European Scrutiny Committee
Oral evidence: EU Scrutiny: follow Up inquiry, HC 540
Wednesday 2 December 2015
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 2 December 2015
Members present: Sir William Cash (Chair), Richard Drax, Damian Green, Kelvin Hopkins, Stephen Kinnock, Craig Mackinlay, Graham Stringer, Mr Andrew Turner.
Witnesses: Rona Fairhead CBE, Chairman, BBC Trust, and Richard Ayre, Trustee, BBC Trust, gave evidence.
Q60 Chair: Good morning, Ms Fairhead and Mr Ayre. Thank you very much for coming. As a preliminary, I ought to put this in context, because we are looking at it against the background of the European referendum and generally. I am sure you would accept that we strongly believe both sides are entitled to be sure that there is complete impartiality, over and above independence, because, after all, the argument about independence has to be related to the question of the persons who are listening to the broadcasts in the living room.
The issue, therefore, must include the fact that the licence fee payers, because they come from all different parts of the political spectrum, have a right to be sure they get proper impartiality, given the fact that they are putting up something like £3.5 billion a year to the BBC. We are very grateful to you for sending us a copy of your draft referendum guidelines, which, as I understand it, are in the course of consideration within the BBC as a whole and are on now on record.
Rona Fairhead: And out to public consultation, so any views of yours today and at later dates are welcome. The consultation will be open to all members of the public for about eight weeks.
Q61 Chair: Yes, indeed. Thank you very much. The other question is whether or not the referendum will take place at such a date that the referendum question will be dealt with during the charter period. We will have to work out the timing when we know what the date is.
We are grateful to you for coming. The first question I wanted to put was this. You yourself called, in an opinion piece in The Independent in August, for “a chance to codify the relationship between the BBC and the state”. What codification are you looking for and should it, for example, include codifying the principle of impartiality as an additional part of the public purposes of the BBC charter?
Rona Fairhead: There are two points there. In terms of impartiality, that is one of the values that have been put out to consultation. We think it is an absolutely critical value and a critical part of the BBC. When we ask the public what is important about the BBC, it is that it is seen to be independent and impartial, and so impartiality is built in to one of the proposed values. That is how we have responded to the Green Paper to say that we think that is an appropriate value.
In terms of the relationship between the BBC and Parliament, as you rightly say, it is licence fee payers’ money. It is payment that they are required to make if they are watching any form of broadcast television, and it is completely appropriate that the BBC is held to account. There is currently, in the charter very clear codification that the BBC, at least once a year, will come before the CMS Committee and also lay its accounts before the PAC. There is further consideration, as more powers devolve, to have a similar process in other nations of the UK.
All we were saying was to make sure that there is that accountability but that the independence of the BBC is also recognised, particularly on editorial matters. I do not think you can put in any hard and fast rules. The task of the trust is to protect the editorial independence of the BBC, but I completely accept that the BBC, like any citizen of this country, can be asked before a Select Committee to be held to account.
Q62 Chair: When you talk about the question of independence and impartiality, it would be hopeless, would it not, if, in fact, the independence was not impartial? You have to be impartial as a fundamental question, just as much as you would claim your degree of independence within the framework of the charter and the legal rules, which we have been through on a previous occasion. I am sure you would accept that, would you not?
Rona Fairhead: That is why the trust has, if you look at the way it manages and oversees the process, some very clear editorial guidelines. We have a series of service licences built into that as well. In addition, we do impartiality reviews on particular subjects, to make sure that impartiality duty is fulfilled.
Q63 Chair: Just to revert to my first question, would you accept that the principle of impartiality should be regarded as part of the public purposes of the BBC?
Rona Fairhead: Due impartiality is an important value and duty of the BBC, yes.
Q64 Chair: But as part of the formal charter?
Rona Fairhead: Yes, it is currently.
Richard Ayre: It is currently.
Q65 Chair: It is in the framework agreement. It is not specifically in the wording of the actual public purposes, which are a bit vague, if I may say so.
Rona Fairhead: We would agree with you.
Richard Ayre: That was a matter for Government last time.
Chair: Yes I know, but that is the question that I am asking.
