Televised Election Debates

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Drew), I originally turned up to listen to the debate and possibly to make an intervention, but I will follow the excellent speech by the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone). I start with two disappointments. One is that there are not more right hon. and hon. Members present. This is an important issue; I can guarantee that every Member of Parliament has a view about how debates on television and in the media should be conducted during a general election. It is a disappointment that more people have not turned up. It is disrespectful to the 130,000 people who petitioned for the debate and it does not do justice to the importance of the issue.

My second disappointment is that the three hon. Members who spoke before me all came to the conclusion that we need a quango to regulate debates. Reluctantly, I agree with them. As we do not have a written constitution, it has the merit of being flexible; when the world changes, the processes within this place and electorally change. If people were acting with democratic spirit and good will, and as television and the media have developed, one would have expected politicians and political parties to have responded to that by enabling people to benefit from having the debate broadcast on television in their front rooms. That has not happened for the reasons stated explicitly by the hon. Member for Wellingborough. When Leaders of the Opposition are massively ahead in the opinion polls, they do not want a debate. Why would they risk hitting a banana skin? When Prime Ministers are in No. 10 and ahead in the opinion polls, they want to avoid exactly the same banana skin. Therefore, I think we need a regulatory body.

My heart sank when the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) went through the list of the great and the good who would have to serve on a quango to regulate television debates—judges and other people. Sadly, we have developed a population of quangocrats who serve on many quangos, scratch each other’s backs and move from one quango to another. That means that sometimes we do not get the breadth and the quality in those organisations that we should. I make a partisan point here, from the position I have taken on the Brexit debate. It is extraordinary that the total membership of the Electoral Commission are remainers. The difficult problem in setting up any quango is not going to the pool of people who have made themselves available to serve—often public spiritedly; I do not want to be too mean—as it is a closed group. Reluctantly, I think we have to have a body that will consider the complicated issues involved, but I hope it is not the list that was given by the able motivator of the motion, the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay.

It is important that we have televised debates or discussions set up, in whatever form, because sometimes we do not state the blindingly obvious: that debate is at the core of democracy and our society. We need to have that debate in as many forums as we can. When the BBC was the monopoly broadcaster in the 1950s, it might have been sensible to just have the debate on the BBC, but now we have a range of social media and different television broadcasters, including access to television stations from around the world, as well as traditional print media. We need to ensure that there is regulation on television, which is where most people look for discussion during a general election. The viewing figures for the debates in 2010 were immense. However much Cleggmania we had in that election—and I got worried looking at the figures because it seemed that the Lib Dems were going to get a huge number of votes in my constituency, but I went out every day and I suppose I must have knocked on a Lib Dem door, but nobody admitted to it through the whole campaign—those debates were important, as the people and leaders challenged each other, but I do not think they changed very much.

That has been the case in many elections. I remember the opinion polls ticking over on the bottom of the Sky television screen in the 1997 election, barely shifting half a point during the whole election. We live in a time where the world is changing and politics are more fluid than they have ever been. We need a response to that. It would be the difficult job of a regulatory body to balance up the major parties and who would be invited. It is said, rather glibly, that only the leaders of the parties that are likely to provide the Prime Minister should be there. If we looked at the experience in Canada, the people who were going to be Prime Minister before the election eight or nine years ago were not elected. One of the major parties got 2%. There have been major changes in European Union countries. Parties that were permanently in the ascendency, such as the Social Democrats in Sweden, are now minor parties. Sometimes these changes happen very quickly. There has never been a more intense time for debate.

It is going to be a difficult job for any regulatory body that is set up, but I think it is vital. It is not just that there are a lot of different outlets for information nowadays. We have coined the phrase “fake news” for a lot of the information that has been used in elections and referendums, because of the internet. One of the great things about a debate is the ability to challenge lies. In the old cliché, if you keep on telling lies I will keep on telling the truth. That is the purpose of debate.

People have complained about the referendum—about whether certain facts were facts—but it is the purpose of debate to expose such things. What better place than on television, with a huge audience, to get those issues out? I do not think that the 2010 election was affected by the television debates, but I believe that the 2017 election was massively affected by the debates, quite simply because the Prime Minister did not have the courage to debate. She would not put the case for the Conservative party, which went from having a large lead in the opinion polls to not being able to form a majority Government. If anyone doubts the power of the debate, I think the television companies were right to empty-seat the Prime Minister and go ahead without her. It was a bit strange, and it looked a bit strange, but it exposed the fact that the leader of one of our major parties was unprepared to get up and defend its position.

I have another example of the positive side of television debate and discussion, although not in a formal leaders’ debate. It certainly affected me when I saw how important it was. Hon. Members will remember the rise of the British National party. It did not rise to a significant extent, but it looked as if it was making progress when it was led by the bottom-feeder Nick Griffin. On the evening when he went on “Question Time” I was in someone’s front room talking about pavements and street lighting. At the end of the meeting they said to me, “Are you going to go and buy a bottle of wine?” I thought, “What do these people know about my drinking habits? That’s a bit strange,” but every single one of those people, living in terraced houses in north Manchester, was going back to watch Nick Griffin and Jack Straw, and the other party people on “Question Time”. Griffin was destroyed and the BNP fell apart. That is the power of debate, and however complicated it is to deal with parties that have significant support with no representation, and those such as the Scottish National party and Plaid Cymru whose primary objective is to get out of this place, and who do not want their leader to be Prime Minister but who clearly have a significant democratic impact in the whole United Kingdom, we should do what we can to facilitate those positions.

