Chris Bryant
Main Page: Chris Bryant (Labour - Rhondda)
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for foresight of his statement, which he very honourably gave us one full hour before he stood up. That is right. It is not what some other Ministers have done in recent years, so I am grateful to him.
The BBC is our cultural NHS. It is a beacon of accuracy and impartiality around the world. It is not just part of the national furniture; it is our greatest cultural institution. It is a miracle of constitutional engineering: independent of Government, yet funded by the public. It is the cornerstone of our creative industries, earning respect and money for Britain and British values. As the Secretary of State said, it drives up standards and boosts investment. The public love it and want it to inform, educate and entertain—and yes, that includes making “Strictly”, “Top Gear”, “The Voice”, “The Great British Bake Off” and big British sporting events on BBC Sport.
That is why the Government’s attitude to the BBC rather mystifies me. The Secretary of State says that we should consider the matter of universality—the universality of the BBC. But surely the golden thread that runs through the concept of the BBC is that we all pay in and we should all get something out, including my constituents as well as his—those who like opera and those who like soap opera. He seems to accept that the licence fee should remain in place for the full period of the next charter. That is what I understood him to say. Can he confirm that clearly now? When will he close the iPlayer loophole, which he referred to last week, and what legislative method will he use?
Referring to the promised £145.50 plus CPI interest rate increase in the licence fee, the chair of the BBC Trust said:
“The word of a chancellor and a secretary of state you should be able to trust”,
but the Secretary of State seems to cast doubt today on that deal. So what is it, deal or no deal? Will it be £145.50 plus CPI interest rate or not? [Laughter.] I am glad the Secretary of State liked that one.
The Secretary of State says that the funding of S4C was protected in the previous charter period. That is not the view of anybody in Wales. It was not. It has actually been cut by one third since 2010, and he has just suggested that the further 20% cut to the BBC will mean a similar shrinkage to S4C. The proposal is barely mentioned in the Green Paper, so I presume that he is not really looking at it with any seriousness. Will he consult the Welsh Government and the Welsh people on the future of S4C and make sure that its future is as guaranteed as that of the BBC?
The Green Paper asks whether the BBC should still broadcast Radio 1 and Radio 2. Where is the audience demand for that? Are people shouting: “What do we not want?”, “We don’t want Radio 2”, and “When do we not want it?”, “Now”? Of course they are not. Radio 1 and Radio 2 are the most popular radio stations in Europe. Why on earth is the Secretary of State even considering closing them down?
The Secretary of State says the review will look at the “scale”—his words—of the BBC, a point repeated on page 4 of the Green Paper. Will he confirm that this is in direct contradiction to the recent negotiations with the BBC, when he said he would look not at the scale of the BBC, only at the purposes of the BBC? Is his real aim a smaller BBC? [Interruption.] I see the Minister for Culture and the Digital Economy nodding his head that it is his aim. I ask, because many will be worried that this is just what The Daily Telegraph predicted on 12 May, when it reported, “Tories go to war with the BBC”, because the Prime Minister was infuriated with its election coverage. Would it not be profoundly unpatriotic to seek to diminish the BBC and thereby diminish Britain? Has any Member ever met a foreigner who has said, “You know what? I love Britain, I just hate the BBC”?
Chris Bryant
You go on the wrong holidays! [Interruption.] Yes, probably in Russia—or Italy under Berlusconi.
There are some things that we can agree on. The BBC always needs reform. The trust is bust. These three weeks prove it. Either the chair lip-syncs the director-general or, frankly, she undermines him. Whatever the new structure—and I favour a unitary executive board with the primary regulatory role being met by a board of Ofcom—the next charter must ensure that the Chancellor’s backroom, gun-to-the-head way of doing Government business with the BBC can never be repeated. The BBC is not a Government plaything, nor should it be a branch of the Department for Work and Pensions. It belongs to licence fee payers, and the public should have a say in its future, as the Secretary of State himself wrote earlier this year. Will he make sure that that is the case in future?
This process has been utterly shabby from the outset. Since the Secretary of State stood at the Dispatch Box last week, he and his Department have breached the ministerial code: they gave the precise details of his plans to The Sunday Times last weekend; they issued a press release on Sunday morning laying out the membership of a new panel, which he has not even bothered to mention today; and they leaked the substance of and direct quotations from the Perry report to the Daily Mail yesterday. That means he has not just let you down, Mr Speaker, he has not just let the House down, but frankly he has let himself down. I would be angry, but I am just disappointed. Who briefed The Sunday Times and the Daily Mail? Was it a special adviser or a civil servant? Did the Secretary of State authorise the briefings? If not, has the relevant person been dismissed?
