Future of the BBC

Debate between Cheryl Gillan and Baroness Jowell

Monday 21st October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Dame Tessa Jowell]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution; I hope that he will find some common cause with the point that I am about to develop.

The licence fee income that comes to the BBC is the public’s money and not public expenditure in the normal sense, so I argue that it should be dealt with differently. This is an opportunity to rehearse some of the often cited arguments, so I should also say that of course the BBC distorts the broadcasting market. However, it exists, by consent of the public, as a deliberate market intervention. When I was Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, I realised the importance, at a time of rapid innovation, of ensuring that the power of the BBC was not chilling in its effect on other areas of investment and innovation. We need constantly to keep a close eye on that issue.

I want to say a couple of things about the recent revelations. They are historical, but disturbing none the less. There was much in Lord Hall’s speech on strategy to be optimistic and enthusiastic about, but the BBC as an organisation has to be concerned about culture, as that will always trump strategy and undermine the ability to deliver a strategy aligned to the licence fee payer. There has to be a sense that the Augean stables have been cleaned out. Transparency and shining a bright light on such practices is one of the ways of doing that.

I turn briefly to the BBC Trust. There has been a profound misunderstanding about its role. The BBC Trust is the cheerleader not for the BBC, but for the licence fee payer. That places a different set of expectations and responsibilities on it. I want to set out some ways in which it might cheerlead in that way more effectively. As we move to charter review, which the Secretary of State will be thinking closely about, one of the big threats to the independence of the BBC is interference by Government—any Government. That is why the BBC must be structurally reinforced against the temptation of Governments to intervene and unduly influence it.

The public and licence fee payers should be in the driving seat. The argument is that the BBC should indeed be owned by its licence fee payers and should become the country’s biggest mutual. I do not want to take too much of the House’s time going through the detail of how that would work, although I have given a lot of thought to that. I offer the House this idea at a time of charter review to raise public confidence and create a firewall between the public interest and the Government of the day.

[Mrs Gillan]

The right hon. Lady has done considerable work on this subject. Does she therefore agree that it is highly dangerous even to consider giving devolved Administrations—another set of politicians—any role over the BBC? Has she had an opportunity to look at my earlier suggestion to my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) that we could extend the roles of the audience councils, particularly to something like Audience Council Wales, which represents the people who are speaking on behalf of the licence fee payers?

[Dame Tessa Jowell]

I will study the right hon. Lady’s proposals. Certainly audience councils are widely seen to be successful, but we have to recognise that their impact on the direction of the BBC executive has been minimal.

There is public concern about Government involvement compromising the independence of the BBC. I believe that there is public support for the kind of proposal that I am making, which would strengthen the Trust’s hand in relation to the executive and make it absolutely clear that the Trust is the cheerleader for the licence fee payer. There would have to be further public consultation. However, in the public consultation that I oversaw in the run-up to the current charter, it was absolutely clear that the public wanted a break from the BBC being run by the usual suspects from the establishment or governing classes, and we should respect and respond to that.

The second argument for mutualisation is that while members of the Trust continue to be appointed via DCMS, the question of independence from Government will remain. It is clear that the public greatly value the BBC’s reputation and its charter responsibility for accuracy and impartiality. Respondents to the 2005 pre-charter consultation welcomed the lack of advertising in BBC sport and drama and the fact that the BBC set the standards for other news programmes. Therefore, a stronger Trust, backed by licence fee payers’ support, could provide a greater bulwark against those who seek to put undue political influence on the BBC or cut corners under pressure from the rest of the broadcasting market.

The third reason—this addresses the point made by the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood)—is that it would give the public more of a say over programmes and direction. It is a simple principle that if we pay for the BBC, the institution should be more accountable to us. It is undoubtedly the case that following the Jimmy Savile scandal public trust in the BBC has dropped significantly. As Onora O’Neill remarked in the BBC Reith lecture on trust in 2002:

“Reasonably placed trust requires not only information about the proposals or undertaking that others put forward, but also information about those who put them forward.”

Again, that makes the case for building public confidence and public ownership through greater transparency.

I hope that this is a debate whose time has come. The BBC, along with most of our national institutions, is under scrutiny at the moment. What better opportunity and better time to think innovatively about how it can change, not just in response to crises such as Savile but in reflecting the shifting relationship between the citizen and the public service, with a stronger voice for those who pay and ultimately own their public broadcaster? Reith said that the role of the BBC was to “inform, educate and entertain”. I believe that only radical public ownership by the people of this country themselves will continue to ensure that those values are firmly embedded at the heart of the BBC and safeguard the BBC as a truly public institution for years to come.