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(Baroness Cox's speech continued from overleaf)
In another place my honourable friend the Minister rejected a suggestion from the IBA that the requirement for impartiality over a service should be extended to television because it was seen to be too wide and therefore meaningless. However, if my honourable friend the Minister concedes that the impartiality requirement is rendered, in his own words, "meaningless" by being applied to the totality of a television service, why has he accepted what appears to be a last-minute change to permit it for independent radio services? It is surely no more practicable for the latter than for the former. His critique of the one must apply just as strongly to the other.
A senior political broadcaster recently tried to reassure a colleague of mine that the broadcasting authorities took biased programmes seriously once a row had broken out. He claimed that culprits had been censured and moved to less contentious projects, if not sacked. "All hell breaks loose behind the scenes", he said, "even though we have to stand up for the programmes in public".
I suggest that that approach simply will not do. We therefore need to achieve three things in this Bill in respect of political impartiality before it leaves this House. We must reject the new loopholes in Clauses 6 and 85; we must close the loopholes carried forward in the 1981 Act; and we must institute a system enabling proper consideration and independent adjudication of complaints about
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breaches of the rules on political impartiality. Only then will damaging disputes and repetitive feuds be minimised for the future benefit of broadcasters, politicians and the public, and only then can we provide statutory protection against political bias of any complexion.
In conclusion, I am sure that noble Lords agree with the principle of fair, unbiased and impartial broadcasting. It is essential that that principle be enshrined in the Bill if the best traditions of British broadcasting are to be preserved in the interests of the pursuit of truth and the defence of democratic freedoms.
6.00 p.m.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris spoke for10 minutes without mentioning impartiality.
6.10 p.m.
Lord McGregor of Durris [former Member of the Independent Television Authority General Advisory Council and the chairman of the Advertising Standards Authority] spoke for 14 minutes without mentioning impartiality.
6.24 p.m.
Lord Grade [founder of ITV franchisee ATV Television] spoke for 8 minutes without mentioning impartiality.
6.32 p.m.
The Earl of Bessborough [a former broadcaster and director of several TV companies] spoke for 13 minutes without mentioning impartiality.
6.45 p.m.
Lord Boston of Faversham [chairman of ITV franchise holder TVS Television; former senior BBC current affairs producer and news editor; and Member of the Executive Committee of the International Union of Socialist Youth] spoke for 20 minutes without mentioning impartiality.
7.05 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Winchester [former chairman of the BBC & IBA Central Religious Advisory Committee] spoke for 10 minutes without mentioning impartiality.
7.15 p.m.
Lord Orr-Ewing [former BBC producer and Member of the Royal Commission of Conduct in Public Life] spoke for 20 minutes during which he said:
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…Much has been said and therefore I must try to shorten my speech in order to avoid repetition. I think it was recognised from the very start, when I was concerned with breaking the BBC monopoly - tremendously opposed in those days [1954] by the Labour Party, which promised to abolish ITV if it continued - that broadcasting's potential placed an enormous propaganda weapon in the hands of the media elite. For that reason clauses have been inserted in successive Bills over the years to lay down that each channel, both public service and independent, should maintain due impartiality.
It could be that in five or 10 years there will be enough channels for us to get overall balance, but we must remember that in the interregnum of the next five or 10 years the main broadcasting system will be the BBC, underpinned by £ 1,200 million of licence money, and the ITV companies, which, incidentally, get £ 1.7 billion in advertising revenue to subsidise and help their programmes. Although there is going to be much competition it will be a long time before 50 per cent. of the market is not
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in existing hands; so we shall have to have some regulatory authority.
In recent broadcasting Acts the due impartiality clause has been added to the BBC's charter and licence as an agreement signed by the chairman of the BBC and the Home Secretary at that time. For some reason which I do not understand I believe it is not intended that that should be added to the 1990 Bill. However, there is bound to be a knock-on effect. This is recognised in the helpful BBC brief on the Bill which I received a few days ago, as I think others did, which states:
"although these detailed provisions will not affect the BBC directly, they will have implications for the
overall broadcasting environment and the BBC's place in it".
Noble Lords will know that Clause 6 and Clause 85 for radio are the key clauses, which are largely based on a similar clause in previous Bills.
I should like to concentrate on three points: first, the present regulatory format and the methods used to flout it; secondly, to provide some examples where the IBA has been unwilling or unable to carry out its regulatory obligations, and where the IBA's admirable guidelines have been disregarded; and, thirdly, some examples where the BBC governors have been unable to keep the programme creators to the terms of their charter, licence and agreement and, above all, their own very carefully drawn up guidelines.
Since the days of Sir Hugh Carleton-Greene in the 1960s, various devious methods have been adopted to undermine the principle of due impartiality by means of practices calculated to render it worthless. The following set of loopholes has been used by broadcasters to by-pass the statutory impartiality requirements.
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