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Future of the BBC

My Lords, I join in thanking my noble friend Lord Fowler for introducing this debate. Two main issues when considering the future of the BBC are content and how far the activities of the BBC should be extended beyond its historical television role. Where content is concerned, is the justification for the BBC and the licence fee—which, when all is said and done, is a tax on watching television—that the BBC will produce higher-quality television and make programmes that might not otherwise be made? If that is the case, it calls into question the reason given by the BBC when accused of going downmarket and producing populist programmes: that these programmes are what the public want. Of course, there must be programmes that appeal to the public but it is difficult to see the justification in the BBC using taxpayers’ money to provide more than a minimal amount of the sort of popular programmes that can be provided by commercial stations at no cost to the taxpayer, especially when there are so many superbly good things that the BBC has done and which it has made its own. When considering what the content should be, it would be hard to improve on the recommendation by the Select Committee on Communications, of which my noble friend Lord Fowler is chairman, which reflects the definition contained in the Communications Act 2003. The committee recommends the provision of, ""core elements including national and regional news, current affairs programmes, the arts, children’s programming, programmes dealing with religion and other beliefs and UK content"." The BBC should not use taxpayers’ money to compete in the commercial arena against companies which do not have the luxury of large streams of cash, on which no return has to be given to shareholders or interest paid to banks. Purchases such as the Lonely Planet only go to show how far the BBC has strayed from its core brief. The size and scope of the BBC has come under increasing criticism recently—justifiably so. It would make sense, in the use of taxpayers’ money and to avoid abuse of its position and deflect criticism, for the BBC to restrict itself to promoting and reusing its existing television and radio material, including its online news content, in such a way that it does not abuse its privileged position or, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, put it, trample on others, rather than full-bloodedly trying to create new content for other kinds of media. The noble Lord, Lord Maxton, asked this side to comment on Rupert Murdoch. My comment is this. It is inconceivable that the noble Lord’s proposition is correct. If he seeks a reason for the change of loyalty by the Sun newspaper, he has only to look at the sorry state of so many things in this country brought about by the present Government to easily understand why that newspaper should change its allegiance. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, appreciates this. We on these Benches are against the use of the BBC licence fee to help fund independently financed news consortia, as was touched on yesterday in the debate on the Digital Economy Bill. If it provided the finance, the state would end up being the ultimate provider of news. While I am sure that no Government, even the present one, would abuse this position, it is a dangerous path to go down. In a world where spin has become a way of life, it might be too much of a temptation for some future Government to try to become the piper calling the tune. Also, it would always be a temptation to an organisation seeking funds to slant news content in the direction it thinks the paymaster would like, even if no such indication had been either given or implied.