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Future of the BBC

My Lords, you can go for months in this House without there being a debate on the media and then, rather like buses, two come along at the same time—the digital economy yesterday and the future of the BBC today. As the House knows, I am chairman of the Select Committee on Communications and, before that, I was the chairman of the BBC Royal Charter Select Committee. However, in this balloted debate for Back-Benchers I speak only for myself, although I concede that I pay tribute to the wisdom of the Select Committees that I chaired. I start on a sour but important note. The Secretary of State, Ben Bradshaw, in an interview in the MediaGuardian on 23 November, said that it his duty to point out that there were real dangers of a Tory Government in their policies towards the BBC. He added: ""Like the National Health Service, the BBC reflects Labour values"." That was a fairly crass statement. Historically, of course, it is entire rubbish. Labour can certainly claim to have started the National Health Service, although it does not really justify a claim of ownership, but the BBC was started not by a Labour Government but by a Conservative Government. In the same way, public service broadcaster Channel 4 was also started by a Conservative Government, as too, of course, was independent television generally. So my party does not need to establish its credentials so far as broadcasting is concerned. More fundamentally, the Secretary of State’s comments lead us in entirely the wrong direction. The characteristic over the years has been the way that there has been all-party support for the BBC. That does not mean that there cannot be disagreements on particular issues, but such disagreements are against a background when all the major parties in this country support the concept of the BBC and its major role in public service broadcasting. There is obviously a debate to be had on the future of the corporation—hence this debate today—but much of it is with some of the BBC’s powerful commercial competitors, not least with News International, which has at least been frank about its ambitions. In his MacTaggart lecture in the autumn, James Murdoch was quite explicit in his attack. He said the BBC produced "state sponsored journalism"; that impartiality in news was impossible to achieve because it always depended upon choices that editors have to make; and that the only real guarantee of broadcasting independence is profit. I disagree with all three assertions. It is absurd to draw parallels with the real state sponsored journalism of countries such as the old East Germany and, regrettably, the many other countries that still suffer from it today. As to impartiality, what matters is what the organisation aims for. It is never going to be perfect but the question is: what are the standards? When I worked for the Times in the 1960s, my first editor was William Haley, former director general of the BBC. There was no question what the standards were: you were required to be fair and accurate. The BBC come nearer to achieving that than, for example, Fox News, which reported the Iraq invasion to the accompaniment of martial music and the stars and stripes fluttering in the corner of the screen. As for profit, I do not believe that that is the only criterion. I will say a word later on BBC profit. The central concept of the BBC is that it should provide not only impartial news but also good drama, good entertainment and good children’s programmes on television, on radio and, of course, now on the net, in return for the licence fee. Rightly, the BBC has rejected the argument of some of its competitors that it should simply make programmes that the commercial companies find unprofitable to make. That is not the agreement with the licence-fee payer. The BBC has achieved a great deal. In the provision of news, for example, it provides more world news than any other media company in this country and, arguably, in the rest of the world. At a time when newspapers have been forced to close their foreign bureaux and rely on journalists being flown in as firemen to report particular crises, the licence fee has enabled the BBC to retain year round foreign coverage; while the World Service, funded differently, continues to provide excellent journalism. The country has been well served by the BBC and anyone who doubts that should cross the Atlantic and talk, as the Select Committee did, to some of the big media companies there. The reputation of the BBC is high and the British concept of public service broadcasting is much admired. The challenge now is to ensure that, at a time of unprecedented change in the media, the BBC retains its high position. That is vital for the BBC. This brings me to a fundamental defect in the BBC’s organisation. Although it has a total revenue of over £4 billion, more than 20,000 staff and offices throughout the world, it has no chairman and no proper board. Instead, it has a curious, divided structure unlike anything else in corporate Britain. It has an executive committee headed by the director general and then, in a separate building, it has what is called the BBC Trust headed by Sir Michael Lyons, who can call himself BBC chairman, but only as an honorary title. At this point, Government Ministers tend to shrug. "What does it matter?", they say; "It is only a matter of organisation". If it does not matter, they should ask themselves why was there so much concern when ITV seemed to be failing to find a new chairman; why there was so much interest in the new chairman for Channel 4 and how he would lead the organisation; why there is always speculation and comment when a chairmanship becomes vacant in any big company? The answer, of course, is that having the right chairman is crucial to the health of any big organisation or company. The Minister will agree that this is not a recent criticism of mine or of my colleagues. In the BBC you