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Future of the BBC

My Lords, I join in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, for introducing this debate. I also thank him for his chairmanship of the Communications Committee. I have served under him on the previous and current BBC committees. We always get on but we do not always agree. However, I have always found his chairmanship even-handed, balanced, extremely useful and much better than a previous chairmanship under which I served when I was down the other end. I never knew that the House authorities had a sense of humour, but they obviously have in having me speak immediately after the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool, who has just spoken about religion on the BBC, because everybody knows that I take an almost diametrically opposite point of view from him on that matter. I am fascinated by the view of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester that there is religious broadcasting, and that everything else on the BBC is non-religious and, in a sense, anti-religious. It is a remarkable point of view. I hope he would accept that the rugby international at the national stadium in Wales is a religious broadcast because they all sing "Bread of Heaven" at some point or other. I do not agree with my noble friend Lord Harrison when he says that we ought to have humanists on "Thought for the Day" in the morning. I do not think that we ought to have "Thought for the Day" at all—not that we ought to introduce something else into it, but that we should not have it at all. I have been a strong supporter of the BBC ever since I entered politics, and certainly since I became a member of the national heritage Select Committee—as it was then—in the other House, which became the Culture, Media and Sport Committee. I have supported it to the extent that when the Select Committee, under the chairmanship of Gerald Kaufman, introduced a report which was highly critical of the BBC, and almost suggested that it ought to be abolished, I wrote, and had published, a minority report. I remain a strong supporter of the BBC. It may be that this is my old-style socialism coming out, but I actually believe in nationalised industries and that they should have rights over those that are not part of the nationalised industries. The BBC creates high-quality broadcasts and programmes, not just public-service broadcasts or stuff which the cultural elite think is good, but it produces quality. Radio 1 is a high-quality radio station, because it allows high-quality and new pop music to be played in a way that is not necessarily the case with other commercial radio stations that play pop. "EastEnders", the BBC’s most popular programme, and "Coronation Street" on the other side, compete for the most viewers, but in terms of production values "EastEnders" wins hands down almost every time. The BBC is a high-quality producer and should remain so. It has moved into digital broadcasting. I do not watch BBC Three and, therefore, I should not comment on what the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, said about it. However, I watch BBC Four, which produces excellent programmes, not only on jazz music for older people such as me, but across a range of other areas. I should pay tribute to our colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Birt, for the BBC’s innovations on the web. When I want to see what is happening in the news, when I sit in front of my computer, I do not turn to Google or anywhere else, I go straight to the BBC website. Although I am down here, I live in Scotland—the SSRB may wish to take note of that. When I want Scottish news, I look at the Scottish BBC website to see what is happening. The noble Lord, Lord Birt, is to be complimented, because he introduced the BBC website. The BBC continues to be an innovator on the web. I hope that many noble Lords have seen the BBC’s recent website innovation Democracy Live, which allows you to watch this House, the House of Commons, the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the European Parliament live or on video. That is an important innovation. It may be only for anoraks such as me, and political anoraks in particular, but it is well worth having. BBC iPlayer has been a great innovation. I have some reservations about it, because I wish we would be allowed a slightly longer period in which to watch programmes, and I hope that the BBC will persuade Virgin Trains to allow us to watch it on the train. You cannot do that at the moment. What has been done on the BBC website should not be curtailed for commercial reasons by any party which comes into government. There are those who say that Rupert Murdoch transferred his support from this side to that side because he believes cynically that the party opposite will curtail the BBC’s websites and allow him to charge for the Times and his other newspapers on the web. If that is the case—and I hope that the Conservative spokesman who is to reply will take the opportunity to say that it is not—it would be a most cynical act. We certainly cannot allow that to happen. The BBC should be allowed to continue to develop its websites. I have two further points. I entirely agree with those who have suggested, because it is a publicly funded body, that freedom of information legislation should cover all aspects of the BBC. We should be able to find out exactly what is going on, not just because the BBC is publicly funded, but because it is an important part of the democratic process in this country. For that reason alone, we ought to open it up. In my view, we should open up the whole media to that scrutiny, because they play an important part in our democratic processes. I have some reservations about some of the news coverage on the BBC. I absolutely accept that it is not biased in favour of any particular party. However, there are occasions, when, in my view, it is anti-politics and that pervades a large amount of the BBC output. There is almost an element of sneering at politicians and at those who are part of the political process. Even this morning, in a report on Prime Minister's Questions, there was the throwaway line: "All the Labour Back-Benchers cheered at that but they would, wouldn't they, they don't get out very much". That was unnecessary and it was a smear. I hope that the BBC will look at that. One last, slightly jokey point is that a great advantage with the BBC is that throughout all its coverage, on television, radio and everywhere, there are no adverts. Your listening and watching are not interrupted by adverts. I fully support the BBC. I believe it should continue and it will continue in the longer term as a producer of high-quality programmes for what I constantly call the narrow-casting age and not the broadcasting age.