BBC News Impartiality: Government's Role

Steve Double Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2024 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Bardell. I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton North (Sir Michael Ellis) on securing this important debate. He made an excellent opening speech and, as I have only a few minutes, I will not cover the ground that he covered. He made great points and cited specific cases where the BBC is clearly failing in its responsibility to be impartial, particularly in regard to the reporting of the events in Israel and Gaza.

The BBC enjoys a privileged position in our country, particularly in the broadcast media. It is funded by the licence fee—it is, effectively, publicly funded—and we have a right to expect it to uphold higher standards than anyone else. Comments were made about other broadcasters, but we expect the BBC to set the standard and to provide the leadership that others will hopefully follow. I believe that it has failed to do that in recent months with regard to Israel and Gaza.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton North cited a number of incidents, but I will highlight the case of the rocket that hit the hospital. It felt like the BBC could not wait to jump to the conclusion that it must have been Israel. It seemed almost disappointed when it came out that it clearly was not and it grudgingly had to admit that it had got its initial reports wrong.

That raises a number of serious concerns about what is going on at the BBC. I sometimes wonder whether it has a blind spot and is so blinded by its views about Israel that it cannot see how biased it is being in its reporting, or whether it is aware that it is being biased but just does not care. I am not quite sure which it is, but it has to be one of those two. The BBC seriously needs to assess what is going on and the way the conflict is being reported on its broadcast news media, because it has a role in shaping public views. Clearly, we have seen a rise in the number of antisemitic incidents taking place in recent months in this country and the shameful treatment of a number of members of our Jewish community across the country. It is difficult to come to any other conclusion than that, sadly, the BBC has contributed to that because it has presented Israel in such a poor light over recent months.

I am not saying that Israel is faultless and never gets anything wrong, but it feels like the BBC will report Hamas reports, statistics and numbers without any qualification, without any sense of caution that that information is coming from Hamas, yet when Israel reports something, it is highly qualified as though the BBC is saying, “It is Israel telling us this. Therefore we need to treat this cautiously.” I think that that is having an impact on the public’s view and on the public perception of what is happening. Sadly, that is feeding through into what we are seeing on our streets.

In the mid-term release on the BBC, assessing its charter responsibilities, the Secretary of State did lead on the issue of and concerns about impartiality. That leads me to believe that the Government perhaps share many of our concerns about the impartiality of the BBC, so I simply ask this in concluding: what further discussions are going on with the BBC to hold it to account and to its obligation to be impartial and to fulfil its public service obligation in reporting the news from Gaza and Israel?