Deregulation Bill

Viscount Colville of Culross Excerpts

Thursday 5th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lipsey (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the amendment, despite the fact that I have considerable sympathy with the argument put by my noble friend Lady Corston. The status quo has persisted for a good long time. It will inevitably be re-examined on charter renewal—which I will come to in a minute—and it therefore seems to me that we can take a decision on whether decriminalising makes sense when we see whether it is relevant or not to that environment.

I sat on the Davies inquiry into the BBC licence fee in 1999 and, at the end of a year of study, probably knew as much about the licence fee as any man living. Unfortunately, like the man who once understood the Schleswig-Holstein question, I have long since forgotten all of it, save that the licence fee is a perfect way of funding the BBC but unfortunately is a poll tax that bears heavily on poor people. That core dilemma, if I can call it that, is something that we shall have to face up to when we come to charter renewal and to discuss BBC finance at the end of the current period.

At least four options are likely to be available: leave the licence fee as it is; what I guess the BBC will come down for, which is a slightly modernised licence fee, with people paying it for computers as well as televisions, which I am told are the same thing these days; a much greater modification to the licence fee; or some new form of finance. Those will be the broad options available when we come to charter renewal. This will be a very interesting argument.

I will just slip in something that I think would be very helpful at this stage. As part of the charter renewal process, it would be a very good move by the Government to set up an independent inquiry, such as the one I sat on with the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor, into the licence fee. In particular, it should produce a menu with prices to tell the public that if you want to pay this much licence fee, you can have these services, or if you want to pay that much licence fee, you can have those services and so on. At the moment, we are very much in the dark as to what that menu would be and what the choices would be, and an independent inquiry would greatly illuminate public debate.

To come to the kernel of this point, it does seem to me to be arse about tip—if I am allowed to use such an expression in this House—to take powers to change the basis on which the licence fee is collected long before deciding whether you want a licence fee at all, let alone what kind of licence fee you want. An inquiry into this is sitting, which will report. Then is the time for Parliament to take a view of its findings, together with the whole scenario for the funding of the BBC. Arse about tip is the only phrase I can think of for doing it right now.

[Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)]

My Lords, I am a producer at the BBC and I support this amendment. I want to emphasise and support what the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, just said. We are not being asked today to decide whether the enforcement regime for the failure to pay the licence fee should be decriminalised or not—that is the subject of a review by David Perry, which seems to be a very wide-ranging and fair review.

However, if the review decides in June this year to go ahead with decriminalisation, and the Government implement that decision immediately, it will blow a huge hole in the BBC’s budget—the figure is actually £200 million rather than the £20 million suggested by my noble friend Lady Howe. The BBC has already made cuts of 26% over the present charter renewal period, which has resulted in great efficiencies. Thousands of jobs have gone and there has been a reduction in programme hours of current affairs, history, science and arts. A future £200 million cut, I fear, could put the existence of whole channels at risk. We have seen BBC3, the digital youth channel, go online. Between them, the local radio network and the children’s channels CBBC and CBeebies cost £200 million.

In Committee, the Minister said:

“It is right that the Government of the day must be free to consider the report when it completes in June 2015 and be able to act without unnecessary limitations at that point”.—[Official Report, 11/11/14; col. GC 42.]

I ask the Minister why the Government would want to blow a hole in the BBC’s finances at a time when the results of the review can be considered within a year or so as part of the charter renewal. I urge noble Lords to support the amendment and stop a very sudden and damaging reduction in the BBC’s revenue.