I could go on speaking about this issue, which is an important one, on which we should be giving support. Having heard what the hon. Member for Wellingborough said, I wish him well with his Bill. It may need some tweaks. However, the whole of the House of Commons and House of Lords should get together, because when we are away from elections we all believe in debate. It is only vested interest, when we think we can grab an election without debating, that stops it happening. I did not intend to speak, but the debate is a good one, and it is a shame more people are not here. Sky is to be congratulated, as are the people who signed the petition, on stimulating the discussion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Heaton-Jones]

I do not see that that would be enforceable, although I take my hon. Friend’s point that it would probably be outrageous not to take part so far as electoral ambition was concerned. The point was made eloquently earlier that there is some sign that not taking part in a debate probably does not do a leader any good, but I still stick to the point that I am not clear how one would force a party leader to take part in such an event. I am not convinced that the petition is calling for something that could be delivered in reality.

Generally speaking, although I have said clearly that I welcome any moves to make the democratic process more accessible to our constituents, I am not convinced that TV debates are the way to do that. They have not historically been part of our democratic process. Other hon. Members have said this, so I will not develop the point at length unnecessarily, but only in 2010 did the first leaders’ election debates occur.

We spoke earlier about the figures and, using the wonders of new technology, I have the figures for the 2010 debates here. They are substantial viewing figures, it is true. For the first debate, hosted by ITV, 9.9 million viewers watched. The second debate, hosted by Sky News, had 4.2 million viewers and the third, hosted by my former employer the BBC, had 8.6 million. Those numbers are not insubstantial, but nor are they massive. For comparison’s sake, about two weeks ago on Christmas day, “Call the Midwife” was watched by 8.7 million people.

The broadcasters shot themselves in the foot somewhat after 2010 by trying to make the point that if we added up those three figures, a total of 22.7 million people watched the debates. That is a bit like saying that, because I am speaking in this debate in this Chamber and I also hope to speak later in a debate in the main Chamber, somehow, miraculously, there are two of me. That is not what those viewing figures show at all, and the organisation Full Fact, whose website I have just accessed, makes that point as well. It is debatable how popular the debates are and how much they are relied on by members of the public to make their decisions.

We do not have a presidential system, as has been described. People may think we have moved towards one whether we like it or not, but constitutionally the voting public do not vote for a Prime Minister.

[Graham Stringer]

National elections, certainly for the parties that fight seats across the United Kingdom, are fought on the basis of manifestos. Would the hon. Gentleman like to compare the number of people who read our manifestos with the number of people who watched the television debates? He is absolutely right that these are not presidential debates, but the leaders put forward their manifestos.

[Peter Heaton-Jones]

It is true that manifestos, in my experience, will never make it to the top of the bestseller lists. However, although the hon. Gentleman makes a perfectly reasonable point, there are other ways than a televised leaders’ debate in which parties and party leaders can get their messages across and sell their manifestos, which I will come on to.

My main concern about party leaders’ debates is that they have a tendency to suck the oxygen out of the rest of the campaign, as was ably mentioned earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk. I take a rather old-fashioned view about this, and perhaps I am aiming for some sunlit uplands that have long since dissipated—if they ever existed in the first place—but I would quite like election campaigns to be about ideas and policies and ideologies. I do not want them to be about whether the Prime Minister was wearing kitten heels, whether the Leader of the Opposition was on the right or the left podium, what colour tie the leader of a third party might have been wearing or whether the TV host of that particular event did a good job, but that is what we will get if we have a campaign that is bookended by two election debates, perhaps a fortnight apart. The first week will be looking forward to debate No. 1, the second week will be looking back at debate No. 1, the third week will be looking forward to debate No. 2 and the fourth week will be looking back at debate No. 2. Where is the time within that actually to debate policies and ideas? The difficulty is that that is what we will end up with.

I speak with a little experience, having worked in politics not only in this country but in Australia, where I worked on election campaigns. There is a longer history there of leaders’ debates on television. I have to say that they are not hugely watched, but they happen, and the public expect them to happen. However, the entire election campaign tends to be about the debate and the process of the debate, rather than the ideas that might be discussed during it. My concern is that that is what we will end up with if we rely on debates as the means to get people interested in the democratic process.

I will move on briefly to the substance of the petition—setting up an independent debates commission. I have a great deal of sympathy with this idea. If there are to be leaders’ election debates, we absolutely have to end the current chaotic system of rival broadcasters jockeying for position, putting forward opposing ideas for formats, arguing about how high the podium will be and whether people will enter from stage left or stage right—and that before individual parties start to have their say.

