BBC

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Tuesday 10th July 2012 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Kawczynski]

No, not al-Jazeera—to Sky, because of the coverage.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

I understand the passionate case that my hon. Friend makes. It is a free market; people can switch to other channels. He must recognise that the biggest viewing figures for all such national events are still with the BBC, but that is choice as opposed to compulsion. In terms of the BBC’s future and accountability, does he agree that, with technology, licence fee payers could be more involved in the appointment of, and indeed could vote for, non-executive directors to represent them on the board of the BBC Trust?

[Daniel Kawczynski]

Yes, that is a reasonable and sensible point, but I am trying to get my hon. Friend the Minister to understand and take on board the wishes of those citizens, like myself, who do not want to watch the BBC or pay a licence fee of £145.50. At the moment, I do not believe that the BBC is as good as other channels on television. He may say that it is impossible—“You cannot detach yourself from this additional tax. You have to pay it and you have no alternative.”—but in this era we should think differently. I cannot believe that I am the only British citizen who does not want to watch the BBC and does not want to pay the licence fee.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

My hon. Friend the Minister knows that I would not miss an opportunity to refer to BBC Radio Shropshire. It is a gem—the one glimmer of light in the whole organisation. I will come on to BBC Radio Shropshire shortly.

I have a serious point about the lack of foreign news on the domestic BBC. I am always amazed at how much trivial information is given out by the BBC in its news bulletins. There is very little about what is happening in parts of the world such as Latin America. For example, an extraordinary coup took place in Paraguay just the other week, and, of course, there was no coverage of it on the BBC. I could mention all sorts of interesting political developments in Africa, Latin America, the far east and eastern Europe that the BBC simply does not cover. It is difficult for people to understand what is happening across the world if the BBC constantly focuses on celebrity gossip and the UK to the exclusion of important and detailed constitutional changes taking place around the world.

I heavily criticise the fact that the BBC does not show foreign films. The reason why people speak such eloquent English in other European countries is that they are constantly watching English films with subtitles. It is a wonderful way for people, particularly the young, to learn another language. They watch a foreign programme and, particularly if it is a series that they like and watch weekly, listen to the audio, but read the subtitles in their own language. I challenge anybody in the room to say how often they see foreign films shown on the BBC with subtitles. It is a very rare occurrence and I would like it to happen more often.

I would also like to challenge the interview style of certain interviewers. I refer particularly to Mr Paxman. I do not know what problem this man has got; perhaps he is not getting enough exercise or something. There is something wrong with this man—something fundamentally, emotionally wrong with the way in which he interviews people. Most politicians who are interviewed by him immediately clam up and seize up, and the interview is not very conducive to finding out what they think. They are guarded and do not want to interact fully, engage or explain what they are pursuing, due to the sheer aggression and patronising tone that this man always brings to interviews. When the Economic Secretary to the Treasury was interviewed recently, I was appalled at the way he treated her: the derisory contempt and the patronising tone—highly aggressive and highly rude.

I suppose that some people might get some form of titillation from watching such a combative interview style, but they must ask themselves, where does it get the audience? Are they any closer to understanding what the Minister seeks to say or the policy of the person being interviewed? I rather suspect that the answers are a mystery to the person watching, because the focus has been on the aggression. I have asked the BBC how much money it spends on anger management courses, but I have yet to receive an answer. It should put some of these people on anger management courses, because they really need to get a grip.

I am not asking for interviews in the style of communist Romania, with sycophants interviewing communist apparatchiks in easy interviews. Interviewers should not accommodate politicians, but there are countries where the relationship between the interviewer and the politician is much healthier and focused on the questions, rather than the conduct of the interviewer.

Of course, I also have complaints about John Humphrys, by whom I have been interviewed on the “Today” programme. He is extremely patronising and arrogant, and does not let one answer any questions. That is in huge contrast to when I was interviewed on the BBC by Mr Andrew Marr. I wrote a biography of Colonel Gaddafi and was invited in not as a politician but as an author. It was fascinating that the tone of the interview was completely different. Mr Marr was interested in what I had to say and asked probing questions in a manner conducive to starting a communication. I felt that the listener was interested in the interaction we were having. Being interviewed at the BBC as an author is, in my experience, different from being interviewed as a politician.

Of course, I am coming to the one ray of light in the BBC world, which is, as my hon. Friend the Minister pointed out, Radio Shropshire, a wonderful organisation run by Mr Tim Beech. It is important to me because it is meaningful; it is where the BBC works. Because it is focused on Shropshire and has local presenters, who talk about local issues affecting my constituents and the community where I live, it is, for me and my constituents, a meaningful body. I admire it greatly. However, again, the BBC focuses just on inner-city areas and neglects rural parts of the country. For example, there is no television camera at BBC Radio Shropshire, in Shrewsbury. Someone who happens to live in Shropshire, the largest land-locked county in England, cannot be interviewed by the BBC. On Saturday, the BBC telephoned me for an interview about the elections in Libya, and bombarded me with telephone calls. I said, “Look, I’m sorry, I can’t do it, because there is no television camera here in Shrewsbury.” The BBC said, “We’ll have to take you to the nearest station, which is Birmingham.” I am not going to do a 90-mile round trip on a Saturday afternoon, when I am with my family, to do a five-minute interview about elections in Libya. The point I am making is not just that politicians in Shropshire must travel 90 miles to do television interviews. There are many charities and important voluntary sector organisations in Shropshire that would like to take such opportunities, but it is impossible for them because the nearest television camera is in Birmingham, which is a 92-mile round trip from Shrewsbury.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey]

It so happens I was on BBC Suffolk this morning, discussing lively political issues. In Ipswich we have a camera, so my hon. Friend may want to suggest to the editor that he get one. Would my hon. Friend at least give recognition to the fact that after a vigorous campaign by Members of Parliament, the BBC has put local radio firmly back into the future of the BBC and should be congratulated on rethinking its proposed regional strategy?

