BBC Commissioning: Oversight

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2023 Westminster Hall

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the oversight of BBC commissioning.

It is a joy to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I will start by using a number of quotes from the BBC that are directly relevant to the topic. On editorial integrity and independence, the BBC describes itself as

“independent of outside interests and arrangements that could undermine our editorial integrity. Our audiences should be confident that our decisions are not influenced by outside interests, political or commercial pressures, or any personal interests.”

On fairness, the BBC says:

“Our output will be based on fairness, openness, honesty and straight dealing.”

Finally, on transparency, the BBC says:

“We will be transparent about the nature and provenance of the content we offer online. Where appropriate, we will identify who has created it and will use labelling to help online users make informed decisions about the suitability of content for themselves and their children.”

Those principles have been burning issues at the heart of the BBC for several years. For example, the salaries of the BBC’s highly paid employees were a closely guarded secret for a long time. That was indefensible even if some of those employees were not questioning others who were also paid out of the public purse, but the double standards jumped out at the viewing and listening public when they regularly probed others yet hid behind BBC executive decisions when asked about their own salaries. That position was gradually worn down, and now there is an annual disclosure without the mass exodus of talent that the corporation had used as a defence when it resisted disclosure.

Now that one issue of transparency regarding directly paid salaries has been largely resolved, we have the overlapping issue of payments made by the corporation for the commissioning of contracts, particularly when contracts are awarded to private companies owned or partially owned by several BBC presenters.

There is one player on the Northern Ireland commissioning pitch whose commissions have been paid millions of pounds in revenue for years. It is now nearly 10 years since the company Third Street Studios first received commissions. Third Street Studios was owned entirely by a BBC presenter, Mr Stephen Nolan, until last year, when a leading bookmaker in Northern Ireland became a person with significant influence in the company. According to the Belfast Telegraph, Stephen Nolan

“transferred all shares in his production company to a firm solely controlled by bookmaker Paul McLean.”

The director general of the BBC has indicated that he is favour of all the outside interests of employees being made public. Why would money earned by an employee who also has his own company, which bids for and gets numerous commissions for programmes, not also be disclosed?

The issue of fairness is relevant here, as a number of companies from the independent sector make excellent and innovative programmes but find it difficult to compete when, as regularly happens, a highly paid BBC employee gets commissions and is then able to advertise them on their own BBC radio programmes. That obviously puts someone from the independent sector at a disadvantage when the next round of bidding for commissioned programmes begins. If the BBC insider, due to excessive advertising on their own behalf, can point to good audience figures and claim they are best positioned to get yet another contract, the independent sector is likely to lose out.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend my hon. Friend for securing this debate. In previous debates I have raised a number of issues that were slightly different but nonetheless important. Does my hon. Friend agree that although there seems to be an unending budget for investigatory programming, the programming for diversity—in the form of Ulster-Scots programming or Christian shows and episodes—has been cut back beyond recognition? A rebalance of interest needs to take place. Does my hon. Friend accept that point, to which I have brought his attention in the past?

[Mr Campbell]

Yes, indeed. There has to be diversity in the range of directions that the BBC gets involved in. It is equally important that when programmes of the type my hon. Friend mentioned are commissioned, there needs to be transparency in how they are contracted and shown.

I have raised these issues previously, in debates on transparency in 2017 and on commissioning in 2019. In between those debates, I met senior BBC executives in both Belfast and London. I also met senior executives from the Audit Office and Ofcom to try to ensure that matters would be thoroughly investigated. Movement either ground to a halt or went exceptionally slowly. I get the impression that, just like with the salaries escapade, the BBC feels that if it can grind the process down, the issue will eventually go away. It did not manage that with salaries, and I intend to ensure that it does not with the commissioning of contracts. It is important that licence fee payers can see how much has been earned, the process followed, and how it is discharged—with the responsibility of oversight being within the ambit of the BBC.

On transparency, I understand the arguments about the commercial sensitivity of contracts, but what can the commercial sensitivities possibly be many years after a commission is broadcast? Even the Government have moved from a 30-year rule to a 20-year rule on the publication of documentation, but the BBC still seems to live in an age in which it believes we should never know how much it costs the licence fee payer to fund such an outstanding series as “The Fall”, which was filmed in Belfast and funded in part by Invest NI and Northern Ireland Screen. Series three was commissioned by the controller of BBC 2.

“The Fall” was sold in over 200 countries: in the United States via Netflix; in Australia via BBC First; in Canada via Bravo; in Latin America via DirecTV; in Brazil; in the Republic via RTÉ; across Asia via Fox international channels; and with a multi-territory deal in Germany. It had all the hallmarks of a tremendously successful project funded by the licence fee payer and carried out by the BBC. Why, then, are the details not available, as they are for any other publicly funded project? The commission was broadcast seven years ago and we still do not know how it was done.

The simple message I have for the BBC and the Government today is that if public money is used, every effort should be made to ensure that there is integrity in the system for spending it. Secrecy leads to suspicion; if there is nothing to hide, there should be no secrecy.

I come now to employees’ declarations of interest. Previously, I raised a case in which a BBC journalist in Northern Ireland was involved in presenting an investigative programme that was critical of elements of policing. After the programme was aired, I discovered that several years earlier the same journalist had been a serving police officer. She had appeared in court, had been bound over to be of good behaviour, and had left the police shortly after. That was an obvious case in which a BBC executive should have taken a prior decision about the suitability of someone like that fronting a programme that was “critical of policing”.

Viewers were of course unaware, at the time of the broadcast, of the journalist’s previous history. I mention that because similar types of issues could well emerge if commissioned programmes were to deal with, for example, the topical matter of addictive gambling and Premier League football clubs, many of which have huge gambling companies as sponsors on their shirts. How would a conflict of interest be handled if such issues were to be dealt with by a company in which a leading bookmaker had a controlling interest?

I come now to integrity. During the summer recess I was given a large volume of disturbing internal BBC material, including some from human resources and some text messages between production teams. Most seriously, I received a disturbing and alarming piece of information. The public need to have confidence in the commissioning process, because some of the processes are worth hundreds of thousands—indeed, in some cases millions—of pounds. We have to have confidence in the BBC’s internal processes when projects are awarded.

I have been given an account of a BBC internal process: an interview for a highly sought-after job in the production team for “The Stephen Nolan Show”. For context, this was a widely listened-to radio show in Northern Ireland at the time, and to work on the programme was a highly prized and much sought-after position. Indeed, a number of notable people in the Northern Ireland media sector applied for the role. Only one person was successful, while at least 10 internal and external candidates lost out.

But the process was rigged. It was not fair and lacked integrity, because the unsuccessful applicants did not necessarily lose out because they were unprepared for the interview process. They lost out because, unlike with the winning candidate, the presenter did not ring them up and give them the interview questions in advance, nor were they treated to a nice meal by the presenter before the interview.

A former BBC employee is prepared to come before this House and testify in Committee that Stephen Nolan corrupted a BBC recruitment process by giving one applicant the interview questions in advance and coaching them on how they should answer questions. I can further inform Members that in October 2018 this former employee wrote to the then BBC Northern Ireland director, Mr Peter Johnston, and told him about the corruption of the process. He is unaware of any investigation or action. The alarming thing is that that same Mr Peter Johnston now leads the investigation into the complaints against Russell Brand here in London.

This is appalling. These are not the actions of what was once a proud bastion of truth and integrity, informing, educating and entertaining without fear or favour. Truth and integrity demand a thorough investigation, with Government Ministers telling the director general that he needs to act, and he needs to act now.