Richard Ayre: The BBC Trust would have absolutely no reservation about impartiality being enshrined in any document that governs the BBC. It is so central to the BBC’s legitimacy. If it is not impartial, how can it possibly command the respect of the people who have to pay their licence fee for its services? It does not really matter to us which document it is in. It can be in all of them—the more the merrier, frankly.
Q66 Chair: That is very helpful. The Director of the BBC Trust, Alex Towers, has quoted research that 81% of people want the BBC to act independently of Government and politicians. Has there been further research undertaken to unpick whether this statistic is about people not wanting Government interference or not wanting scrutiny, which are of course very different things?
Rona Fairhead: There is a whole series of questions, which we have published the results of, in terms of elements of independence. We are very happy to provide that. It is primarily about interference in editorial matters. I do not think it is about scrutiny. I would say there are two things: interference, as they might see it, in editorial matters; and a question about the whole licence fee and how the funding is agreed. There is a sense from the public that a process where the funding is agreed with the full public process and a proper form of Parliamentary scrutiny is also desired. Those appear to be the two key ones that the public are focused on.
Q67 Chair: If there is a lack of impartiality and your task as the trust is to respond to complaints, the question arises as to whether or not there is a sufficient degree of confidence in the manner in which those complaints are dealt with when it comes to the question of impartiality. That really could be construed by some, perhaps, as interference, when, in fact, what really matters is that we have a proper analysis of the role of the trust, which I know you yourself have called for, to make sure that this is done properly.
Richard Ayre: The role of the trust in relation to impartiality is not confined merely to the handling of appeals against the way the BBC has handled complaints. The trust determines and publishes the editorial guidelines, a crucial chapter of which are specifically about impartiality. The trust requires higher standards of the BBC than are required of any other broadcaster, though it is fair to say that both the BBC and all of those broadcasters regulated by Ofcom have an obligation for due impartiality. But the definition of due impartiality is laid out in much more detail by the BBC Trust for BBC programmes than is applied to other broadcasters.
Our role is to set those criteria and then, as you say, to judge complaints. As Rona referred to earlier, our predecessors took on an obligation, many years ago, to commit resources to undertake impartiality reviews on specific subjects. That goes back to the board of governors. The trust inherited that commitment and has continued to discharge it. We are now about a third of the way through our latest impartiality review, which is about the way the BBC uses statistics in its journalism.
Chair: We will come on to that in a moment.
Rona Fairhead: The important thing here is that the trust understands totally the need to have due impartiality at the BBC. It is the fundamental part of having a news and current affairs organisation that is trusted, and that is why there is so much effort put into the guidelines and why we do these impartiality reviews, which take some considerable amount of time and money to effect, because they have to be done thoroughly and properly. We think they are the only way to make sure that impartiality is both there and seen to be there, so that is why this is taken very seriously.
Q68 Chair: There did seem to be a little bit of irritation in the annual report about the extent to which Select Committees were looking at these questions. But I am absolutely sure from what you have said, and I hope I am right in saying this, that you recognise that, in relation to this very hot issue of the referendum—remain in or leave—it is going to cause an enormous amount of trouble and concern in the public if, in fact, the extremely clear picture that you presented about the need for complete impartiality is not reflected. If it is not, then there will be a lot of concern, as you can appreciate, with a matter of that importance.
Rona Fairhead: In any debate that is binary, and a referendum in particular, there are going to be particular challenges with that. What we will be requiring, as the trust, is a balanced debate across those binary decisions. It is more complex as there is a spectrum of views even within those two decisions, but that is absolutely the goal. It is what the editorial guidelines, which have been out to consultation, are there to achieve. We think it is fundamental that a reasonable person looking at this would say the BBC had done absolutely everything it could to make sure that it was broadly balanced.
That is why we are consulting. It is why we put that effort in in terms of the training, the guidelines, and the review. One of the lessons we learned from Scotland is that the hotline, which was used by the campaigns if they had any concern, would be on a very rapid turnaround. In the turn of that campaign, the concerns raised by the campaigns were broadly equal and any changes made were broadly equal. That is another way we can monitor the concerns of the campaigns themselves, so we have such ways ongoing.
