Broadcasting — House of Commons, 2016-10-18
Topic: Civil Rights
Tom Watson (Labour, Centre-left): I welcome the Minister’s reassurance about that. We will work constructively with the Government to make sure there is a framework so that the BBC can actually achieve its targets. As Andrew Rajan wrote only last week: "there have been decades of lip-service being paid in praise of diversity by the various gatekeepers of finance and programming, but nothing has changed at all" The BBC has published its own national target, which commits it to hiring 15% of staff from black, Asian and minority ethnic groups by 2020, but I am afraid it has a poor record on this. In its evidence to the Puttnam inquiry, the Campaign for Broadcasting Equality said that despite the BBC’s many diversity initiatives and programmes, it has consistently failed to meet its own targets. This cannot continue, so I welcome the Minister’s commitment to making sure that that does not happen The people we see on screen, the people who create what we see on our screens and the people who lead television must look more like the people we see on our streets. That means seeking out talent, on screen and off, from the black and minority ethnic communities. It means ensuring that roles do not mysteriously disappear for older women and it means creating roles that do not automatically exclude candidates with disabilities or mental health issues. The charter’s new commitment to diversity is welcome and Ofcom’s role as the BBC’s new regulator will be vital. It will help to bring about a truly diverse BBC that reflects the nation it serves. The point the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) makes is well taken. Will the Minister tell us how Ofcom will monitor and enforce its new diversity duty? Will it publish data about the number of BBC employees from minority groups? Will it monitor on-screen talent and publish information about where that is drawn from? Any detail that the Minister could provide today would be extremely helpful The charter introduces a host of other changes, some of which are more welcome than others. The National Audit Office already helps to ensure that the BBC delivers value for money to licence fee payers, so we have no objection in principle to extending its role so that it scrutinises the parts of the BBC that spend public money. We have some concerns, however, about the expansion of the NAO’s remit to cover parts of the BBC that are not directly funded by the licence fee, particularly BBC Worldwide. There might be a danger that allowing the NAO to access BBC Worldwide’s books could place it at a commercial disadvantage, so that risk will need to be addressed The charter attempts to resolve that possible problem by stating that the NAO cannot question any "creative or editorial judgements" on the grounds of value for money, but it also allows the NAO to define exactly what that phrase means. It will need to be defined more precisely in the charter in the future. Will the Minister be able to provide us with some comfort that it will not be interpreted too widely? An independent dispute resolution process needs to be established so that disagreements between the NAO and the BBC can be resolved We give cautious welcome to the proposal that Ofcom becomes the BBC’s regulator. I have already mentioned the critical role Ofcom will play in monitoring diversity, and it will also monitor distinctiveness and consult the industry on its new operating framework next year. Given the issues at stake, can the Minister confirm that Ofcom will also consult Parliament and the public about this matter? The BBC Trust struggled to reconcile its twin roles of the corporation’s regulator and its cheerleader. It is right that these two functions and responsibilities, which were often confusing and sometimes contradictory, are to be officially separated We welcome the fact that the majority of appointees to the BBC’s unitary board will now be drawn from the BBC, rather than being appointed by the Government. We note that that was not the Government’s original intention, but I commend them for performing a heel turn and pivot on that issue—Ed Balls would have been given a 10 from Len if he had managed to pull that off with such style. As Lord Foster of Bath said in the other place, the fact that the Government appoint the chair of the new BBC board and the chair of Ofcom raises questions about their independence. Does not the Secretary of State agree that one way of guaranteeing independence would be to require that every non-executive is independently appointed The new charter rewrites the BBC’s 90-year-old mission statement. The commitment to be "impartial and distinctive" has been added to the time-honoured duty to "inform, educate and entertain". We need assurances from Ministers about that, because distinctiveness is poorly defined, and Ofcom has admitted that it is still working out exactly what it means. Distinctiveness is a vague notion, and there is a risk that the BBC’s commercial rivals could use it as a stick with which to beat the BBC whenever they wish Despite these reservations, I sense that this Secretary of State wants to create a new climate in which the future of the BBC can be discussed without political posturing. I do not think she wants to return to the days when David Cameron could describe the prospect of cuts to the nation’s favourite broadcaster as "delicious". The new approach is welcome. As I said, I believe that the Secretary of State has the BBC’s best interests at heart. I can detect no desire on her part to use the BBC as a political football. I really hope those days are behind us. The aim of the charter settlement should be to give the BBC the space, time and resources it needs to adapt to huge technological change. That is the only way the BBC will remain relevant to a younger audience who are consuming content in myriad ways We will work with the Secretary of State to secure the future of the BBC. Let us hope that this is a new benign era for the Beeb. After all, when Government Ministers are loudly complaining about you in public; when Back-Bench Government MPs insist that you have an inbuilt left-wing bias; when Front-Bench Opposition MPs insist that you have an obvious right-wing bias; when the left-wing columnist, Owen Jones, says you are a threat to democracy; when the Foreign Secretary finds you infuriating; when politicians and activists of every stripe and persuasion think you are against them; when two thirds of the British public see you as a bastion of editorial excellence and journalistic integrity; and when the American public would rather get their news from you than from their own news sources, there is one thing the BBC can be sure of—it is doing things right. We should be proud of one of the nation’s greatest assets.