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BBC: Charter

My Lords, this has been an invaluable debate with contributions by noble Lords who have considerable records over recent months and years of debating the issues of the BBC. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, for his chairmanship of the committee, which produced a well informed debate. We had contributions from those who were lucky enough to serve as members of that committee and from those with expertise from other areas and interests in the BBC. A number of major themes were developed by noble Lords, and I want to address myself to them as well as to some of the more detailed questions that arose and the particular perspectives that noble Lords brought to the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, was bound to emphasise that his committee reached certain conclusions about particular issues with regard to the BBC. The Government have not accepted those conclusions, but have, crucially with regard to governance, stuck to the position that was adumbrated at the time of the Green Paper a year or more ago. I know that we could debate these issues for a long time, and I accept that the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, is on strong ground in this House when he emphasises the role that Parliament should play with regard to these issues. But he and his committee will recognise that the Government, like their predecessors, feel that the BBC’s established relationship with Parliament strikes a sensible balance between a proper degree of accountability to Parliament and the crucial independence of the BBC, which the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, spoke about with such force from her experience as a governor of the BBC. All noble Lords emphasised that that model has obtained over the decades and paid tribute to it for the independence of the BBC, the quality of its programmes and for what it does for our national life, of which we are justifiably proud. The Government’s position on this issue is immovable, but not because we have not recognised the force of the arguments regarding parliamentary accountability. Throughout this process, there has been extensive consultation as well as a series of debates that were taken into account by the Government. That also applies with regard to the licence fee. It was suggested by some noble Lords that decisions on the licence fee are bound to give the BBC exactly what is demanded and that there is unlikely to be any basis for challenge because the process is not following that which the committee recommended. That is not so. The representations by parliamentarians and the public debate about the licence fee will inform and are informing the Government’s response to the BBC proposals. I cannot pre-judge the outcome at present. We have not given a specific date for the settlement. As the new licence fee has to apply from April 2007, decisions have to be taken. There is a lot of water to go under the bridge and a lot of hard negotiation to be done. Part of these negotiations are informed by the public debate—to which this debate is a contribution—about the value of the BBC, what it is entitled to, what its proper services should be and what is reasonable for the licence fee payer to pay. I reassure the House that we have not accepted the concept of the BBC being directly responsible to Parliament. There are many potential disadvantages to that, as well as the obvious advantage of direct accountability. However, that does not mean that the work which is done in Parliament, certainly by the Select Committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, and the debates in this House, are not of the greatest significance and value to crucial decisions about the BBC. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, spoke about whether there would be any support for another public service broadcaster with regard to Channel 4. I reassure him that that point has been registered and will be taken significantly into account. We will certainly consider forms of assistance, such as asking the BBC to provide Channel 4 with financial help towards meeting its capital switchover costs and Channel 4’s desire to secure a limited amount of additional digital terrestrial capacity from the BBC. These issues are under active discussion. The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, hit every target, as we would expect. He was joined by a number of other contributors to the debate. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester and the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury, referred to whether it is appropriate that the licence fee should bear the social costs of switchover. We regard switchover as a broadcasting cost. The BBC has always borne the proper costs of technological change. But there is a special factor here: for the poorest of our community, the problems of switchover—which is essential to guarantee the continuation of television services and is an obligation on the BBC in transmitting its signal—may be difficult for significant numbers of our fellow citizens, as the costs will be substantial. It is a question not just of buying the sets but of giving people help to understand what changes will be necessary so that they can have access to their television services. We think that that is a proper broadcasting cost; we also think that it needs to be taken within the framework of the licensing fee judgments because the costs will not be negligible.