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BBC: Chairmanship (Communications Committee Report)

My Lords, I welcome the debate and thank the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, both for his speech introducing the debate and for his excellent chairmanship of the committee. He was absent abroad on one recent occasion and I had that onerous task. I have to say that, as a result, I am more appreciative of the work that he does. It is not easy. I am also grateful to him for dealing very fully with the report, allowing the rest of us to range a little wider than the report itself. I note that, with the exception of the noble Lord, I happen to be the only male Back-Bencher speaking in the debate. I do not believe that it has anything to do with football. My team went out last Saturday, so as a Scot I am of course less concerned about the result than the rest of you might be. In a sense, we now have to move on. The charter has been agreed and set up. The chairman is there and, although we may have the process of selecting the next chairman within four years, it is likely that Sir Michael Lyons might be reappointed, so his chairmanship may extend to cover almost the whole of the charter period. It is therefore now our role to look at what exactly the chairman and the trust will do with the slightly limited powers that they now have. They obviously see themselves as regulators and as representatives of the licence fee payer. Like other members of the committee, I had reservations about the structure but, as I said, that is now in the past and it is time that we considered how this will work. In passing, I have reservations about the claim of the chairman and the trust to represent the licence fee payers. After all, licence fee payers are electors and constituents, so their real representatives in this matter are Members of Parliament, not an unelected trust. What should the role of the chairman and the trust be? I believe that they should be the long-term strategic thinkers on the future of the BBC and the guardians of BBC standards. They should be regulators, not in the nit-picking way of regulating particular things but in considering whether the BBC is fulfilling the aims laid down for it in the charter. As members of the committee might expect, I could spend a considerable time dealing with convergent technology and the role of the BBC in relation to it. I hope that the trust has already employed experts in convergent technology to give it advice on how broadcasting, or what I increasingly call ““narrowcasting””, will look in 10 years and on how or even if the BBC can survive in this new world. It is very difficult to forecast the future when technology is changing so rapidly, but it must be the responsibility of the trust to try to make judgments and to ensure that the BBC has the capacity to adapt to change as it comes. So far, the BBC has been very good at this, but we must ensure that it continues to be so. We will move rapidly to a world where we will watch what we want to watch when and where we want to watch it. In this world, what will the role of a schedule-based broadcaster be? The BBC will have to become a programme producer rather than a schedule producer, but that is a role for the trust. I shall address the rest of my remarks to the trust’s role as the protector of BBC standards. I hope that the BBC will for once accept criticism from someone who has been a very loyal supporter in my years on various media committees in both Houses of Parliament and who remains committed to the whole concept of a public service broadcaster such as the BBC. At the heart of the BBC public service is a commitment to news. There is a growing concern both about how the news is presented and about its attitude to politics and politicians. That concern might be more widely felt on the government side than it is on other sides, but it should be appreciated by all. Everyone here believes that the BBC should never be threatened by political interference from any quarter. In return, however, politicians have a right to expect the BBC to fulfil its charter obligations to be educative, impartial and accurate in all that it does. Let me give a small example of accuracy that has nothing to do with politics. It was given to me by my office companion, the noble Lord, Lord Haworth, of Fisherfield, who is a climber. The BBC has received awards for its ““Mountain”” series, in which Griff Rhys Jones was filmed climbing Ben Nevis and supposedly on the summit. Climbers, such as the noble Lord, Lord Haworth, and others, say that that is not the truth; he was not on the summit but two kilometres away and 129 metres lower down. It might not matter—the BBC has rather dismissed it—but if the BBC is careless with the truth in matters such as this, that gives rise to the question of trust in other things that it does. I have three worries about news programmes on the BBC. First, they too often appear to lead with sensational news about individual cases rather than what I would consider to be the major news story of the day. It recently led the ““Six O’Clock News”” with about five minutes on the arrest of a suspected paedophile in, I think, Thailand. The third or fourth news item was the signing in Madrid of the new European treaty. Which is the most important? In my view, it is obviously the signing of the treaty. Secondly, the