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(Continued from overleaf)
Lord Hooson: Can the noble Lord, Lord Renton, tell me what either the word "true" or the word "due" adds to the concept of impartiality? If the amendment merely stated "impartiality is preserved" would that not cover the case adequately?
Lord Renton: No, because that would lend itself to flexible interpretation. We want to reach a more truthful interpretation.
The Earl of Halsbury: Is this not much ado about nothing? "Due" is the past participle of the French word devoir, which is derived from the Latin debere, to owe; the Spanish is deber, and so on. "True" is a Germanic word, treu. They are used interchangeably in various contexts. I do not feel that we need to spend very much time on whether it should be "due" impartiality or "true" impartiality because one is merely shuttling to and fro between a Latin and Germanic root. I do not think that we would ever come to the end of it.
Earl Russell: When the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, said that this may offer an objective test she expressed my misgivings about the amendment. I can understand the desire for such an objective test but I cannot see an objective tester. Until I can I believe that the amendment savours of the Utopian.
Earl Ferrers: The noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, has hit my comprehension of the matter for six. I thought that I understood it entirely. My noble friend Lord Renton has characteristically picked up a little point and, like a terrier with a rat, shakes it about. He is concerned about "due" and "true". There is a certain amount of initial attraction in putting in the word "true" so that one has true impartiality. What better could there be than true impartiality? We can understand everyone wanting true impartiality, but the more one thinks about the matter it is not as simple as that.
The wording of Clause 6(1 ), including as it does the phrase "due impartiality", is an almost exact reproduction of wording in successive Broadcasting Acts. Due impartiality means that there may be higher considerations which need occasionally to override the requirement for absolute impartiality. Broadcasters should not be expected to be impartial between truth and untruth, justice and injustice, compassion and cruelty, tolerance and intolerance, or even right and wrong. How can one be impartial on such matters? Broadcasters should not be obliged to be morally neutral as well as politically neutral. Unfortunately, that is the effect of my noble friend's amendment, although I am not sure that that is his intention. It would make programmes appallingly anodyne and boring.
I hope that my noble friend will realise that "due" is better than "true", whether it is of Greek, Latin or Germanic origin.
Lord Renton: In my reply I must be as true as I can. I must confess that I am puzzled and disappointed by
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some of the arguments which we have heard against my simple amendment. I should have thought that it would have strengthened the law, would not fetter anybody but would put everybody on their guard that the public expect the truth to be found in their programmes. Truth is sometimes said to be more than one-sided. If it is more than one-sided let both sides be truthfully shown.
However, I take on board what has been said. I may or may not return to the subject at a later stage. I am grateful to the Committee for having given consideration to the matter. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
9.15 p.m.
Lord Orr-Ewing moved Amendment No. 80:
Page 6, line 10, leave out ("person providing the service")
and insert ("persons providing the service and programmes").
The noble Lord said: In opening the debate on Amendment No. 80 I should also like to speak to Amendments Nos. 86 and 252. I cannot help reflecting that we have been considering the Bill in Parliament since last November, and after 9 o'clock in the evening is not the best time to reach an important amendment in this Chamber. However, we tend to get into these tangles by the second half of July.
This series of amendments deals mainly with loopholes which have been proven or which have developed in the 1981 Act regarding due impartiality. I hope that we may reach agreement on simple matters at this stage. There is no point in putting everything off until the Report stage, which I understand cannot begin before 8th October. The amendments are the same and relate to a phrase which arises twice in Clause 6 and in Clause 85, which applies to radio. The 1981 Act required the IBA to do its best to see that due impartiality is preserved by the persons providing the programmes. However, Clause 6 of the present Bill requires the ITC to do so only with regard to the person providing the service. That is a narrower requirement. The same applies in the clause covering radio services.
It is unduly weak for the new regulatory authority only to require the providers of broadcasting services to preserve impartiality rather than also requiring the programme makers to do so. No one is suggesting that the new regulatory authority should directly pursue numerous individual programme makers, but it is important that the Bill should make it clear that there is a duty on individual programme makers as well as on the persons providing each radio and television service to observe political impartiality. That is especially important because within the Bill it is laid down that 25 per cent of the programmes should be put out to independent production companies. Incidentally, that applies not only to the independent sector but the BBC as well. Therefore it is important that it should bite with the programme makers but that the licensee should still have the overall responsibility of due impartiality.
I cannot find a recent example in the IBA sector. However, on BBC 2 on Monday, 2nd July at 8 p.m. I
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watched an "Open Space" programme. It was narrated by the parliamentary candidate Glenda Jackson. It was made by the Campaign Against the Arms Trade. It was very professionally and well made. I noticed that they were operating from the same building that the CND used to occupy. There may be some liaison there but perhaps it is just a coincidence. The whole programme was a criticism of the free world. It argued that if we ceased to make or sell any arms at all there would be no poverty, no malnutrition, no disease and no young deaths anywhere in the world and particularly throughout the third world. I recognise that the programme was extremely effectively produced.
I telephoned the BBC to ask when the other side of that viewpoint would be shown, one which would point out that if places such as Afghanistan had had no arms they would now be occupied by the Soviet Union and if we had not had Spitfires or radar in 1940 we would have been occupied by Hitler. There is the other side to the story - that one cannot totally abandon all arms and think everything win be all right.
I was told that the series had now come to an end for the summer break and that there would not be another programme in the series. Then it was said that of course it was for the arms trade - manufacturers of aeronautical equipment, arms, ships and other armaments - to come forward with a rival film to show how important it is that defensive arms should be produced. That idea had never struck me.
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