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Future of the BBC

My Lords, the Minister has done his best to defend the indefensible in the form of the Government’s arrangements. I admired the ingenuity of his argument, but we will come to that some other time. This has been an extremely good debate, and I thank everyone who has taken part in it. I thank the Front-Benchers, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, and my noble friend. I thank the right reverend Prelates the Bishop of Southwark and the Bishop of Liverpool, who both touched on religious broadcasting and "Thought for the Day". I always thought that the greatest achievement of my Select Committee on the charter was to get the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester and the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, to agree upon a final wording on that issue, and I have no intention whatever of reopening it with the Select Committee. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, who made an outstanding speech with which I agreed entirely. I thank my colleagues on the Select Committee, the noble Baronesses, Lady Howe and Lady Bonham-Carter, and the noble Lord, Lord Maxton. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, on the 16th anniversary of his maiden speech. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, who made a very thoughtful speech. I do not agree with her or the Minister about the charter. It is a straightforward deal between the Government and the BBC; it is totally undemocratic, and it is simply not as it has been described, particularly by the Minister. I have much more sympathy with what the noble Baroness said about the governance of the BBC, about complaints and, above all, about ageism in the BBC organisation. This has been an exceptional debate, with some extremely good contributions from all around the Back Benches. Motion agreed.