Broadcasting: Recent Developments

Lord McNally Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally (LD)]

My Lords, I suppose the usual sources will say, “Well, this is the House of Lords typically mumbling out its old prejudices”, but it has been very encouraging for me, as a long-time supporter of the BBC, to listen to those who have far more experience of it than I speaking with such passion today. I am very pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, and of course the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, who led us into this debate.

An old military adage is that you do not fight at the bottom of a hill where two maps join, but it seems that this particular charter debate is taking place in exactly that kind of position, because we are facing two challenges, both of which impact on the kind of public service broadcaster we require. One is a rather belated espousal by Ofcom of the need for media literacy, which certainly is necessary. It brings to mind the old Victorian comment, when education was expanded, that we must educate our masters. Faced with the revolution taking place in our media, there is a real need for an effective programme to enable all generations, particularly the younger generation, to have the equipment to deal with the media that is coming forward.

The noble Viscount, Lord Colville, was the first today to talk about the other revolution that is about to engulf us with artificial intelligence. Almost no news programme now takes place without one of the two sides of this story: either an amazing new breakthrough in medicine that will be enabled by artificial intelligence or some frightening interference in personal liberty or distortion of the news by the use of artificial intelligence. As a society, we will have to handle this, as has been indicated by a number of speakers. We will need the BBC and what it stands for more than ever in both managing media literacy and bringing artificial intelligence within the control of liberal democracies. When I started out in politics, we would have been sure that we could have got some UN charter to cover this generally, but now there will be competing legislation on AI, some of which will be very dangerous to the workings and functions of liberal democracies.

The future of the BBC is at more risk now than at any time in its 100-year history. It is under threat from commercial rivals that are jealous of its ongoing capacity to fulfil the first part of the original mantra, to entertain, and from authoritarians in both the government and private sectors who resent its capacity to educate and inform to standards that will underpin and strengthen our democracy.

I have one last thought for those who plan our business. Today’s debate shows both the capacity of this House to discuss these issues and the need for more time to discuss them. I offer this final thought. When the Reagan Administration carried out their deregulation of American broadcasting in the 1980s, one of the most famous broadcasters—not Ed Murrow—said, “We’ll only realise what we’ve lost when it’s gone”. I sincerely hope that will not be the case in future for the BBC.