On the operational side, there are all sorts of ways that they are reviewing and monitoring, on an hour‑by‑hour, day‑by‑day basis. In terms of the complaints to the hotline, everyone was dealt with, certainly within a day, often within an hour or so. We also have the ability, as we do in general elections, if there is a complaint that comes through the process, to expedite it, so that is over and above the hotline. That is what we can do.
Richard Ayre: Can I add very briefly to that? If your question is whether the BBC Trust and the BBC Executive recognise that, in the run‑up to and during the EU referendum, the BBC will be under ever more scrutiny, possibly the most in its post‑war history, yes, we absolutely do. The scrutiny, in my submission, will come from 50 million people who watch and listen to our programmes and will be more than ready to tell us when they think the BBC has not acted impartially.
As some of you may have seen, I took out my iPhone. I hope you will allow me to quote; I only have it on the iPhone, not on a piece of paper. When I became a BBC trainee journalist in the early 70s, the Director-General was Sir Charles Curran. In the run‑up to the 1975 Common Market—as we used to call it—referendum, he said, “I would say we are absolutely on a hiding to nothing. At the end of the game, the winners won’t thank us; they will thank themselves. The losers will certainly blame us. What we have got to try to do is, at the end of the day, convince reasonable people that we have tried to do a fair job.” We are content to rest with that quote.
Q69 Richard Drax: You just touched on training. I was in the BBC, which I thoroughly enjoyed, for 10 years as a reporter, and my experience was that some of the editors, in London in particular, were young and relatively inexperienced, and the presenters were generally older and more experienced. Often the editors conflict with the presenters, in the sense that the presenters feel that the wrong approach has been taken through inexperience. In that regard, what can be done to ensure that the EU referendum is treated fairly by a broad range of experience, rather than being left in the hands of very young editors?
Richard Ayre: First of all, age is not the determining factor of wisdom.
Richard Drax: Not always, I agree.
Richard Ayre: It is probably true to say that, in recent years, for all sorts of interesting reasons, the turnover has been slower and most programme editors have a good deal of experience, either in the BBC or in other broadcasters. Certainly, all of the editors that I can think of in charge of, as it were, key output on radio and television are professionally long in the tooth, though that does not say anything about their age. Presenters of those programmes, by and large, are chosen because of their experience and wisdom. The role of editors is to take responsibility for the output. As you know perfectly well, presenters, particularly experienced presenters, will quite properly have strong opinions about the right way of approaching a particular broadcast. A good editor will listen to those opinions. At the end of the day, it is the editor who has to take the decision.
I know we are going to talk about training. I think you talked about training with the BBC Executive when they were here a few weeks ago, and James Harding gave you a commitment that he intended to address every single BBC journalist with relevant training in the run‑up to the EU referendum. That is a matter that the executive is working on now.
Q70 Richard Drax: Mr Ayre, you must have a psychic link to my paper here, because that is precisely the next question I am going to ask you. As you rightly say, Lord Hall and James Harding were here recently, and they confirmed to us there was going to be “mandatory” training. Was this one of the points discussed at the BBC Trust meeting on 21 October when “the BBC’s arrangements for training” were discussed?
Richard Ayre: Whether we discussed it on that day, I cannot recall. October is about a year ago for me. Either at the full trust or at my committee, the editorial committee, of the trust, we have certainly asked James Harding about his progress towards coming up with a training plan. It is on the basis of what he told us that I gave you the answer I did a few moments ago: that they are in the final stages of devising a matrix of training, which, as he assured this Committee a few weeks ago, he intends to reach every single BBC journalist.
Rona Fairhead: We will be taking the experience from the BBC and making sure it is all built into this training. It will be, for some of the key people, face to face, as well as the online training. I laid out in a letter to Sir William exactly what had happened in the Scottish referendum: the seminars that Ofcom and the BBC did around the country; the face‑to‑face training for groups around the country. In that case, around 750 staff were trained.
You make an absolutely valid point that people need to be aware of the issues and understand the complexity of the issues, so that the coverage is as fair and impartial as possible, and so they understand all of issues in that referendum. It is an absolutely valid point. From what we have seen and the commitment that James gave to us and to you, they are actively working right now on making sure that this training is really fit for purpose.
Q71 Richard Drax: I take it that the training is being given priority, bearing in mind that this referendum could be called, in theory, any time and it is going to take time to train your staff.
