PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
BBC: Government Role in Impartiality - 14 March 2023 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

The BBC is a world-class broadcaster, a creative engine and a cultural institution producing some of the best television and radio in the world. The impartiality of the BBC, as a publicly funded broadcaster, goes to the heart of the contract between the corporation and all the licence fee payers whom it serves. That is why the royal charter, which is the constitutional basis of the BBC—along with the underpinning framework agreement—enshrines the need for the BBC to be impartial in both its mission and its public purposes.

The BBC’s mission and public purposes, as set out in the charter, require it to act in the public interest, serving all audiences through the provision of impartial, high-quality and distinctive output and services which inform, educate and entertain, helping people to understand and engage with the world around them. The BBC’s first public purpose is to provide duly accurate and impartial news and information to help people to understand and engage with the world around them. It must also represent and serve the diverse communities of all the United Kingdom’s nations and regions. Both the charter and the framework agreement also explicitly guarantee the independence of the BBC. As such, the Government have no say in the BBC’s operational or editorial day-to-day decisions or staffing matters, including as they relate to the application of the requirement for impartiality.

The Government stand fully behind the requirements of the royal charter. We are clear that the BBC must truly reflect the nation and guard its impartiality in all of its output. The BBC’s director-general has repeatedly said that the corporation’s impartiality is a priority for him and must be protected. We welcome that the BBC accepted the findings and recommendations of the Serota review and is committed to reform through its 10-point impartiality and editorial standards action plan. It is Ofcom, established by the Government as the independent regulator of the BBC in 2017, that is responsible for holding broadcasters including the BBC to account on the impartiality of their news and current affairs coverage, against the broadcasting code under the Communications Act 2003.

In November last year, Ofcom published its annual review of the BBC. It found the BBC’s impartiality to be a key area of concern among audiences and one where they consistently rate BBC news less favourably for trust and accuracy. Ofcom stated that addressing audience perceptions on this matter is challenging, and the regulator recognises that this is a complex area. It will continue to monitor the performance of the BBC and has urged the BBC not to lose momentum in its efforts to address this issue. It remains a priority for the Government to ensure that Ofcom delivers an effective and proportionate regulatory framework that holds the BBC to account while maintaining its creative freedom and operational independence.

In May 2022, the Government launched the mid-term review. This is a new mechanism established by the current charter, focusing on the governance and regulatory arrangements for the BBC, given the reforms that were introduced when the charter was granted. One area of focus in the MTR is impartiality, and it will assess the efficacy of the governance mechanisms and Ofcom’s regulation in ensuring that the BBC meets the high standards that licence fee payers expect of it. It is also an important milestone in our road map for BBC reform, and work is well under way. The charter specifies that the review must take place between 2022 and 2024, and we will publish our findings and conclusions in due course.

The BBC is respected globally. It reaches hundreds of millions of people across the world every week. No other country in the world has anything quite like it. We have been clear that the BBC must place a firm emphasis on accuracy, impartiality and diversity of opinion. It can never be the BBC’s role to judge, or appear to judge, the diverse values of the people from across the country it serves. In the era of fake news, public service broadcasting and a free press have never been more important, and the BBC has been and should be a beacon that sets standards to which others can aspire.

I thank the hon. Lady for her spirited questions. I have watched her valiant attempts to kick this political football across the weekend and into this week. As Politico notes, we are now on Lineker day 8. She shouts about a political campaign to undermine the BBC that is akin to Putin’s Russia. She professes that she is the shield trying to protect the BBC from political interference, but all the while demanding that the PM gets more stuck in and telling the BBC that it is in the wrong. Forgive the bewildered licence fee payer for wondering why W1A and SW1A are still focusing on this individual case—one that the Government have consistently made clear is for the BBC to resolve internally, which we note it has now done.

As the hon. Lady knows full well from the Secretary of State’s reply to her correspondence over the weekend, our Department regularly engages with the BBC on a range of issues. At no time have any of us as Ministers sought to influence the BBC’s decision on this case in any way. The events of last week are rightly a matter for the corporation’s determination, and we as a Government do not seek to interfere. I have not added, and do not intend to add, my views on this specific case in response to this urgent question. In response to assertions yesterday that he bowed to political pressure from the Government, the BBC director-general, Tim Davie, said:

“That is a convenient narrative. It’s not true.”

