Digital Economy Bill

Viscount Colville of Culross Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 13th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)]

My Lords, my interests in television can be found in the register. I will speak about the clauses concerning public service television. Like many other noble Lords, I have been shocked by the way the previous two BBC charters have been negotiated and finalised behind closed doors, in discussions between the BBC and Ministers. Public opinion and parliamentary debate seem to have played little part in the process. I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Grade, that the BBC and the public seem to be able to defend the organisation alone. That has clearly not happened. I support the intention of the noble Lord, Lord Lester, to put down amendments which provide statutory underpinning for the next BBC royal charter settlement. It is important that the noble Lord suggests that this should not be a statutory straitjacket, devised by either the Government or Parliament, but a truly constitutional framework which will safeguard the BBC’s political independence and future viability.

I am very pleased for Parliament to play a role in the shaping of the next royal charter settlement, but I would like noble Lords to think about what that role might be. The BBC is one of the great unifying institutions in our country. In the post-referendum world, that role cannot be underestimated. Its output is consumed by 97% of the population every week. It reaches even the most remote communities and people of all backgrounds. I fear that parliamentary scrutiny will start the process of atomising the BBC. MPs rightly fight on behalf of their constituents and all parliamentarians on behalf of their pet projects. As we are already seeing, the Scottish Government are demanding that all licence fees raised in Scotland be spent in that country. I fear that parliamentarians will want to do the same thing in their local areas across the country. The BBC does indeed serve local audiences with its network of local radio, but the majority of its money is spent on national projects which bring the country together, such as the splendid “Planet Earth II” that we have been seeing on Sundays. I ask the noble Lord, Lord Lester, when he tables his amendment, to look very carefully at the constitutional framework so that this atomisation is not allowed to happen.

Clause 77 goes to the heart of the BBC’s biggest problem: funding. It is all very well the BBC being independent, but without sufficient funds to make wide-ranging and high-quality programmes, that does not mean much. Last summer’s shocking decision by the former Chancellor of the Exchequer to force the BBC to take on funding of and responsibility for the concessionary licence fee for over-75s represented a 20% cut in the corporation’s funding. At the time, my noble friend Lord Hall represented the move as a flat funding settlement, leaving the BBC no worse or better off. However, I draw your Lordships’ attention to the massive cuts faced by all sectors of the BBC. There is an aim to cut £800,000 a year from the BBC’s budget by 2021, 10% of which will come from BBC News. That seems to refute any kind of claim that this is a flat funding settlement. The draft charter is about to be finalised, so trying to unpick the settlement at this stage will not be very helpful. However, in the long term the BBC should not act as an arm of the DWP by administering the concessionary licence fee policy. I hope that some sort of sunset clause can be worked out to ensure that this welfare role ends at the next round of interim negotiations or by the next charter renewal.

Funding is central to all public service broadcasting at the moment and we see all the channels suffering from powerful competition in this multi-channel, internet-streaming era. So I welcome Clause 29, which repeals Section 73 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act. As the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, said, we are not quite sure how much money that will raise, but there is a promise of it providing up to an extra £200 million in fees for PSB content providers. I am concerned that Clause 29(3), on possible transitional arrangements, could delay the implementation of these negotiations. I have been told that the “must carry” obligations on the platform to broadcast PSB channels render any negotiation impossible. However, the original Act does state that “must offer” is subject to the “need to agree terms”— in other words, to provide fair negotiation between the content providers and the platform. I am convinced that these negotiations bring a welcome boost to content providers and should be started as soon as possible.

At a time when Rupert Murdoch and 21st Century Fox are trying to take over complete control of Sky and when American and Japanese companies have turned many of our finest independent television producers into money-spinning format factories, it is time to strengthen the independence and financial viability of British public service broadcasters.