Rona Fairhead: It is. They are acting as if it was going to be as soon as it could possibly be, because, as you rightly say, they do not know, so it is better to have the urgency now so that it is locked in. We do not even know how long the referendum period will be. We are working on the basis that it will be similar to the Scottish referendum, which was 16 weeks, but that is just a working hypothesis. We do not have any of the specifics.
Q72 Richard Drax: Finally, will the trust staff, for example those dealing with complaints, be put through this training too?
Rona Fairhead: That is a good idea.
Richard Ayre: There is no reason we could not put them through a training course, but of course they do not have any impact upon the BBC’s content. They do not broadcast; they do not make programmes; they do not write online. They consider complaints. I would need to be convinced that we could usefully spend public money on training people in the handling of complaints about Europe, rather than the handling of complaints about day-to-day impartiality issues concerning the balance between Labour, Conservative, SNP, Lib Dem and all the rest of it. We expect the people who handle editorial complaints to be able to handle impartiality issues, but I will certainly consider whether training would be appropriate. It is an interesting idea.
Q73 Chair: There is the question of who trains the trainers, the quis custodiet ipsos custodes issue. I put this in an earlier session to David Jordan. There are two sides of the argument and both have a legitimate case to put forward, and the question is there as endorsed by Parliament. To use generic expressions, for both the Eurosceptic and the Europhile arguments—that is, the remain‑in and leave‑out sides—whoever is designated as the lead campaign will have a body of material available for the researchers. Will both, as Richard Drax has just said, the trust staff on the one hand, looking at it from your point of view, and the researchers who are putting together the questions for the presenters, for example on the Today programme during the night, be chosen on the basis that there are people among them who properly reflect the two sides of the debate—the Eurosceptic and the Europhile sides?
The nature of the questions that are put will be based on the research, but the material for the research will be available. Are you going to make sure, as a Trust, that the people who are involved in that research and those who are doing the training properly come from and represent both sides of the argument in terms of their knowledge?
Richard Ayre: It is an operational matter for the BBC to determine how it wants to deliver its training. Its obligation to the trust is to ensure that the content it produces satisfies the requirements of impartiality, as laid down in the editorial guidelines and the referendum guidelines that are now under consultation. Your question began about training but it seemed to suggest at one point—I am sure I misunderstood you—that the people who are briefing programme presenters day-to-day should be chosen according to their affiliation.
Chair: No, I did not say that.
Richard Ayre: I misunderstood you. I apologise.
Q74 Chair: I am not saying that they should have a direct affiliation. In the nature of things, when you are doing research, if it is to be properly objective, i.e. impartial, it is essential that they know the arguments on both sides of the debate properly and that the questions put by the presenters, which in many cases are initiated by the researchers themselves, are based on a proper evaluation of the analysis, so that there is not just one side of the equation taken into account as compared with another. That is really my main point.
Richard Ayre: We are in absolute agreement about that on this subject, as on any other controversial subject that the BBC tackles.
Q75 Stephen Kinnock: I would like to congratulate the BBC on being what I see as an oasis of impartiality in a desert of heavily biased and prejudiced written media, certainly. Going back to the founding mission, the Reithian maxim “to inform, educate and entertain”, and focusing in particular on the “inform” piece of that, comparative polling across the European Union indicates that the British public are among the least well informed about the workings of the European Union: the role of the European Commission, the Parliament, the Council of Ministers, the European Council, the Court of Justice, how they interact with each other, etc. Will the BBC be taking that “inform” piece of its mission on board in this process and working, both through its website and its visual output and radio, to ensure people have as much information as they possibly can have, so that they are making an informed choice when the referendum comes?
Rona Fairhead: You are absolutely right. It is one of the key principles, the key missions, of the BBC to inform. The good news is that we had the highest level of people saying they felt informed about matters within Europe in the last survey that we have ever had. It may have started, you may say, from a low base, but at least it is improving. A lot of work has gone into building the website to explain how the institutions interact. The BBC Parliament channel exposes what happens there in an engaging way. As we go through the referendum, of necessity, there will be people wanting to know much, much more, and that is absolutely at the heart of what the BBC has to do in an impartial way.
