BBC — House of Lords, 2016-05-12
Topic: Technology
Raymond Collins (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. Yesterday I said that the pre-briefing over the past few weeks had been extremely unhelpful—I wondered whether the strategy was to make the prospective content of the White Paper seem so awful in order that the final, not-so-bad publication became more acceptable. Whatever the motives behind the briefings, this White Paper needs to be assessed against the three tests set by all those who cherish the independence of the BBC. While we can be reassured by the headlines, and particularly the Statement that the Minister repeated, we have to focus on the fine detail. The devil is often in the detail On independence, the Government still seem intent on appointing many of the non-executive directors of an all-powerful new board that will be responsible for the day-to-day running of the BBC, unlike the trust and the governors before that. Can the Minister explain how those government appointments will continue to have a duty to the licence fee payer, as is currently the case, rather than to the Minister who gave them their job On funding and the future licence fee, the Government seem determined to create a contestable fund for which commercial rivals can bid. This is a dangerous precedent and, coming hard on the heels of the £650 million raid last autumn, will damage the BBC and the interests of viewers. Will the Minister guarantee that the contestable funding is not licence fee money? If she cannot, does she not understand that this erodes the independence of the BBC? What reassurances can she give the House that the contestable fund will not become a growing attack on the licence fee in the future On the BBC’s core mission, the Government want to rewrite Reith’s principles to include "distinctiveness". How will this work in practice? Will it mean that the board can tell the director-general when to schedule programmes? Will it mean that the BBC cannot competitively schedule popular programmes against Sky and ITV? If competitors launch new services in the future, will it mean that the BBC will not be able to match them? These are the sorts of questions the Minister will need to answer, if not today, certainly in the debate we will have in the future. While I welcome the extension of the charter, everyone in this House will want to fully understand what the mid-term review will consist of. We need a better understanding of the extent to which that will result in changes to the BBC and its services We had a short debate on the Urgent Question yesterday, which focused on the process, obviously, because we could not comment too much on the details of the White Paper. The Minister seemed reluctant to reassure the House about how we will be able to properly scrutinise the White Paper and object to some of its contents. I remind the Minister that in 2006 there was an approval Motion in the House, to which the then Opposition tabled an amendment, which resulted in a vote. If it was good enough in 2006, why is it not good enough today? Will the Minister give us the reassurance that my noble friend Lord Alli asked for? She has had 24 hours and I hope she has used that time to reflect on how to ensure that both Houses of Parliament can properly scrutinise these proposals and reach some conclusion on them.