Tommy Sheppard
Main Page: Tommy Sheppard (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh East)
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)
We should start by remembering that the BBC has just been asked to make what is pretty much a 20% budget cut. There must be some senior executives and some people close to the BBC who are beginning to question whether the deal that was made last summer is a good one and is being delivered. I was not privy to the conversations or the late-night telephone calls, but the nature of the deal was presumably that if they agreed to make a £650 million contribution to the black hole in the Chancellor’s Budget, the BBC as we know it would be safe going forward in two respects: that it would continue to be funded by public subscription through the licence fee and that it would be editorially independent.
I do not know what is in the minds of Ministers—we will see that as the debate on the White Paper develops over the rest of the year as we head towards the charter renewal—but it is the case that there are voices on the Government Back Benches that are hostile towards the BBC, and that will question whether the licence fee should remain and whether the BBC should be obliged to undergo more privatisation and have more of a commercial motive in its output. I thought that that debate had gone, but the BBC needs to be cognisant that it is not over.
The SNP, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson) said, is absolutely committed to public service broadcasting. We must remember that the opposite of having a public service ethos in our broadcasting is to have a commercial one, in which decisions are made on the basis of how many viewers there will be and how many programmes can be sold in an international market. In my view, that makes for bad programmes and would remove innovation, creativity and experimentation.
To illustrate that with an example, probably my favourite television programme on air at the moment is “Peaky Blinders”, a gritty BBC drama series set in 1920s Birmingham about gangsters of the time. It is rich in social realism and in its attention to period detail in every respect but one: it has a contemporary electric soundtrack, even though it is a period drama. Some would say that, on paper, that does not work and spoils the programme. Actually, the electric guitar of Jack White and the other people on the soundtrack enhances the menace in the narrative.
I would bet that if somebody had taken that idea to a commissioner whose principal objective was to get as many viewers and sell as many programmes as possible, they would have sent it back saying, “No, I want a soporific score that is reflective of the ragtime music of the period.” An experiment would have been denied. That might have sold more copies and it might have gained more viewers, but it would have been a much worse programme as a result.
There have been steps forward—some of them baby steps—in the way the BBC operates. There has been some decentralisation, which is extremely welcome, and that has resulted in better programmes. For example, the forensic and high-energy examination of alleged corruption in the Metropolitan police was produced by a production crew in Belfast. Who would have thought that they would be the best equipped to do that job? In “Shetland” and “Hinterland”, one can see gritty crime dramas set very much in the vernacular of the Scottish islands or of Aberystwyth that yet command much wider audiences, because exploring diversity can bring better programmes that enrich the entire output for everyone.
I now turn to the situation in Scotland. My hon. Friend the Member for East Dunbartonshire made some points that I want to reiterate, but the first thing to say is that the management of the BBC are playing catch-up, and not playing it very well, with the decentralisation that has taken place in the governance of the United Kingdom. It is welcome that the Scotland Act 2016 gives the Scottish Government a say in the charter renewal process and in the management of the BBC, but is it not remarkable that almost 20 years after the creation of the Scottish Parliament, we are debating whether it should have those limited powers?
We believe, as we put forward in an amendment to the Scotland Bill and as we will put forward again, that broadcasting in Scotland should be the responsibility of the Scottish Government. How can it be that this House entrusts the Scottish Government to make decisions on assisted dying, abortion, the running of all public services and what rate of income tax people should be charged, yet thinks that they cannot control the telly or the radio? It is a remarkable situation.
We believe that, in the process of charter renewal, those debates can be revisited. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Dunbartonshire said, we think that the BBC should consider a federal structure in which the licence fees that are collected in Scotland are controlled and directed in Scotland by people who understand what they are doing, and in which programme making and commissioning are controlled in Scotland, so that, most importantly, all of the considerable resources that are available can support the creative industries, talent and artists in our own country. At the moment, many of them do not, and much of our best creative talent is obliged to travel 400 miles south to ply its trade in this city, which is not acceptable in the long term.
When we give examples of drama or entertainment, most people would probably agree that the output should reflect the place in which it is made, but that is even more important when it comes to news and current affairs programmes. Those on the Government Benches misunderstand, perhaps deliberately, our concern in this respect. There was talk earlier of sour grapes and sore losers—by the way, Members should remember that I am speaking on behalf of a party that is getting quite adept at winning elections—but our concern is about the fairness and impartiality of our national broadcaster. When the Secretary of State says that it is the role of the BBC to keep the nation together, that becomes a non-neutral statement when we consider that the constitutional future of our country is, shall we say, a matter of divided opinion. It is not about reviewing the 2014 referendum result, but about understanding that there are different perspectives within the Scottish population.
Almost 50% of the people do not agree that staying in the United Kingdom in the longer term is the best option for us. They would like to see self-government of their own country. I am not arguing about who is going to win or lose that argument, but we should accept that there is more than one opinion. Therefore, to deny that and to allow the BBC to take an editorial view that the nation must be kept together, by which I presume it means the UK, means that many, many people will feel disfranchised and alienated from the national broadcaster. That must be a matter of concern. I know that the Secretary of State’s opinions are his opinions and that he does not control the output of BBC Scotland—of course that is right—but having senior politicians who take that view will have some effect on the people working at the coalface and making the programmes. We need to say quite clearly to BBC Scotland that it is its responsibility to reflect the diversity and the plurality of opinion that exists in that country, rather than take sides in this matter.
After speaking to senior executives at BBC Scotland, I know that the director-general now has four pilot episodes—I do not know whether they are videotapes or DVDs—of a potential Scottish news programme on his desk. The degree of control that is being exerted in relation to Scottish editors and producers varies. I hope that he will take the bold and commendable step of selecting the most ambitious of those and committing to allow the people who live in Scotland to view BBC Scotland through their own experience and in a way that reflects their own lives.