position. Although many of us will be disappointed that we have not managed to persuade her to our way of thinking, I appreciate the way in which she presented the Government’s position.

The matter needs to be dealt with through consensus in Parliament. It goes wider than the Government’s decisions on general elections and our democratic process, so I very much welcome the private Member’s Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), which will give Parliament another opportunity in the relatively near future to consider the matter again. I hope that will enable Parliament to express its view. If that view is that we should formalise leaders’ debates, the Bill will give us the opportunity to do so.

In winding up, I simply make the point that it is important that we embrace all methods of engaging the public in politics, particularly at the time of elections. I was thankful that the Minister made clear that she welcomes TV debates. It is not that anyone is against TV debates; the issue is how we facilitate them. I continue to be of the view that the current system does not really work. The horse-trading and the to-ing and fro-ing reflect badly on this place and the political parties. Formalising things and taking them out of the hands of politicians would be a positive way forward. I hope today has been a useful contribution to the debate, which I am sure will continue in the coming months and years. We look forward to discussing the issue again in the very near future. I once again thank everyone for their contributions.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered e-petition 228572 relating to an independent commission on televised election debates.