Broadcasting

Nigel Huddleston Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Watson]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point.

We will always make the case for a strong, independent and well-funded BBC. That was what we did in government and it is what we intend to do in opposition. I hope that we can move on from the days when a small group of campaigners routinely questioned whether the BBC should exist at all. For a handful of people, the licence fee that has funded the BBC for nearly a century is an aberration. They believe that the only reliable, durable and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit. Perhaps they believe that 40p a day is an outrageous price to pay for the BBC’s startling array of television and radio news coverage, current affairs programmes, natural history, drama, comedy and children’s programmes. Perhaps they would rather see the BBC smaller and a little duller. I do not believe that and the British public do not believe it either. That was why there were 192,000 responses to the Government’s consultation on the future of the BBC, and why the overwhelming majority were favourable and supportive.

I pay tribute to the campaigners whose tireless work helped to deliver a BBC charter that is likely to secure its future: the Great BBC campaign, founded by Lord Waheed-Alli and Charlie Parsons; the Save our BBC campaign; the 38 Degrees petition to protect our BBC, which now has over 390,000 signatures; and all the creative industry trade unions, including the Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union, Equity, the Musicians’ Union, the National Union of Journalists and the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain. All came together in a coalition to defend the BBC. They raised awareness, generated support and helped to deliver those 192,000 responses to the Government’s consultation. On both sides of the House, we are indebted to them all.

[Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

I agree completely that there was some very effective campaigning, but will the hon. Gentleman accept that there was also a lot of unnecessary scaremongering? For example, an accusation was sent to Government Members’ mailboxes about the wholesale destruction of the BBC by the Tories. That was never the intent and never the case, and some people need to apologise.

[Mr Watson]

I am afraid that I am not quite sure of the specific allegation of scaremongering, but the hon. Gentleman has made his point and it is on the record.

We welcome the royal charter and the security it gives the BBC. In particular, I welcome the Government’s U-turn, as the consultation on the future of the BBC that they published in July 2015 was very different in tone and intention to the proposals before us now. We welcome the fact that the BBC’s funding settlement will now be decided every 11 years; it is particularly helpful to remove it from the five-year election cycle.

We welcome the settlement, but we know that an institution the size of the BBC can never be perfect. We believe the BBC has a responsibility to look and sound like Britain, both on screen and off. It should do far more to identify, employ and promote talent from every background and every walk of life. That means recruiting far more people from our black, Asian and minority ethnic communities. It means more women of every age in senior roles off screen and in leading roles on screen. It also means employing people from every social background.

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[Deidre Brock]

I think that that was based on the suggestion of a pilot along the lines of the current “Reporting Scotland” news programme, and audiences have not yet seen the pilots going on at the moment.

[Nigel Huddleston]

I have some sympathy with the hon. Lady’s argument about the BBC being extraordinarily London-centric. In the midlands, probably one of the worst-served areas, the BBC licence fee spend is £12.40 per head versus £757 in London.

[Deidre Brock]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that information. I was not aware of that, but the midlands should make its views known to London. I look forward to his contribution later on in the debate. I am sure that that will be mentioned.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Dunbartonshire mentioned MG Alba. Under the previous Chancellor, MG Alba had its central funding cut. Obviously, saving that £1 million was what was needed to turn the deficit around, rather than the billions spent on Trident. It is time that MG Alba was placed on the same footing and the same funding as S4C. Give the Gaels their Government funding and a fair share of the licence fees, too. In short, it is time to hand over the cash. So raise up your voices, BBC Scotland, and shout out any inequality, injustice or bad deal. The Scottish Six has to be an outstanding success, free of London control and the dead hand of Broadcasting House. The BBC has to do that, and do it well, to start restoring its credibility in Scotland. This will be only the beginning.

It is good to see that there has been some movement towards including the devolved Administrations in decisions about the future of the BBC, but it has to go further, and more of the BBC has to be devolved so that the good programmes that are being made can be built upon. Scottish programming has to reflect Scotland back to itself—not just have programmes made in Scotland that could just as easily be made anywhere else. No more “Waterloo Road” farces! Scottish programme makers have shown themselves time and again capable of making high-quality content. They do not need London rejects to bulk it up.

More than implementing governance changes, BBC Scotland has to clear out the dead wood from its own backyard: away with the tired and safe presenting styles on radio and television; away with the centralised styles of the BBC’s news reporting; and away with those executives who have outlived their imaginative years. BBC Scotland should have editorial and financial independence, and exercise it ruthlessly. No more lift and shift, and no more forelock tugging: shed the self-effacement and timidity, and start to create a broadcasting corporation that does not engage the people just in phone-ins or vox pops, but engages them in interest, intellect and thought. It should raise those ideals as concepts to which people can cleave.

