Public Service Broadcasting (Communications and Digital Committee Report)

Lord Smith of Finsbury Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Smith of Finsbury (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, the report from the Select Committee on Communications and Digital is even more timely now than when it was published. It is wise and welcome. The noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, and members of the committee have done a brilliant job. We live in a world where there has been an explosion of competing, often inaccurate and untrusted news and information. Our public service broadcasters provide a rock of reality on which people can depend. As such, they provide a vital resource for us all.

Public service broadcasters’ mission, of course, is to inform, educate and entertain. By and large, they do all those things well. They provide impartial news and trusted coverage of great national events. They are the places people turn to for information at times of crisis—something we have seen clearly over the past year. They create wonderful, thoughtful and insightful programmes, from Kenneth Clark’s “Civilisation” more than 50 years ago to Simon Schama’s recent series on the Romantics. They give us bewitching drama that has the whole nation talking, whether “Downton Abbey”, “Line of Duty” or “It’s a Sin”. They exist, above all, as a benchmark of quality. They are, in fact, among the best broadcasters in the world. We damage or diminish them at our peril.

The committee identified a number of ways in which public service broadcasters’ value can be sustained and enhanced—for example, by extending the availability of major sporting events by enhancing the “crown jewels” list. I am sorry that the Government did not respond positively to that when they replied to the report. I hope that they will think again. Proposals also include: reinforcing the obligation for programmes, including series—not just one-off programmes—to be commissioned from outside London and other metropolitan areas; monitoring the diversity of commissioners; ensuring that licence fee funding is not siphoned off to yet more non programme-making purposes; a new independent process for setting the licence fee; and ensuring mandated prominence in programme guides, not just for the main PSBs but for their digital versions. All these are welcome proposals. I hope that the Government will take notice and implement them.

Much has been said and written during the past week, and, indeed, in this debate, about the BBC in the wake of the Dyson report. Let us be clear: the BBC failed, not only in allowing Martin Bashir to use fake documents and dishonesty to secure an interview but, above all, in not acknowledging the error when it investigated and knew about it. The BBC failed in its basic duty to be transparent. For all this, there is no excuse. Those are not the standards expected of and insisted on for a public service broadcaster.

What must not happen, however, is for this matter to be seized on by the enemies of the BBC to tear down its place in the life of the nation. The sight last weekend of the tabloid newspapers salivating over the BBC’s discomfiture was risible hypocrisy at its worst. Some spokespeople for the Government, though happily not all, have also leaped on an anti-BBC bandwagon. In that context, I worry that the Public Service Broadcasting Advisory Panel announced by the Government seems to have an agenda that is too sceptical about public service broadcasting. There have been some arguments that the BBC should be subjected to external control—even government-directed control. That would be an immensely dangerous road to take. The BBC is a public broadcaster; it is not a state broadcaster and must never become one. Genuine independence is crucial.

Over Bashir, the BBC got it badly wrong. It must be held to account for it by Ofcom, and I supported the shift in responsibility for oversight of the BBC to Ofcom when it happened. However, the role of the BBC, like that of the other public service broadcasters, must be sustained and supported. We need our public service broadcasters. They should be impartial, informative, trusted and creative. They should part of our national life that we can be proud of. The Government must ensure that the PSBs are not damaged. They are, quite simply, too valuable for us all.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Haskel) (Lab)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Hastings.

Data Protection Bill [HL]

Lord Smith of Finsbury Excerpts

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Monday 11th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Macdonald of River Glaven (LD)]

As the Minister knows, I put my name to the amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, to which this amendment is a response. I am grateful to the Minister for meeting a group of us to discuss this issue, for bringing forward this amendment, and particularly for the clear way in which she has indicated one of its purposes, which is that when universities are not acting in the public interest in the exercise of their official functions they will be permitted and empowered to rely upon the legitimate-interest condition, which was our original concern. I believe this amendment meets that concern, and I am very grateful.

[Lord Smith of Finsbury (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my interest as master of Pembroke College, Cambridge. I give a warm welcome to Amendments 3, 4 and 5, and I am grateful that Ministers have listened to the concerns of universities and colleges and very helpfully addressed them in these amendments. I know I speak also for the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, in this respect.

The two most important issues that have been of concern to universities and colleges have been, first, maintaining good relationships with alumni and the way in which that can lead to successful fundraising for universities and, secondly, the need constantly to improve what we do in outreach work to schools and the widening of participation from the broadest base of potential students to draw them into the best of our universities. In both these respects, relying on legitimate interests, as we do at the moment, is going to be extremely helpful. I very much hope that that is the Government’s understanding of the purpose and effect of the amendments.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I hope to be as brief as the Minister, who I thought was admirably so in introducing the government amendments. However, there are some issues that arise. I applaud the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, and others who have been so instrumental in persuading the Government on this. As the noble Lord, Lord Patel, indicated in various ways, there are ambiguities; the particular way in which the Government have chosen to amend the Bill potentially leaves a gap. I wonder, for instance, whether alumni fundraising for, say, a research institute can never be in the public interest. Is there not a possibility that it might fall outside the exemptions as a result? Perhaps the Minister can give me the correct interpretation. It is very important that this is on the record and that it is very clear what the formulation means. It would have been much more straightforward to have approached the subject directly in the Freedom of Information Act, but that is not the way the Government have chosen to help alumni fundraising in universities. In talking about universities, I should declare an interest as chairman of the council of Queen Mary University as well.

Another question arises. By and large there is nothing particularly controversial in the remainder of the amendments, but I do not quite understand why new Section 76C of the Freedom of Information Act, which was introduced in the original version of the Bill, is now being taken out by Amendment 198. Is it because Clause 127 already provides the necessary duty of confidentiality of information by the commissioner and employees of the Information Commissioner’s Office? The Minister might have given us a bit of explanation about that, which would have been extremely helpful.

Otherwise, many of the other provisions are welcome. Amendments 119, 182 and 197 demonstrate that it would be a good idea to have prompt enactment or implementation of legislation, so that weird and wonderful new clauses such as are introduced by those amendments would be unnecessary.