One side will think that a particular format put forward by one broadcaster favours their man or woman, but the other party will says it prefers another format, so we will end up with either no debate or a month of ridiculous discussions about something that only a few nerds in politics and broadcasting are interested in, and once again we will get absolutely no further forward on discussing ideas and policies. I am not convinced that an independent debates commission would change any of that.

I am also not convinced that, even if a commission was set up with a great deal of legislative power behind it, it would be immune from the sort of pressure that is currently brought to bear on the broadcasters by the different party leaders, who each jockey for a different format. I am also not convinced that it would be immune from potential legal action.

The point was well made earlier about how to define a party leader. Someone could suddenly set themselves up as a party leader. Where would that leave us? Should we then say that only potential Prime Ministers may be allowed to take part? This is a very difficult circle to square, and I am not convinced that an independent debates commission would have any success in doing so. However, my overall view is that we are barking up the wrong tree.

I absolutely want more people to be involved in the democratic process—that is vital—and I could understand if we were having this discussion 20 or 30 years ago, but I think the boat has sailed on TV election debates and on expecting people to sit down at 9 o’clock on a random Tuesday evening to watch something on linear television, even though it will be repeated and watched on iPlayer, or the Sky version thereof.

TV debates feel like they are a bit old hat in 2019. There are many more ways through which we can and should encourage people to access the democratic process, as they are already doing. There are any number of social media platforms where, in my experience from the last general election, the real policy debates seem to happen. I am not sure that, in 2019, mandating a TV election debate in prime time is really looking forward at all; it is probably looking backwards.

I was much taken by the point made by the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew) about the need for our regional broadcasters to get more involved in the democratic process. That is absolutely crucial. I speak as someone who spent most of his career in regional broadcasting. In my area, BBC Spotlight and ITV News West Country do a very good job with their coverage of local politics, but maybe we ought to think about such outlets taking a greater role in ensuring that some of the issues are debated on a level more relevant to people in their constituencies.

I will not detain colleagues any longer. I understand the principle behind the petition, and I applaud Sky News for initiating it. I am not opposed to leaders’ debates per se, but I remain unconvinced that they are the way forward and I am utterly unconvinced that it is possible or desirable to make it mandatory that they happen. If there is an agreement that they should take place in the future, I absolutely see the argument in favour of a debates commission independently—that is the key word—to decide on their format and timing, taking those decisions out of the hands of the broadcasters and party leaders.

Overall, I do not believe that making debates mandatory is the way forward; I remain very uncomfortable with that. I applaud the Government’s response to the petition, which I assume the Minister is about to repeat, which is that they should not change the law in this direction.

--- Later in debate ---

[Graham Stringer]

Does the Minister not accept that we already discriminate in legislation—possibly in favour, possibly against, depending on one’s point of view—against electronic media? We demand that they provide a platform for party political broadcasts and that they balance the different views during a general election campaign, but we do not apply that to any other form of media. There is already that separation and it would not, therefore, be changing the legislative framework very much to say that a platform for debates should be provided.

[Chloe Smith]

I agree, and I disagree. I respect how the hon. Gentleman has tried to bring the point to bear, but the point of detail he has chosen is about how, when any one medium is used, impartiality within it is ensured. That is admirable, and that is where I agree with him, but where I disagree is regarding further entrenching the choice of any one medium over another.

I will put this in a generational sense for the hon. Gentleman: television broadcasters are quite simply losing favour with the younger generation as their source of news. Why should we legislate at this point for a medium that will not necessarily remain favoured among those who are, and those who will become, the voters in elections to come? I am happy to substantiate that.

On how news consumption is going in the UK, a report by Ofcom stated that in 2018 alone 52% of 16 to 24-year-olds used Facebook as their news source while only 39% used BBC1. The report found that people in that age group were more likely to get their news from social media posts than directly from news organisations. In the face of that technological shift, I remain unconvinced that the case is made for privileging a form that one might almost argue had its heyday with Richard Nixon in the last century. Why should we privilege that form? I say Nixon; as has already been covered, it was thought that Kennedy won the debate, but that is the very point. It is a matter of history, and if we legislate at all we ought to look to the future rather than the past.

I will incorporate at this point the parliamentary example that I think was provided by my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay. Here we stand today having a debate in Parliament—in itself a form of political debate, a form of debate on political policy—and we do not expect it to be covered only on the TV, although it will capably be, and I am glad for that.

I certainly support the use of TV in Parliament and the accountability that we can provide by being on camera as we do our work. However, we also expect social media to carry part of that weight, and we also might well expect that some people would prefer to read about our proceedings via the written word. All of those are valid ways for people to get their information, and we should not privilege one over another.

Fourthly, I wanted to bring together some points about implementation and refer to a few that have been made in the debate. First, the proposal would require primary legislation. The point has already been made that if we anticipate a general election as far away as 2022, which of course is the case, we have time to look at the issue and get it right. However, even with that timescale, there are other pressing priorities that the public ask us to address through legislation, and I suspect that they would prioritise them over this issue.