[Daniel Kawczynski]

Yes, I agree with that. It is an important point and I want the Minister to take cognisance of the fact that Conservative Members of Parliament are interested in the regionalisation of the BBC and in making it more meaningful for local residents. I am delighted for my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) that there is a camera in Ipswich. I have written to the director-general of the BBC about the lack of one in Shrewsbury and lobbied senior BBC executives for the past seven years, to no effect. I hope that, as I have raised it again with the Minister today, some action may be forthcoming to ensure that the important county of Shropshire will have a television camera.

It costs £124.6 million to collect the licence fee, and I want hon. Members to remember that figure. I have been in touch with the BBC public affairs department, which says that that is extremely good value for money, and that those involved are doing a great job. However, let us remember what £124 million is. Sometimes we refer to these figures without trying to understand their gravity. In 2012, when we must make cuts because of the state of the public finances, is it right and appropriate to have two licensing centres, one of which, I believe, is in Preston and the other in Darlington? Is that the optimum way to handle matters? I have asked the BBC to tell me how many people work in those centres, and the response from the public affairs department is, “We don’t know, and that is not a relevant question.” It has a contractor to do such things. I am worried about that, because we should know how many people work at the TV licensing centres.

I want to know why the operation costs £124 million. Think for a moment, Sir Roger, what we could do with that money. Is the present method the only way to collect the licence fee, or are there other innovative ways in which it could be done? I shall say something which will shock hon. Members: I do not want to pay the licence fee, but is it possible for some sort of direct taxation to be used? I do not know; I am only throwing that idea into the air, because I would like the Minister to explain what work he has done on assessing how the licence fee can be collected better, and how the cost of doing it can be reduced from £124.6 million.

I feel passionately about foreign affairs. I am the chairman of the all-party groups on Saudi Arabia and Libya and have a strong interest in Mauritania. Not many people talk about Mauritania, but it is where the Arab spring and democratisation started. I am always amazed: I argue frequently with BBC people who criticise certain countries—Mauritania in particular; I say to them, “Have you actually been?” “No.” There is a liberal élite—as I keep referring to it—at the BBC, which is always judgmental, high-handed and opinionated, without doing research on the ground about what is really happening in Saudi Arabia, Mauritania and other Arab countries. I suggest that before those people cast aspersions on or express opinions about those countries, they must spend time doing research. If they give the wrong impression about countries such as Mauritania, it may preclude or hinder some British companies from interacting with or investing in them.

One of the most important aspects of the debate comes from a friend of mine, with whom I was at university, who works for the BBC in the north of England. He has given me a document to read out, but he has asked to remain anonymous. Such is the culture of fear in the BBC: people who work there fear they will be reprimanded if they say anything negative. My friend writes:

“Over the past 12 months…the BBC has been insisting that freelancers earning over…a certain amount per year (in the region of £10,000 p.a) shall set up service companies, and invoice the BBC through the company rather than individually.

The BBC are running scared of the HMRC. IR35 rule. They were afraid that if the revenue were to closely examine the working arrangements of many freelance professionals, with reference to their work for the corporation, then HMRC would possibly rule that the freelancers were in fact in full time employment with the BBC. This would render the BBC liable for employers’ national insurance contributions totalling many hundreds of thousands of pounds. To escape this possible liability, the corporation has insisted on the service company arrangement, otherwise new contracts would not be issued to the individuals concerned.”

Let me pause there for a moment. Those employees, some of whom have worked for the organisation for many years, are being told that if they do not set up their own companies and invoice the BBC through those companies, their contracts will be terminated. I find that behaviour staggering and highly deplorable. My friend goes on to say:

“That was the stark ultimatum issued by the BBC. Many freelancers are extremely unhappy with this arrangement which brings with it extra costs in setting up the company and extra accountancy fees. And of course this immediately puts the individual in the spotlight as far as NI contributions are concerned. It is they (the freelancers) not the BBC who could now be liable for National Insurance contributions as the individual is now employed by their own service company - but it gets the BBC off the hook!! It should be noted that individual freelancers have never been paid for time off for sickness or holidays. At the same time the BBC continues to impose strict contract conditions on such freelancers (even through the service company) as far as work outside the BBC is concerned. However there are exceptions to this rule, with a number of high profile (and extremely well paid) personalities still allowed to expand their portfolio of work outside the corporation, with, in many cases, high profile television advertising commissions or newspaper features. Whether or not this is allowed seems to boil down to the amount of ‘clout’ the individual has—in other words would the BBC not wish to lose their services? If the answer is that it would not, then they (the freelancers) seem to be able to do what they wish and for whom they like. The BBC is acting like a bully and getting away with it whenever it can, riding roughshod over loyal freelancers who have served them without the protection of staff contracts, in some cases for many years.”

I have given a copy of this letter to the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, who has taken a great interest in it and has promised an investigation. The behaviour of the BBC in this regard is scandalous and I urge the Minister to give it his very close attention.

I thank you, Sir Roger, for giving me the opportunity to speak, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s contribution.