As we go into the referendum, as it starts to dominate the political discussion and the discussion around the country, we would expect that “inform” element to become, if anything, even more important.
Richard Ayre: It is really difficult. I recognise that, although we have that relatively comforting statistic that 60% of the population say they feel well informed about Europe by the BBC, if you drill down, your instinct—
Q76 Chair: Is that Europe, as compared to the European Union.
Richard Ayre: Yes. Your colleague, Ms Hoey, is not here today to ask that question, as she did of the executive, but the fact is that that question has been asked on an annual basis for many years. If we were to change the question now to read “European Union” rather than “Europe”, it would make it not possible to compare progress on that matter. It does depend rather on context whether you understand the word “European” to apply to the European Union or to the continent. We could get into that debate if you wish, Chairman, in a moment.
I was just going to say that Europe and the European Union together are a very complex issue for many people to grasp, even if they want to grasp it. The difference between the European Court, the European Court of Human Rights and the Council of Europe, and which is and which is not a creature of the EU, are really difficult issues. Some bits of the BBC’s output aim to make those clear on a regular basis, online and, if you ever get a chance to see it, on the Andrew Neil programme, Politics Europe.
You have to be realistic. You cannot expect people to sit through an Open University course on the Ten O’Clock News, so it is a really tricky issue for BBC journalists. They are aware of the problem. It is in everybody’s interest that the electorate as whole understands what the European Union is, what it is not, what it does and what it does not. I am confident the executive realises that that is a challenge.
Q77 Chair: I would just like to mention an article written by Robin Aitken, who like Richard Drax worked for the BBC, for 25 years in his case. In his article, which I am sure you have read, he says, “I vividly remember an argument with a senior BBC editor in which I asserted that the sceptics’ argument was about democratic legitimacy. Eurosceptics, he told me, were xenophobes and little Englanders, actually clinically mad in his view. It was attitudes like his that mean you will search the archives of BBC news and current affairs in vain for examples of stories critical of the EU in that period.” Rod Liddle, who was editor of the Today programme, a very distinguished editor for quite a long time, has made similar comments, as you know, about an exchange he had with Roger Mosey on a similar theme. It is in both Rod Liddle and Roger Mosey’s books. I have had similar remarks made to me by some of your presenters. They said that they thought we were, shall we say—
Stephen Kinnock: Rod is well known for his impartial and measured views on everything.
Chair: Yes. I was going to say that they regarded us as being a little off course, if I can put it that way round. But the real point is this. A lot of people feel strongly about this question, and remarks like this from editors and people who have been on the inside naturally add substance to the suggestion that there is a degree of failure of impartiality. No one seriously doubts that they did say those things. The question is to be quite sure that this is not something that will colour this debate. That is the point. We must be absolutely clear—and I am sure, Mr Ayre, that you understand what I am saying—that we really cannot have people with views like that running programmes, saying that people who have a legitimate argument for leaving the European Union are mad or little Englanders.
Richard Ayre: Of course, I have read the article. It is interesting that Robin did not name the individual. I would not assume that it would not be hotly contested, had he chosen to do so. I find some comfort in the fact that some of the people you have named, all of whom had senior, some of them very senior, positions in the BBC, were clearly Eurosceptic. That may be a comfort to those who believe that everybody in the BBC is pro the European Union.
I worked as a BBC journalist rather longer than Robin Aitken, and certainly longer than Rod Liddle. I was responsible for the BBC’s political coverage for part of my BBC career. I employed BBC political editors, and I know personally that we had BBC political editors from left, right and centre. I was proud of that fact and proud of the fact that their views could never, in my view, be detected from their journalism, only at late night over a glass of something.
Q78 Chair: Lastly on this question, the latest opinion poll suggesting that 52% want to leave and 48% want to remain in means that it is not just a question about those who are leading campaigns, politicians or even journalists and newspapers. It is the voters who are quite clearly very close to one another as to whether they want to leave the European Union or remain in. Any suggestion, given the fact that they are the licence fee payers, that they are mad or little Englanders would be rather an affront to the people who are putting up the money, would it not?
Richard Ayre: It would, were it to happen, yes.
Chair: We will leave it at that for the moment.
