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Future of the BBC

My Lords, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, what must have been said to him 16 years ago: I hope we will hear much more from you in the future. It is only 14 years since I first addressed the House. At that time I was being mentored on the BBC by Lord Thomson of Monifieth. I remember that in those early debates I had to fight off Lord Orr-Ewing and the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, who had a group that met regularly and believed that the BBC was a leftist conspiracy which had to be attacked. It is a great pleasure to say that the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, has been a notable exception to that. He is in a tradition of which the Conservative Party can be proud in the initiatives it has taken over 80 years to sustain and provide public service broadcasting in this country. I also take pride in the success that the noble Lord has made of the Select Committee. As the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, said, it took a little while to persuade the powers that be to have such a committee on communications, but it has been a success under his stewardship. I put down a marker to noble Lords. We must ensure that the committee is reappointed at the beginning of the next Parliament because, as this debate has so clearly illustrated, there will be a big agenda of work for such a committee in the new Parliament. We have covered a great deal today. On the BBC Trust, I would just say to the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, that I did not see all that much which the governors had got wrong in the previous 80 years to justify having this creature thrust upon us. But whatever comes next, I hope we can have some kind of all-party consensus which gives it some long- term prospects. This debate is really a continuation of yesterday’s debate on digital Britain. There are obviously discussions outside this House between those who see the BBC as key to a successful digital Britain and those who see this as an opportunity to marginalise it and cut it down to size. Indeed, although it is difficult, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool said, to predict the future, the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, gave us some clues yesterday. He did not name names but he spoke about media moguls who, ""want to commandeer more space and income for themselves … because they want to maintain their iron grip on pay-tv … They also want to erode the commitment to impartiality—in other words, to fill British airwaves with more Fox-style news. They believe that profit alone should drive the gathering and circulation of news".—[Official Report, 2/12/09; col. 747.]" The noble Lord did not name names, but I notice that today's media have leapt to the conclusion that he meant Mr Murdoch and son. If he did, it shows the remarkable chutzpah of the noble Lord because, as the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, mentioned yesterday, it was he who dispatched Mr Blair halfway round the world to kiss hands with Mr Murdoch—I think that is what he kissed, anyway—before the 1997 election. As has been mentioned today, this Government have a sorry record of attempting to bully and intimidate the BBC during their term of office. I ask both sides of the House when they will learn that Mr Murdoch does not create winners; he follows them. He has ditched Labour because he thinks it will lose, and he has switched to the Conservatives because he thinks that they can deliver. Clearly the Conservatives think that decisions on broadcasting are being made elsewhere, because not many of them are here today to listen to the debate. I make no complaint about Mr Murdoch; I simply want our politicians to defend the public interest with the assiduity with which he defends his shareholders’ interests. The noble Lord, Lord Maxton, speculated on whether there has been some Faustian pact with the Conservative Party on the future of the BBC. Unless such attacks have been spelled out in detail in the Government’s manifesto, and unless the matter is thoroughly debated in the general election campaign to come, I hope they will not claim any Salisbury convention to see such attacks on the BBC go through this House, should they by any chance be in government after the next general election. Vague words in an election manifesto do not give them the mandate to dismantle something that, as has been said time and time again, has been an important part of our politics, culture and social cohesion over 80 years. In that respect, I hope that we can look to the coming debate on the BBC with an eye not to commercial interests outside but to the fact that this Parliament of ours, with the will of the people, has for more than 80 years willingly distorted the market to make the BBC the iron pole of quality and, in the old Reithian terms, to educate, inform and entertain the whole nation. The BBC has delivered that in spades, which is why the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark and the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, emphasised the importance of the charter and the licence fee as key to keeping that commitment going. The BBC must be careful not to crowd out commercial radio. It is powerful and it could become a monopoly provider, particularly locally and regionally. Indeed, both the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, and the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, warned of the danger of the BBC getting into monopoly positions in various sectors or in regions and localities. I agree with the praise heaped on the World Service by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark and the noble Lord, Lord Bragg. I give only one warning. We are entering a time of austerity. Whenever the budgets of my old friends in the Foreign Office are under attack, they often find it convenient to send the dear old World Service budget to the Treasury as a kind of sacrificial lamb, saying, "You want cuts. Well, here you are", and they take a great hack at the World Service. They have done it before and I warn the House that they will try to do it again. I am pleased that my noble friend Lady Bonham-Carter and the noble Lords, Lord Maxton and Lord Haskel, all drew attention to online services. What Mr Murdoch is proposing is what I pay for and get through my licence fee: the excellent online services of the BBC. He proposes that that should be stopped so that he can make me pay for his online services at the Times. I get the news service that I want. I do not get it for free; I pay for it through the licence fee and I should be able to continue to do that. I think that we are in dangerous territory. There is no doubt that powerful forces want to damage the BBC at this time, but one thing that Tessa Jowell said during her period of responsibility was very true: she described the licence fee as venture capital for our creative industries. The contribution on the cultural and creative side is important, as well as what the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, described as the ability to talk to ourselves and to the world with the distinctive voice that the BBC gives us. The noble Lord, Lord Sheldon, once described the great gifts in Britain of the 20th to 21st centuries as being our impartial Civil Service and the BBC. The BBC is still a great gift that we should all work to protect and cherish. It has its critics and its failures, and some of those criticisms have been made today, but it is something well worth defending. As I have said to both sides of the House, if defending it needs, defend it we will.