BBC White Paper
Debate between Huw Merriman and John Nicolson
John Nicolson
I thank the hon. Gentleman for teeing up the rest of my speech. This part is what is known as the opening paragraphs, where I say something nice before heading further south for a good kick where it is well deserved.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman refers to the Government creating some of the headlines in the right-wing press, as he put it. What logic would there be in doing so and then not delivering? It strikes me as completely illogical and therefore very unlikely that the Government would have put those points in the press.
John Nicolson
I am touched by the hon. Gentleman’s naiveté. Let me explain how the process works. Politicians sometimes talk to journalists. They say things that they do not want to be quoted as saying. The journalists then report that. If it floats, the politician then goes on the record; if it does not float, the politician backs away from it. That is generally the way it works. I would be happy to introduce the hon. Gentleman to journalists whom he might find useful in this regard over the coming months.
In the end—this is where I disagree to some extent with the Labour shadow Secretary of State—the White Paper is a relatively unambitious document. I suspect that that may well disappoint the Secretary of State, whom many think may have wanted a more radical legislative legacy.
There are a number of welcome proposals in the White Paper. I am far from a cheerleader for the BBC. The BBC does many things which are good, but it also—as we discovered in Scotland during the referendum, which I will touch on later—does many things which are much less good. We welcome the abolition of the BBC Trust and its replacement by a unitary board. However, like many members of the House, I am worried about the composition of the new board and its independence. How will non-executive members be chosen? Can we be certain that they will not be subject to party political pressure? We have had worrying indicators already.
The National Portrait Gallery in London was recently looking for a new trustee. The selection panel, in a blind sift, rejected all five of the Government’s preferred candidates. The Secretary of State then blithely dismissed the selection panel in its entirety and appointed a new one that pleased him rather more. I pressed him on that during his appearance at the Select Committee yesterday. He told me that the panel had been dismissed because of a technicality. Although he had not necessarily wanted to influence the selection board, he did want them to know who his preferred candidates were.
That is policy masquerading as process. I asked the Secretary of State what would happen at the BBC; specifically, would this happen at the BBC? It seemed obvious, from his reaction, that it would. I do not want independent selection panels for the BBC board to know who the Secretary of State’s preferred candidates are. I want the BBC board to be entirely independent of government. I am worried by the evidence the Secretary of State gave at our Committee yesterday, as anyone, across all parties in this House, who cares about the independence of the BBC should be.