BBC — House of Commons, 2016-05-12
Topic: Technology
John Flasby Lawrance Whittingdale (Conservative, Centre-right): I have some sympathy for the hon. Lady. She had a dry run at this yesterday and rehearsed all her lines of attack, only to wake up this morning to discover that all the concerns that she had expressed were based on ill-founded, hysterical speculation by left-wing luvvies and others; and that, in actual fact, what the Government have proposed has been widely welcomed by, among others, the BBC. She said yesterday that she would judge the Government’s proposals on three key tests. She said that the charter "must guarantee the BBC’s financial and editorial independence, and it must help it to fulfil its mission to inform, educate and entertain us all."—[Official Report, 11 May 2016; Vol. 609, c. 629.] I can tell her that the White Paper not only meets those three tests, but exceeds them. That is exactly what we intend to do The hon. Lady raised some questions of detail. I accept that they are important, and I am very happy to give her the answers. I am grateful for her welcome for the fact that, for the first time, the length of the charter will be 11 years, which will take it out of the political electoral cycle. The mid-term review is not a mini charter review. It is simply a health check to allow the Government to ensure that the reforms that we are putting in place, which are substantial, are working properly. It would be ridiculous to find that they were not working and to be unable to do anything about it for another 11 years On governance, this is the first time the BBC board—the body that has overall responsibility for running the BBC—will have at least half, and possibly more than half, of its members appointed independently by the BBC. Throughout the period for which the Labour party was in government, the appointments were made wholly by the Government, without even the public appointments process. The appointments that the Government will make are to six positions. They will be subject to the public appointments process, so they will involve the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments. Three of them will be made in consultation with the devolved Administrations of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It will be for the BBC to decide how many other board members there should be, ranging from six to perhaps eight, and who should be chosen to do that The other point I would make to the hon. Lady—I set it out very clearly in my statement—is that the board will have no involvement in editorial decision making. The director-general remains the editor in chief, and he is responsible for editorial matters. The board’s involvement will be only after transmission; it will not influence editorial content These are substantial changes and we think it right that the existing chairman should continue in post to oversee the transition to the new arrangement. She will be in post until October 2018. She was of course appointed through the public appointments process I can confirm that the funding agreement will be met in full. There will be no top-slicing and we will not raid it for any other purposes, as her Government did when she was in office. The contestable pot is outside the July licence fee funding settlement. It is intended to provide additional opportunities for production companies that aim specifically to serve children’s audiences or black, Asian and minority ethnic audiences. We will do more on that to see how it will work The hon. Lady said that we have somehow complicated the original trinity, but I would point out to her that the mission statement does not include the simple Reithian trinity that is so often quoted. The current BBC charter mentions "the promotion of its Public Purposes through the provision of output which consists of information, education and entertainment" That is not quite as snappy as the original "inform, educate and entertain". All we have done is to make it more succinct by saying that those three objectives should be delivered by producing "high quality distinctive content" and "impartial news". I would just ask her whether she disagrees with either of those two provisions: does she think that the BBC should not make distinctive programming or should not be impartial The hon. Lady’s concerns about Ofcom are perfectly justified. She is right that Ofcom will need resourcing to enable it to undertake its considerable new responsibilities. However, the BBC Trust is paid for out of the licence fee at the moment, and it is certainly our hope that the regulatory cost of overseeing the BBC, once Ofcom takes it over, will be lower than the existing cost of the BBC Trust. Ofcom will be financed from the licence fee, just as the BBC Trust is at present I confirm that it will be made explicit—there is no disagreement between the National Audit Office and the BBC about this—that the NAO will not involve itself in editorial matters. I finish by saying that the hon. Lady has made the best fist she can of saying that the White Paper somehow threatens the BBC, but it does not. I end simply by telling her what the chairman of the BBC Trust said this morning: "Constructive engagement between the Government, the BBC and the public has delivered a White Paper that sets good principles, strengthens the BBC’s governance and regulation and cements a financial settlement that will sustain the strong BBC that is loved…by the public."