That brings me to the panel the Secretary of State has set up. They may all be talented and clever, but what process did he use to select the membership? It certainly was not the Code of Practice for Ministerial Appointments to Public Bodies. Did he just get out his Rolodex and invite along all the people he had dinner with sometime last year? Most of the panel members have a direct financial interest and a conflict of interest with the BBC. The panel is to look at the BBC as a news provider and consider whether it should provide Radio 1 and Radio 2, yet three panel members run internet companies, another was managing director of a radio station, one runs the Arts Council and is, therefore, effectively a Government employee, and another runs a newspaper group. All of them are in direct competition with the BBC. How can they possibly be independent? Like Blofeld in “You Only Live Twice”, the Secretary of State has lined up a tank of piranhas, but he has not quite reckoned with the ingenuity of M and Bond in the shape of Judi Dench and Daniel Craig, who lined up to attack him yesterday.
On BBC Worldwide, which the Secretary of Sate referred to in his statement, is he considering selling it off? On decriminalisation of non-payment of the licence fee, the Daily Mail said yesterday that the Perry report declares that it is “crystal clear” that the system should remain as it is. Is that an accurate quotation? The Secretary of State was very opaque on his plans, but will he follow the advice of the Perry report or not?
The whole point of the BBC is that politicians should meddle with it only on very rare occasions. Yes, it is accountable to the public through Parliament and, yes, the charter renewal process gives Ministers a moment of great power over the corporation. But I urge the Secretary of State to curb his self-confessed inner free-market zealotry. With power comes responsibility. I will stand with him if he genuinely wants to strengthen the BBC, but, where he acts to undermine it or diminish it, I and Opposition Members will oppose him every step of the way.
Mr Whittingdale
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his recognition of our wish to co-operate with him by supplying the statement in advance. It is my intention that his party should have the opportunity to play a full role in what I hope is, as I said, a debate about the future of the BBC. I agree with many of his opening remarks about the importance of the BBC; indeed, they very much reflect my own. I share his admiration for many of the programmes that he mentioned. Even if I wanted to close down “Strictly Come Dancing”, which I do not, it would be completely wrong for the Government to decide which programmes the BBC should and should not make. It is, however, perfectly legitimate to ask that BBC programmes be distinct—that is part of the BBC’s overriding purpose and an aspect that we will consider—but the charter review is not about specific programmes, however much certain newspaper writers would like to think it is.
On the hon. Gentleman’s specific questions, we have made it clear that the licence fee is frozen under the terms of the current charter. During the future charter period, it will not be possible to move towards a subscription model, or something like that, in the short term because the technology is not there, but we will consider whether in the coming charter we should examine how it might become an option in the future; but that is an open question. The other issue he raised, which is a more immediate challenge, was the iPlayer loophole. It is our intention to try to close that in the next year, and we will introduce legislative proposals to do so.
On the agreement with the BBC over the future rise in the licence fee, the words I used in my statement were precisely the words set out not only in my answer to the hon. Gentleman’s urgent question last week, but also in the letter sent to the director-general of the BBC. It hardly represents reneging on an agreement, when all we have done is re-quote what was in the letter.
On S4C, we have made it clear that we will consult the Welsh Government—and indeed the Scottish and Northern Irish Governments—during the charter review, although the question of funding for S4C is a distinct matter that will obviously be considered during the spending review and other things. Having said that, we will, as part of the charter review, be considering the BBC’s involvement in supporting and funding S4C.
On Radio 1 and 2, which the hon. Gentleman got very excited about, I certainly think there is a strong role for BBC Radio in providing a different type of genre and opportunity, including for unsigned bands, which would not have the same opportunity in the commercial sector. Radio 1 plays a valuable role in fulfilling that objective, and there is no proposal to close Radio 1 or 2. All these things are part of the wider debate about the BBC’s place in the broadcasting landscape, and however much people might wish the statement to contain details of exactly what the Government wish to do, it does not; it is part of a debate, and that applies as well to the question of scale and scope.
The hon. Gentleman asked if I was considering scope. We are considering it; it would be extraordinary not to, given the amazing change that has taken place and the proliferation of choice over the past 10 years. The question of whether the BBC still needs to do everything it set out to do 10 years ago seems to me to be a legitimate question. I am grateful, however, for his support on the reform of governance arrangements. I am interested that he has reached a conclusion, even if we are still open-minded about it, but I look forward to his giving greater details during the charter review.
The hon. Gentleman was very critical about the funding arrangements that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor and I agreed with the BBC, but I would draw his attention to the remarks of his colleague, the shadow Chancellor, who said:
“All public institutions including the BBC I think have to do their part. We have always said that sensible savings at this time are really important and I don’t think the BBC can be excluded from that.”
As for the hon. Gentleman’s claimed breaches of the ministerial code, I have to say that I am not responsible for what appears in The Sunday Times, the Daily Mail or any of the other newspapers, some of whose accounts of what is in the charter review process appear to be entrants for the Booker prize for fiction. On the advisory panel, I merely say that it is not a public body, but a group of individuals, each of whom has considerable experience and knowledge in their particular fields, and they are there to provide advice, nothing more.
Finally, the hon. Gentleman said that the BBC was very precious and that we should only meddle with it on rare occasions. I think that a charter review that comes around once every 10 years probably meets the definition of a rare occasion, and it is entirely appropriate, given that the charter expires at the end of next year, that we take this opportunity to have the very full debate I have set out today.