BBC: Diversity — House of Commons, 2016-04-14
Topic: Technology
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Tapadh leibh. I hope that I can add another layer of diversity, and something else that we can think about, to this excellent debate, led by the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy). I congratulate him on bringing it to the Floor of the House Diversity is very important. It is certainly very important for somewhere like the BBC. I believe that a broadcaster should be a mirror to the society it seeks to serve when giving impressions of that country. The days are long past when we had the 1950s cut-glass accent as the only voice of our broadcaster. If other voices exist, they should be reflected on television—it should not just be received pronunciation accents, such as my own Hebridean accent, of course. The BBC must serve more widely; it must serve from across the world. A recent example, on which it should be congratulated, is the tremendous Icelandic drama suspense series "Trapped", set in Seydisfjördur in Iceland, which managed to get the whole Faroese ferry as a background prop. That, coming out of a nation with a population of 300,000, is quite something. It is something we should acknowledge and that I hope to develop later When the message is the UK and the vehicle that is being carried is the UK, the family of nations that are still in the UK and the people within those nations, in all their diversity, should be included in them. That is why I strongly support the right hon. Gentleman’s words. One of the first issues I had with the BBC when I was elected to this House in 2005 was that it had, in its infinite wisdom, decided to change the weather map. It changed the angle of the map, which meant that Scotland was hardly seen at all. That had important knock-on effects for many in my constituency who relied on the BBC’s isobar chart as their most important way of looking at the wind for the coming days. The BBC, with a bit of pressure, moved the weather map to a better angle to represent Scotland, but Scotland still does not have a proper geographical representation on BBC weather maps, and, of course, it is not getting the accurate forecasts that it deserves, although those who work there do a good job with that policy. In the meantime, other providers, such as XCWeather online, have replaced some of the services that the BBC was relied on to provide. I hope that even a decade later the BBC can revisit the policy of not having a map that is geographically representative, which I always thought was the purpose of maps I long since heard the line, "Life imitates art"—I think it was back in 1992 in New York. It is a powerful line. People should see themselves portrayed accurately, fairly and without stereotypes. That has to be true of Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Liverpool, Sunderland, Tottenham or wherever. It has to be true also of women and ethnic minorities. I wish the right hon. Gentleman well in his quest again to be on "Question Time". Happily, I have not been pestered to go into that bear pit myself, but I will certainly watch if he is on, and I wish him well. The BBC has to reflect the languages of these islands, especially the older languages of Britain that pre-date the migration of English into Britain. I refer to Welsh and Gaelic, both Scottish and Irish Gaelic, as well as Cornish. I hope Cornish is being heard on the nation’s airwaves.