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THE GUARDIAN
Monday, 8 October 1990
David Mellor, the minister responsible for the Broadcasting Bill calls for a sense of proportion in discussions about the Government's plans
From bias free of any kind
THE DEBATE about impartiality is important and deserves to be properly ventilated. But I am slightly troubled that so many of the contributors to the debate should see this discussion as threatening the independence and creativity of the broadcasting industry.
Impartiality requirements are nothing new in broadcasting legislation. It has long been recognised that broadcasting is too important to be used unchecked as a vehicle for eccentric or partisan opinions. The Broadcasting Act of 1981 follows earlier statutes in containing a requirement for due impartiality to be preserved in programmes broadcast by the IBA. The present Bill carries forward these provisions.
There was an attempt during the Lords committee stage to change what seems to me to be the fundamental concept of "due impartiality" to one of "true impartiality". We firmly resisted that. Due impartiality is a concept which quite properly stops short of an absolute requirement of achieving even balance in all situations. It should not be confused with neutrality or indifference. Broadcasters in this country operate within a system of parliamentary democracy and share its assumptions. They are not expected to give equal weight, or to show an impartiality which would not be due, to those who seek to destroy the democratic system by violent, unparliamentary or illegal means. There is no obligation to be neutral between truth and untruth, justice and injustice, compassion and cruelty, tolerance and intolerance. So when Joel Barnett, for whom I have the very highest regard, suggested in the Lords debate that a firmer stance on impartiality would mean producing a programme on, say, Cambodia, which sougt to defend the horrific and murderous regime of Pol Pot, he was in my view well wide of the mark.
Due impartiality is not a matter which can be reduced to some simple mathematical formula, nor can its achievement be guaranteed through any mechanistic statutory requirement. Not only do I not believe that Parliament could provide an adequate definition of due impartiality in a statute, I do not believe it should try. Politicians of all people are the least able to be regarded as impartial, particularly on matters of political controversy. The Broadcasting Bill, therefore, leaves the interpretation of due impartiality, as in previous legislation, to the regulatory bodies who are charged with ensuring that the statutory provisions are upheld.
We were however persuaded that it was necessary to go a little further in the present Bill in spelling out the responsibilities of the regulatory bodies in this area. Up until now, the IBA, which has been given the role of regulating issues of impartiality, has also been the broadcaster. The IBA has therefore been able to combine the two roles to ensure that the programmes it transmits conform to its own concept of impartiality. In future, the licensees will themselves be broadcasters and for clarity it is important that they and the viewer should be fully aware of what is expected of them in terms of impartiality.
It is for this reason that the Bill as drafted requires the new Independent Television Commission to draw up and publish a code on impartiality. Although required by statute, this will be the ITC's code, and they will be responsible for its content. That is as it should be. But we need to be sure that the code is comprehensive. I am confident that the amendments which we published last Monday specify in a sensible and coherent way, the key areas which the code must cover.
The code will, for example, be required to specify how the series provision is to operate which in the past given rise to considerable difficulty and uncertainty. It will also address the ways in which impartiality should be achieved in different contexts, the timescales within which the requirements of balance should be met, the circumstances in which prior announcement should be made of the dates and times of programmes within a balancing series, and the prominence to be given to programmes intended to achieve balance.
I cannot emphasise too strongly that it will be for the ITC to give effect to these requirements. The Bill itself will not supply them with the answers. Nor will it require them to be over-zealous or mechanistic in constructing their code. Suggestions that broadcasters should be obliged to devote time to the various shades of opinion on, say, capital punishment, in exact proportion to the weight of that opinion held in the country are quite unfounded.
The important point here is that broadcasters should strive to ensure that the full range of opinions can be properly reflected. Naturally some regard must be had to the extent to which such opinions are generally held or we would risk seeing the airwaves hi-jacked by quite unrepresentative viewpoints. But that does not imply the imposition of precise percentage measurements.
Frankly I can see no legitimate objection to this approach. There is no reason why the code we envisage should impose a strait-jacket that could stifle experiment, debate and creativity. Indeed it is clear from what Lord Chalfont said in the Lords debate that the shadow ITC is already considering, with a view to preparing the first draft of the code, precisely the sort of issues which we envisage that the Bill will formally require the code to cover. We have consulted the IBA about the amendments and they have made a number of helpful drafting suggestions which we have taken up.
We need, I suggest, to keep a sense of proportion about the proposals the Government is making. Faced with a major reform of broadcasting it is inevitable that the Government - any Government - should have addressed these matters of impartiality. I believe we are doing so responsibly.
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