The hon. Lady has sought to make the BBC chairman, Richard Sharp, the ultimate arbiter of such matters. In fact, the BBC charter is clear that it is the director- general, as editor-in-chief of the BBC, not the chairman of the board, who has final responsibility for individual decisions on the BBC’s editorial matters. On the issue of Mr Sharp, she will be aware that previous Governments have appointed people to senior positions in the BBC who have declared political activity. That is not prohibited under the rules. Once appointed, however, all board members are required to adhere to the code of conduct for public body board members. She will know that there are separate independent inquiries into Mr Sharp’s appointment process, and they must be left to conclude. When it comes to the timetable of that, the Government are also awaiting the outcome, and it is right for the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments and the investigator that it has appointed to determine the timetable for that process, not the Government.

The hon. Lady said that the Tory Government had long wanted to undermine the BBC. Not true. This is an organisation with a near-guaranteed licence fee income of £3.8 billion per annum until the next charter review in 2027. We back the BBC. We want it to survive as a thriving cultural, creative and democratic engine for many years to come. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office announced just this week that it is giving an extra £20 million to support the BBC World Service over two years, building on the additional support that we gave it for its Ukraine and Russia reporting operations.

The social compact that underpins the BBC’s funding arrangement depends fundamentally on the broadcaster maintaining the trust and confidence of viewers. The BBC’s currency in a world of misinformation and “shout the loudest” public discourse is truth, impartiality, accuracy and editorial integrity. It remains our priority as a Government to work with the regulator, Ofcom, to deliver an effective and proportionate framework that holds the BBC to account in its duties, including to impartiality. In May 2020 we launched the mid-term review, a key focus of which was impartiality, and we will assess Ofcom’s regulation in ensuring that the BBC meets the high standards that licence fee payers expect of it.

I thank my right hon. Friend for that important question. I agree that anybody who cares about the BBC will want this furore to die down so that it can focus on how to ensure that it operates to the terms that create confidence in the public. He asked about the BBC guidelines, and I agree that they are fundamentally important to how the BBC organises its staffing. One of the key recommendations of the Serota review was that the guidelines on how presenters operate are fundamental and should be applied no matter the seniority, profile or role of the employee. This is something that must be revisited by the BBC as an organisation in the light of this furore.

I make it clear that Ministers have not sought to intervene or interfere in how this process has been handled by the BBC. I will not be commenting on the Lineker case specifically, because I want to maintain the independence of the BBC and the ability of the director-general to make decisions based on how he wishes to organise his institution.

On Mr Sharp, as I said to the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), the BBC charter makes it clear that the director-general, as editor-in-chief of the BBC—and not the chairman of the board—has final responsibility for issues such as the ones we saw over the weekend.

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is the mode of the BBC’s funding that makes it different in how it must respond to such cases. Trust and impartiality are fundamental to the social compact that underpins the licence fee. If that trust and impartiality are seen to be broken by people in the organisation, it is for the organisation to take that into account and to take action accordingly.

The Leader of the House is entitled to comment on the nature of Mr Lineker’s comments but, as far as I am aware, she applied zero pressure on the BBC to take action in relation to his contract.

I thank my hon. Friend for setting out how he feels about the comments that were made. I very much appreciate the deep sensitivities of this matter. I also think it was distasteful to compare the Government’s actions, or otherwise, to the Putin regime. That is a disgraceful comparison to make and I think it is way off the mark.

The hon. Lady talks of BBC staff in her constituency. They signed contracts and are aware of the standards to which they must adhere, because impartiality is so fundamental to the organisation, its future success and the trust in which the public hold it. As an organisation, the BBC strives to adhere to those principles, so I suspect there is a conversation happening between staff at every level as to whether consistent standards are being applied to the professional terms to which they all signed up.

I thank my right hon. Friend for his comments. The Serota review was designed to do just that: to make sure there are very clear guidelines to which BBC employees sign up, and to make sure people undertake impartiality training when they take on roles within the BBC. The Serota review also talks about the importance of making sure those standards apply no matter a person’s seniority, profile or role. There are questions for the BBC to answer on the application of those standards in this case.

The right hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the importance of impartiality to the trust in which licence fee payers hold the organisation, and its importance to the future of the licence fee, not least because fewer people are now paying the licence fee—we are concerned the public are losing support for the licence fee. Fundamentally, the way in which people consume television is changing very rapidly, and we need to make sure the BBC has a sustainable future.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the importance of impartiality. The BBC already has a set of rules on that but, in the light of this incident, it is also looking at how social media is governed and making sure that the organisation is adhering to those principles and that the guidance is working as it should.

Richard Sharp was appointed in a transparent way. There are obviously concerns about—[Interruption.]

From my Department’s perspective, the appointment was undertaken to the letter. There have since been events that have come to light that we need to investigate, and those things are being investigated. On Mr Sharp’s ability to do the role, as I have mentioned, it is possible to hold political views and be appointed to that role. That has been the case over many years and across different flavours of Government. The question is whether that person carries out their role in an apolitical and impartial way, and I believe there is currently a BBC review as to whether those duties are being carried out in that way.