This charter renewal means nothing more than previous renewals, and future renewals will mean nothing more than this one so long as there is little imagination and no new thought in the continuous plod of the BBC. It seems that we have come to this point with no forethought from Government or broadcaster about what it is they actually want the BBC to do. The cut in Foreign Office grant affected the World Service in the early days of the first Cameron Government, cutting into that soft diplomacy mission— the famous nation speaking peace unto nation. As the licence fees costs for people over 75 fall on to the BBC’s shoulders, we will see more pressure to cut, cut and cut again.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

I am not sure that I can compete with that exciting exchange, but it is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock).

I start by congratulating the dozens of bodies and institutions, and the 190,000-plus members of the British public, who participated in the consultation that has led to a very successful outcome in the form of the draft charter. The scale of that involvement clearly shows how close the BBC is to the hearts of many people in the United Kingdom. Let me also give credit where it is due—to the former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), for all the work and effort that he and his team put into drafting the charter; and to the current team for pursuing the process and ensuring that it reached this very successful point.

It is true that the BBC itself supports the vast majority of the charter and is now quibbling over relatively small points, including about the revelation of on-screen talent pay, which I shall come to in a moment. The most important change, in my view, involves governance and independence. The BBC Trust was clearly not fit for purpose, and the new unitary board will be a far more effective oversight body, alongside Ofcom. For the first time in its history, the BBC will itself appoint the majority of members to its board, and the Government will therefore not be able to outvote the BBC. That is a fundamental point.

The Culture, Media and Sport Committee, of which I have the honour of being a member, will have a role in the appointment of the chair of the unitary board, and there will, of course, be consultation with the Governments of the nations on the other public appointments. There will be a thorough public appointments process; the idea that there will be Government stooges in those roles is completely false and fabricated, and simply does not stack up with the facts.

Ofcom will play a significantly enhanced role. I am a member of the Public Bill Committee that is considering the Digital Economy Bill, and I was pleased when a representative of Ofcom came along last week and reassured us that it had the necessary skills and experience to take on that additional role. Where Ofcom needs to hire, it is currently in the process of hiring, so I am confident that it will be able to fulfil its role with great skill. I also applaud the expanded role of the National Audit Office. Notwithstanding comments to the contrary, the NAO has skills and experience in the handling of commercial elements of contracts, and it is more than capable of auditing the operations of BBC Worldwide.

The issue of talent salaries has received a fair amount of attention, but I do not think that many of my constituents are losing sleep over it. It is proposed that the BBC should reveal talent salaries of more than £150,000 a year, which is roughly what the Prime Minister is paid. That threshold for revealing salaries is standard practice in the rest of the public sector, and, indeed, in the BBC itself. BBC management salaries of more than £150,000 are already revealed, and, of course, management is also talent, although it is not on-air talent. It seems logical to extend the process to on-air talent. The argument that the BBC would be damaged if salaries were revealed does not hold water; if that were the case, it would already be vigorously losing talent on the management side.

As the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson) has observed on many occasions, this is a rather gossipy industry. Most people in the industry—the agents and so on—already know who is paid what. About the only people who do not know what the “top talent” are paid are those who are doing the paying: us, the licence fee payers. It is about time that we corrected that. If the talent really are worth as much as they are being paid, they should have nothing to hide from or fear.

We need only look at what our top pop stars, film stars and sporting stars are being paid to realise that the British public are quite tolerant of what many would consider to be exorbitant salaries, as long as the people concerned give pleasure to millions and are talented, and are therefore perceived as being worth it. The BBC need not worry about revealing talent salaries if they are seen to be in keeping with market rates. Indeed, Claudia Winkleman has already declared that she considers herself to be working for the public and does not mind that her salary will be revealed. I hope that, when salaries are revealed by the BBC, a gender pay gap is not revealed at the same time. I hope that the very revelation of salaries may deal with existing pay scales that are rather unnecessary and abhorrent.

Let me end by mentioning the Scottish Six—to the upset, I fear, of my hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa). As a member of the Select Committee, and following multiple conversations, I am sympathetic to the arguments in favour of a Scottish Six. If I were watching the news in England and the top three items were a Scottish health story, a Scottish education story and a Scottish legal system story, I might be a bit bored and turn it off. It is not that I am uninterested in such matters; it is just that I would not want them to be the top news items. However, although I do indeed have great sympathy with the arguments for a Scottish Six, I disagree with my friends on the SNP Benches, because they are asking the Government to interfere. This is a dangerous area. There are areas in which the BBC does itself have to make editorial and operational decisions, and this is one of them. It is up to us to make sure that we put pressure on the BBC, make the arguments and monitor its behaviour on this—and, indeed, on other areas of spend, such as the regions and the midlands versus London. I do not, however, believe it is right for Parliament to get into such detail and force these decisions, although I am keen to continue to monitor the situation and argue the case for a Scottish Six along with my friends on the SNP Benches.