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BBC Royal Charter

My Lords, I, too, start by thanking our chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Fowler. Those of us who have had the privilege of chairing committees in your Lordships’ House know how immensely difficult it is in particular to get an agreed report. In my judgment he has pulled off a miracle, at least this time, in getting a totally agreed report. I for one take the Green Paper at its face value despite what the Secretary of State says and despite the remarks that it is all a stitch-up. Whether the Government like it or not, they are going to get full scrutiny of the Green Paper, and we would expect in your Lordships’ House to get a positive response to the valid criticisms that we make. As others have said, the BBC is world-class. I know of no other UK institution held in such high esteem in the rest of the world—literally no other. However, I agree, particularly with the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, that that does not mean that it is perfect or above criticism—in fact, quite the contrary. What makes it worthy of criticism is the fact that it is so good. If it was complete rubbish why would we waste our time on it? I also confess to an earlier error on my part. When ITV was first proposed some 50 years ago, like most economists I took the standard economists’ view that there had to be two consequences; one would be a general decline in standards and the other would be a decline in diversity. I will not go into a lengthy explanation of why that economic analysis turned out to be mistaken, but I will simply say that I certainly was mistaken. There has not in my judgment been a general decline in standards, and there has not been a general diminution in diversity. One reason for that is the BBC itself, but it would be wrong in such a debate not to note that ITV and Channel 4 have for many years offered programmes of a very high standard and with a strong public service content. I hope that they will continue to do so. I personally believe that ITV in particular would still find it profitable to meet a public service standard on these matters rather than think that it is costing it too much money. However, that is still not the same thing as being a public service broadcaster, which is what the BBC is to its core. It is vital that, no matter what happens in the area of technical advance, we ensure the BBC’s survival largely in its present form. The committee said—and was entirely right, as others have said—that for that purpose we must retain the licence fee. I am aware of its regressive nature, as the noble Lord, Lord McNally, and others have pointed out, but policies could be devised to mitigate that to rather a greater extent than we do at present. In broad terms, however, the licence fee was a concept of genius and without it we would not have public service broadcasting. It should every so often be re-examined, but I for one—since it is my professional business to think about these things—cannot come up with a better way of achieving the ends that we have in mind. The costs of collection and enforcement are absurdly large, and something must be done about avoiding that waste. I go on to the whole question of complaints. As a public service broadcaster, the BBC must almost ex definitione be the body primarily responsible for maintaining standards. That is what we mean when we say, ““You are a public service broadcaster””. It follows logically that additional regulation must be the last resort and not something that we rush into. In connection with that, first-class broadcasting of any kind in any area will certainly please many, but it is inevitably going to offend some people. There will always be the complainers. My personal view, wearing my professorial hat, is that I would dismiss most complainers out of hand, especially when it is clear that so many complaints have been orchestrated. But we no longer live in the sort of world where from above you can just say, ““I am sorry—you are just talking rubbish””. We are not allowed to do that any more, so we must have complaints procedures. I always remind people of the standard cliché that all television sets and all radios sets have switch-off buttons. Remotes do not always work, but mostly they do, and you can switch off there. I would not dream of watching ““Strictly Come Dancing””, for example, but if that is what others want, they can watch it. I simply do not switch it on. That seems to me the nature of the world that we largely ought to live in, and that we should not give in to the complainers. Nevertheless, we have got to have a responsive procedure of some sort. I believe, perhaps even faute de mieux, following the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, that unless we set up yet another regulatory body, Ofcom seems as good a way of doing it as any. My next comment—if I am still within time—is on the whole question of value for money of the licence fee. The licence fee payers themselves must manage their resources efficiently and make hard choices. If they choose to do one thing they cannot do another; that is what we all do in our lives. The BBC cannot remotely be excused from that. It, too, must always be under great pressure to be efficient. Therefore, I very much follow what our committee said and what our chairman has said—that at the most extreme an RPI adjustment would be acceptable, but that really cost-minus pressures to increase efficiency are probably an additional force that ought to be at work here. When ITV came to give evidence only this week, it pointed out something that I did not know, which is that the licence fee is per household. If therefore the number of households rises, which is now a sociological commonplace, the BBC gets pro rata a great deal more money. I am not pushing for more one-parent households, but the more households that there are, the more income the BBC will get. My last comment is on political pressure and criticism of the Government. A vital task in a free society is scrutiny of what government does. That is also the justification for the existence of your Lordships’ House. Our report shows clearly that that can be done without political bias. When I talk about criticism of the Government, I suppose that the Opposition too must be subject to scrutiny. I hope that they will not think that I am being too arrogant when I say that scrutinising the Opposition is a much less important function than scrutinising the Government. I therefore think it is simply a logical error to say that the BBC is biased because it is always scrutinising the Government. That is like saying that all of your Lordships’ committees are biased against the Government because they scrutinise them and offer criticisms. That is what the committees are there for. If one of them said, ““We have looked at this subject and everything that the Government are doing is perfect””, we would assume that the committee had not done its job rather than that it was unbiased. So the Government have to accept that the issue of bias does not arise simply because the Government are being criticised. At least that is my interpretation of what a free society is about. The BBC, despite the pressures, has achieved the kind of unbiased independence that may look biased to others but which is really so admired in the rest of the world. I come lastly to the point about the permanent committee. As I think I have amply demonstrated, what we are talking about is not really my subject, and if there were to be a permanent committee, I would not wish to be a member of it. Therefore, I can say totally objectively that this committee has demonstrated overwhelmingly the value of such a permanent committee and the great contribution that your Lordships could make to broader scrutiny of the media in general.