Q79 Kelvin Hopkins: Just on this point about Europe and the European Union, as I have said many, many times in the Chamber and to the Director-General, I am a passionate lover of Europe but not of the European Union. The European Union is a political form of government over some of the countries of Europe; it is not Europe. In all comment, that should be made clear. Referring to the European Union is fundamental. Even putting the word “Europe”, which has a nice warm glow to it, in all bulletins has a degree of bias.
Richard Ayre: I know you raised this with the executive and I was interested to see the answer that James Harding gave you. He went further than I would go, frankly. As far as the trust is concerned, the question is due accuracy. One of the tests of due accuracy takes account of context, and there are many, many contexts in which the word “European” will be absolutely understood as meaning European Union. This Committee’s name, on its website anyway, is the European Scrutiny Committee, not the EU Scrutiny Committee.
Stephen Kinnock: Touché.
Kelvin Hopkins: I have asked for it to be changed.
Richard Ayre: We all talk about Americans, and we usually mean United States Americans. The context makes it clear. Provided the context makes it clear, nobody is in any doubt.
Q80 Kelvin Hopkins: I have to say, I put down an early-day motion calling for every Government body that has something to do with the European Union not to be named “Europe”. Even for this Committee, the European Union Scrutiny Committee would be better. Anyway, I will sit that to one side.
My question really is to Rona Fairhead. Speaking at a Royal Television Society event in February 2015, you were quoted as saying, “And when it comes to using data to understand its audiences the BBC is a long way behind the competition. This was one of the less pleasant surprises on assuming my new role”. Does the same apply to the use of data to monitor BBC output?
Rona Fairhead: The data I was specifically calling out there was big data, as people call it: the way that people connect to particular websites, understanding exactly what they watch, when they turn off, when they turn on, as a way to make sure that there is much more engagement. When I specifically talked about data in that speech, that was what I meant. That was very clear. In terms of the way data are used internally to monitor what is happening, first, a lot of that data are operational. It is for the executive, not the trust, how they monitor that. Always during election or referendum periods, there is much greater collection of all sorts of data, which are reviewed and worked with. The decisions on particular programmes are changed throughout the course of a day. There are reviews.
But you have to apply judgment to all the data that are collected in various ways. They get a lot of the feedback, as Richard talks about, from the viewers, who are very clear about their views, and that comes in every single day. There is a constant judgment being applied to make sure that impartiality is maintained. It cannot be done by pure mass. You cannot just say, “X hours here, therefore X hours there”, because the impact of those two hours, when it is, where it is, who it is, would be entirely different. It cannot be done by maths; it has to be done by judgment.
In addition to the ongoing, there are those times when we know that the editorial heads have to stand back and say, “Let us have a look at what happened. Did we get the balance right overall?” That is a judgment that we rely on them to make, and the way we check that is through the impartiality reviews. We have the editorial standards committee report from the Head of Editorial Standards, who talks about any themes and trends coming through in terms of issues that have been raised. That is the way that they keep on track, but it is an ever‑changing judgment being made, with both real‑time and stand‑back moments. That is how you want editorial judgment to be applied. What we can do is look at the outcome, to make sure that nothing is going out of kilter.
Q81 Kelvin Hopkins: I speak also as a passionate believer and lover of the BBC, but, going back 10 years or so, the report by Lord Wilson of Dinton showed clear bias and subsequent reports have suggested it. I think those who are making comments are unaware of the fact that they may be biased.
Rona Fairhead: The Wilson report was a hard‑hitting report. It is 10 years old, and a lot of the recommendations were put in place. The Wilson report is always referred to. The latest ones were the Bridcut and the Prebble, and they said they saw absolutely no systemic bias. There may have been a time—there was a time; let us be clear—when the BBC was slow to pick up the changing mood in the country.
A lot of the Wilson recommendations were implemented. There is very, very serious focus on making sure that this coverage, and particularly referendum coverage, will be as broadly balanced as it possibly can be. You have seen the changes that have come from Wilson. You have seen the feedback in the Prebble report, because we sent copies. There is every effort. When you have passionate beliefs, as you do have in a binary decision, then people focus very, very heavily on it, as they should. The BBC has to demonstrate that it is dealing with both sides of the argument in a fair and duly balanced way. That is what we are there to make sure it does.
