Broadcasting — House of Commons, 2016-10-18
Topic: Technology
Deidre Leanne Brock (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa), if only for the comedy value During the somewhat meandering and enervating discussion that passed for a debate on the future of the BBC over the past few months, I became more and more convinced that very few people actually care about the principles involved, and it has become another venue for an argument rather than a consideration of the future of public service broadcasting. At times, the Government and the loyal Opposition seem more interested in striking positions to reflect what they think people are thinking on the Clapham omnibus or in the Biddulph Conservative club A funding deal was done behind closed doors and the Opposition hardly blinked at the time. I suppose they thought that it might be their turn to do the deal one day. I am delighted that they have finally found their voice on this issue These things should all be out in public, as maybe then we would not have had the stramash about how huge a BBC salary has to be before the BBC makes it public. Maybe then the BBC and the Government could have had the discussions with Equity about the data protection implications of that decision. It would also have been good to have had a public discussion about whether a public service broadcaster should be privatising, in effect, 60% of its radio output, as mentioned by the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) The SNP is in favour of high-quality public broadcasting serving the people, and I had hoped that I would find kindred spirits and attitudes on the Benches here. But the BBC, the Government and the loyal Opposition occupy the same space in the heart of the establishment, and their self-referencing conversations are equally self-reinforcing and therefore damaging to the political discourse that should be informed by the BBC’s work There is a fond suspension of disbelief in the UK that allows the public to imagine that the BBC is impartial and in service to all of us. It is a comfortable fiction, but it masks a fatal flaw in the set-up of our state broadcaster. I find the BBC’s attitude overpoweringly London-centric, begging towards coorying into the establishment rather than serving the whole of its audience. It reminds me of a fantastic piece by the novelist James Robertson called, "The News Where You Are". The hon. Member for South Leicestershire might enjoy it. In 365 words, he scores and underscores the perception many of us have in Scotland of the way the BBC views us: the important news is what we tell you it is from our studios in London, and when the important news is all over you can have the news where you are, which is less important, unless we say it is important, in which case we will report it. Mr Robertson does a fantastic reading on YouTube and I urge everyone to listen to it. I am sure the sentiments have echoes elsewhere. There will be similar feelings in Cornwall, Yorkshire, Cumbria and Wales The BBC has to modernise not its broadcasting platforms, not the media it uses and not its founding ideals but the attitude to those it is supposed to serve outwith the M25. A little less of the patronising would be good: stop thinking it knows best and start learning to serve. The parallel complaint can be levelled against BBC Scotland: stop kowtowing to London as if Broadcasting House holds the great sages of the modern era. Get up and make decent programmes, including a properly resourced Scottish Six, and shout out loud if you are being underfunded.