do not have the normal process of co-decision that you have in virtually every other company. You do not have a chairman and a chief executive standing side by side in joint decisions. It too often appears to be the case that the trust, in its regulatory role, is standing to one side from the corporation. At the time, we strongly proposed what had been proposed but were told it was non negotiable. The Government said that it was a unique arrangement but the BBC was a unique organisation, and that was that. The truth, of course, is that this is a shambolic compromise as a direct result of the Government’s dispute with the BBC on its early coverage of the Iraq war—a questioning which, frankly, looks nearer the mark with every witness that appears before the Iraq inquiry. I was critical of the Secretary of State at the beginning of my remarks but I certainly give him credit for having recognised the truth. His view was given in a speech to the Royal Television Society in September. He said that he was concerned about the regulatory structure of the BBC and that the trust was, ""not a sustainable model in the long term"." He added: ""I know of no other area of public life where—as is the case with the Trust—the same body is both regulator and cheer leader"." So, there we have it: four or five years after the Government introduced this eccentric system, they admit that it does not work. But the question for the Government now is what they propose instead. They have a corporate organisation in which they have no confidence. It would be utterly wrong for them to allow it to struggle on in this way; the BBC is too important for that. I accept that making changes is difficult under the royal charter process that the Government have chosen to follow. Again, I have to say that it was not the process that the Select Committee advised them to follow. We said that the BBC should be set up on a statutory basis, allowing changes to be made in it, but that was overridden again by the Government. Therefore, as far as the incoming Government after the election are concerned, this is unfinished business. We should not be overinfluenced by Michael Grade’s opposition to any change, as set out in his article in Financial Times yesterday. He of course was responsible for negotiating this defective arrangement. He may want to go down saluting at the mast, but that is no reason why the rest of us should be dragged down at the same time. My final major point is about the wider role of the BBC. It is a massive media player in the United Kingdom. By partnerships with other players, such as in sharing costs, it can make a big contribution. However, it is very good at talking the talk about partnership. I am struck by the number of witnesses who say in evidence to the Select Committee that, in practice, it is nothing like as successful as that. As a big media company, it must be careful not to crowd out the efforts of smaller companies in the United Kingdom—that is important, too. However, the argument does not go all one way. It is often not the smaller companies which complain but some very big competitors. We should recognise that there are some very determined opponents of the BBC out there who would like nothing better than a diminished corporation, which may not be in the public interest. The future of the BBC also affects many other people who are not employed on the permanent payroll: directors, actors, writers, musicians and entertainers. If dramas, for example, can be sold overseas, that is good for the BBC and for the companies which have made them. That is the role of BBC Worldwide, one of the corporation’s undoubtedly successful companies. It sells around the world, and its aim is to create value from BBC content. Its values are BBC values, and it provides very good value for licence-fee payers. It has an annual revenue of more than £1 billion and it makes profits for the BBC of more than £150 million. How far do we want this BBC company to go? Your Lordships may have seen a press release from the BBC Trust last week on future policy here. The flavour is given by its headline: ""Trust announces new limits to Worldwide activity"." What other corporation would take pride in being able to boast that its highly successful commercial subsidiary was aiming to limit profit and activity? I would put it rather differently from the trust. We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The British film industry’s prosperity was much limited by distribution being in the hands of the big United States studios. With television, BBC Worldwide is already there; it is established; its reputation is well known. It needs the resources to grow further. Licence-fee money is limited and, in any event, this is a commercial activity best done with private sector resources. The opportunity is for a new company to be formed—a public/private partnership. There is no reason why other broadcasters should not take shareholdings in it. The BBC should be able to earn better profits from such a company and be a substantial beneficiary of any sale. The BBC should remember the opinion poll organised by the Department for Culture a few years ago which showed that 90 per cent of the public agreed with the proposition that the BBC should raise as much money as it could from selling its products and programmes overseas. That is the case particularly when that action would be to the direct benefit of the broadcasting industry generally and those who work in it. The opportunity here is to create a leading global media brand. The question is whether, in its international operations, BBC Worldwide can be freed to carry out even more entrepreneurial action. I know what their competitors would do given the same opportunity. It is something of an acid test for the BBC. Those of us who are supporters of it want to preserve its standards, but we also want it to take its chances. Here is a very big chance, and I very much hope that it takes it. I beg to move.