Q82 Kelvin Hopkins: In its internal monitoring, is it not important to have people who share views from both sides of the argument; that, when you are looking at your output and trying to make sure you are being balanced and impartial, there are people inside the organisation, not just from left and right because both major parties are divided on these matters, who have Eurosceptic views as well as Euro‑enthusiast views?
Richard Ayre: Again, I must have misunderstood that question, because you could not be suggesting that the BBC should recruit its journalists according to their political allegiance, whether it was by party, by EU, by immigration or by any other. You could not be suggesting that.
Q83 Chair: I will just make a point here, because this is very important. I mentioned the quis custodiet ipsos custodes question, which is: who is on the board; who is on the complaints board? When you are making evaluations—and this applies in all organisations; it is not just common to the BBC or to the BBC Trust—your judgment, to use Rona Fairhead’s own expression, has to be based on a proper evaluation of the information. You cannot have that information unless the research and/or the attitudes of the people who are involved reflect a complete ability to stand back and say, irrespective of what the issue or the complaint is, that they are in a position to make a proper evaluation.
It really is important. Newswatch has come up, as you know because you have seen its reports, with some very interesting comments, which suggest that it is not satisfied that the complaints system produces the right result. When I say “right result”, I am looking at it from the point of view of a proper and fair result. This is a hugely important question. When you replied to Kelvin Hopkins just now, you put it to him that you must be rather misunderstanding the positon if you were to suggest that, somehow or other, there was a degree of bias in the composition of the board. I want you to be quite clear in answer to me whether you are satisfied that the people who are on that board are capable of standing back and properly evaluating the complaints with full judgment, to use Rona Fairhead’s own expression?
Richard Ayre: My fellow trustees and I are appointed after a public competition by the Minister of the day. They are appointed not, I hope, I assume, for their political views, but for their ability to discharge their duties as trustees. One of the prime duties of a trustee is to understand the issues put before you for decision. I do not choose the trustees who sit with me on the editorial committee, which handles editorial complaints, but I have total confidence that every one of them approaches every single complaint on any subject with an open mind and with a critical faculty, which is essential if you are to deliver fair judgment. Does that mean we will always get it right? No, of course not, because sometimes the most judicious of people get it wrong. But I am absolutely satisfied there is no motive other than to try to evaluate the evidence and to reach a fair and proper conclusion.
Q84 Kelvin Hopkins: To throw one more stone into the BBC millpond on another subject, recently, one of your senior journalist presenters, who was notably a Conservative in his youth, remonstrated with BBC employers about the reporting of Jeremy Corbyn, saying it was very, very unbalanced. He was a Conservative who thought it was not being fair to the Leader of the Opposition. From time to time, journalists and the BBC just get it wrong in their internal judgments, even for people with a different point of view.
Richard Ayre: I am not aware of that incident. I am not doubting it happened, but I am not aware of whom you are speaking of. However, we may talk in a moment about the Scottish referendum and the lessons learned from that. When the head of the independence campaign in Scotland, Blair Jenkins, said immediately after the campaign that he did not think there had been systemic bias by the BBC, or indeed by STV or ITV, he added that, having worked at a senior level for both STV and BBC Scotland and knowing how these organisations work, he was confident that it would not be possible for an organisation to bring that systemic bias on a subject to bear, for the very reason you point out.
Somebody is always willing to say, “That was not right. No, that is not right.” They will say it within programmes, within wider team meetings and, if they are not listened to, they will probably say it in some way that makes it public. It really a good check and balance. That is not an encouragement for BBC staff to start saying things about BBC judgments in public, but it will happen if they think that they are not given a fair hearing. It is a very broad church.
Q85 Craig Mackinlay: You said earlier on, and I think it was a very good statement, that this referendum period will probably put the BBC under more scrutiny than at any time since the war. You have 50 million potential critics out there. It is really drilling down into proving impartiality. What I have heard from you I am encouraged by. David Jordan, when he came in October, said that “allowing editors to be essentially responsible for impartiality in their output and having an overall view which we get through a series of meetings and discussions which take place in the BBC” were “a better way to ensure we achieved impartiality than through simple number-counting”.