I thank my hon. Friend for not only his question, but the way in which he has engaged with me over the mid-term review. I know he has a number of ideas as to how the governance and regulations of the BBC need to be changed. I look forward to engaging with him further on the mid-term review. He is right that it is looking at the complaints system, but also at editorial standards and impartiality, and I hope that we can continue to engage on these matters.

I believe I have already answered that question, but I reiterate that no pressure was applied on the BBC by Ministers and that having political links to a party does not preclude someone from taking on a role within the BBC—it is about how they dispense their obligations within that role.

On some of the musical operations the BBC currently funds, I know that this matter is causing a lot of alarm and concern. As my hon. Friend will appreciate, it is not for me to set out to the BBC how it should spend licence fee payers’ money, but it does have certain duties upon it to deliver cultural good. The matter of the BBC Singers is still open to staff consultation and I encourage staff who are concerned about these changes to fully engage with that consultation.

The process, from a DCMS perspective, was fully transparent. We followed the process to the letter and that process was subsequently approved in a hearing by the Select Committee on Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Things have subsequently come to light that are under investigation, and I am afraid that I cannot comment on that investigation.

It is incredibly important that the BBC is left to conduct its social media review in a way that allows it to bring clarity, particularly on this question of freelancers versus people who are paid employees. As the highest paid employee, Mr Lineker will, understandably, be held to account for his views by the licence fee payer, and that is difficult to ignore as an issue relevant to whether the BBC is impartial.

Without knowing the full details of the statement—[Interruption.] I am afraid that I do not know the statement to which the hon. Gentleman refers. The only commentary I have seen on this matter was on whether Fiona Bruce had behaved professionally, which, from my reading of the situation, she had.

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point. I was not aware of that case, but some of these questions will, we hope, be resolved by the social media review that the BBC is undertaking. We hope they will give clarity about the rules to which its presenters must adhere.

I simply repeat that, as the hon. Lady will be aware, previous Governments have appointed to senior positions in the BBC people who have declared political activity. That does not preclude a person taking a position; it is not prohibited under the rules. Once appointed, all board members are required to adhere to the code of conduct, and as far as I am aware, Mr Sharp has done so.

I agree that the BBC should be given space to carry out the review and to set out clear guidelines. The Serota review made it crystal clear that seniority, profile or role do not exempt anyone from having the rules applied to them, and I think that is something that needs to be teased out in this review.

I think I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, but I am not entirely sure what his point was. I have no response beyond saying that there was no attempt to interfere politically with the way in which Gary Lineker’s case was handled.

I thank my hon. Friend for his commentary, especially given his experience as a former BBC employee. His contributions in this regard are always valuable. He is absolutely right: impartiality is core to the purpose of the BBC and fundamental to the trust in which it is held; it underpins the social compact on which the licence fee rests. I am sure that that is fundamentally respected by the vast majority of BBC staff, many of whom will be asking why the rules that apply to them are not always applied consistently to everyone in the organisation.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for sharing his experience as a former BBC employee. He is absolutely right that in a world of fake news, trust is the BBC’s currency, and one that we should protect. As I mentioned, the FCDO has given additional funding for some of the BBC’s important operations around the world. He is also right to say that people should leave their political opinions at the door when they seek to engage. As far as I am aware, Mr Sharp has not sought to be a politically active person on the board, but as I said, having political opinions and involvement do not preclude an individual being appointed to the board. The hon. Gentleman talks about the Prime Minister trying to delay the process. That is not true. The process is not in the gift of the Prime Minister. We await the timetable as the hon. Gentleman does.

My hon. Friend raises questions about the future of the licence fee. We will examine these questions in advance of the next charter, in 2027. As I mentioned, it is not just a question whether the licence fee still has support; it is a question whether it is sustainable, as the way we watch media changes fundamentally. We need to make sure the BBC can keep up and maintain the consent of those who watch its services.

The notion that the Government have instructed the BBC to reduce its news content is pretty wide of the mark. How the BBC organises its services is a matter for the BBC. What we care about is that services are delivered impartially and to a very high quality. As I say, it is not for us to determine.

Whether there is a level playing field between different employees of the BBC is a matter for the BBC to determine.

I have to challenge the hon. Lady: we have not slashed services at the BBC. The BBC has a guaranteed income over the next few years of £3.8 billion a year. She seems to be suggesting that we should have had a different financial settlement for the BBC at a time of tremendous financial pressure on households. We were not willing to do that.