BBC’s news coverage is too often negative. Very rarely is there any positive coverage about anything that politicians in particular and the Government do. This causes concern because, thirdly, whether we like it or not, the BBC is a vital part of the democratic structure of this country. It is the most trusted provider of news and views and is for many people the link between the electors and the elected. Elected representatives cannot meet all their constituents and discuss the issues of the day with them. That is simply a physical impossibility, as I know as a former MP. Their constituents therefore rely on the media, in particular the BBC, for the views and analysis of the issues of the day. It is therefore vital that the BBC is seen to be open, accountable and impartial in its reporting of politics and politicians. I therefore welcome the recent announcement by the trust that it has commissioned a review of the BBC news service, particularly in the nations and regions, with particular reference to impartiality. I must say in passing that the BBC is impartial; a large number of its correspondents sneer at all politicians, not simply at those of one particular party. Let me make a few suggestions about what the trust should consider. First, it is important, as I have said, that the BBC and the rest of the media should be seen to be open and accountable. Members of the committee will know that I believe that the Freedom of Information Act should cover all aspects of the BBC, including the salaries, expenses and financial interests of those who report and give us the news. The BBC is, as I said, a vital part of the democratic structure. I fully supported the freedom of information legislation and believe that, if we are entitled to know about all other public bodies that are publicly funded, we are entitled to know about the BBC as well. It is very difficult for the BBC chairman and the trust to claim that they represent the licence fee payers when they are not prepared to tell them exactly how they spend their money. Secondly, the chairman and the trust should carefully examine the way in which news and views are presented. Too many BBC newsreaders and presenters believe that hectoring politicians and giving them a hard time is their job. I do not believe that it is. Their task is to allow politicians and others of differing views to express themselves to the public in such a way as to give the public the opportunity to make up their own minds on different points of view. It may make good television or radio to have a self-opinionated, self-appointed guardian of what they see as the truth badgering a Minister or an opposition spokesman on the latest political story, but it does not educate the public. Thirdly, and perhaps most important to the health of democracy, a culture of cynical contempt about politics and politicians pervades the BBC from the newsroom to almost all programmes. One of my favourite programmes is Michael Parkinson on a Sunday afternoon on the radio, mainly because he plays my sort of music. He has throwaway lines in which he shows his contempt for politicians. In that, he follows the example of people like John Humphrys and Jeremy Paxman. There are those in the media who understand this and deplore it. I believe that Jeremy Paxman has said that people such as him should always remember that the politicians whom they interview have been elected by the people of the country and that he has not. It is a pity that he does not often take his own advice. In his book, My Trade, Andrew Marr states that journalists and the media, "““have become too powerful, too much the interpreters, using our talents as communicators to crowd them””—" the politicians— "““out. On paper we mock them more than ever before and report them less than ever before. On television and radio we commentators are edging them out ever more carelessly. Democracy made modern British journalism””." The problem often seems to be that too many journalists in the BBC and elsewhere do not appreciate that democracy and politics are inseparable. They may be the reverse sides of a coin, but they are part of the same coin. You cannot damage politics without to some extent damaging democracy as well. There has been much criticism of politicians in the media about declining turnouts in all elections. Of course, politicians bear some responsibility, but those journalists and media commentators who are so free with their attacks should perhaps look in the mirror every morning and every night and ask themselves how much they are to blame in creating an unjustified cynicism among the public about politics that means that they see little point in voting. The BBC in particular has an important role to play in creating an educated electorate in the most mature democracy in the world. That may make its political coverage less interesting, but there are times when the BBC’s role as educator and its responsibilities within a civic society are more important than its role as an entertainer. I hope that the new chairman and the trust will look carefully at the part that the BBC must play in a modern democracy, not just to ensure that licence fee payers are satisfied, but also to ensure that the elected politicians on whom the BBC ultimately depends for its existence are not increasingly alienated from them, as many of them are at present.