What I am asking for is to prove impartiality, much in line with what Wilson came up with. There have been analyses by universities over the years into output, and Newswatch. Is it not time to do that analysis, so that you will be able to prove to the world and the 50 million critics out there that what you are doing is in fact impartial, rather than just saying, “We have the training; our editors know what they are meant to be doing and it is their judgment”? Do you think it is time to put that into numbers?
Rona Fairhead: I was with you until that very last phrase of putting it into numbers. As I said, just because there are 60 minutes of reporting on one side versus 60 minutes on another side, you cannot tick the box and say it is all fine, because of a different context, a different person or a different time slot. It is impartiality by numbers, as I think David Jordan was trying to say. We do impartiality reviews. One of the critical roles of the BBC is to say, “Let us do a longitudinal deep dive.” It costs the licence fee payer money to do these. A properly done, independently judged analysis will be anything from £100,000 to £200,000, because it has to have a huge amount of detail and be done by people who are seen by all sides to be independent. We do that. Every year, we do at least one impartiality review, and the lessons from those reviews are applied back into the organisation.
You cannot carry on doing it for every single subject all the time. We have looked at Europe, after the Wilson report, with the Prebble report and with the Bridcut report. The Prebble report was more about breadth of opinion. But we do that. In addition, you should not dismiss what we get in terms of the checks and balances Richard is talking about. We have very clear guidelines. If they are breached, any member of the public can have a complaint into the BBC. If they are not satisfied with that, then it comes to the trust on appeal. We have that process. Referendums are probably the most challenging for any news organisation trying to be impartial. We have the hotlines so that the campaigns, which are really at the heart of it and getting all the information, have the ability quickly to raise their concerns.
As Richard points out, we have 50 million people who, on a very regular basis, will say whether or not they think the output has been balanced. We have an awful lot of ways to monitor that impartiality. I go back to Charles Curran. In a sense, when you are going into these referendums, the BBC is on a hiding to nothing, but what we can do is hold them to account and make sure everything is in place so that as much impartiality is achieved as can be. We have hard systems, soft systems and checks.
We have the ability to expedite complaints, if we need to. I was written to by the Secretary of State about our processes and the way we can respond quickly. As I said, not only do we have the hotline for the campaigns; we are able to expedite complaints. Depending on how complicated the complaint is, because both sides need to be able to respond, we usually handle it within seven to 10 days, but, if it needs to be done quickly, as we did in a dispute on the recent London mayoral elections, we can do it within a day.
I hope we can give you some assurance that we take this with the utmost seriousness. We have guidelines in place. The operational side is monitored very actively. The DG will be personally involved all long the way, and James Harding will be the key man across the content. We have all the checks and balances of the public making sure that the BBC is as balanced as is possible, but people who are passionate on both sides will have very different views. That is just the nature of a referendum.
Q86 Richard Drax: Could I make one very small point? Impartiality is so much perception, is it not, as often is the case? For example, you could give Nigel Farage 10 minutes and then give a pro‑European 10 minutes. The pro‑European would not be interrupted, whereas Farage would be leapt on immediately, and is. I am not saying I agree with everything he says, but he certainly seems to wind up BBC presenters and reporters. The perception is very much that he is under attack the moment he comes on air. In fact, he is almost brought on air to be attacked and made to look a fool. That is the perception held widely, so how can you ensure that the people who are interviewed are given the courtesy of being allowed to explain their views without being continually interrupted?
Richard Ayre: I do not accept that that is a view of the way in which Nigel Farage is treated by the BBC, rather than any other party leader. All party leaders expect, when they are interviewed by serious BBC journalism programmes and indeed by other broadcasters’ serious programmes, to be given a pretty robust time. After all, they are leading their parties and they should be able to stand up to very difficult questioning.
Richard Drax: I do not disagree with that.
Richard Ayre: I do not disagree with your first point, which is goes to the heart of it. It would be wonderful if you could just deliver impartiality through numbers. But, if you put up a really hard hitter—Nigel Farage might fall into that category—against somebody with an opposing view, who is not a very accomplished presenter of their point of view, and give them exactly one minute airtime each, is that impartial? We know that it would not be.
As we approach the European referendum, it is even more difficult than the normal party‑political to-ing and fro-ing, because there will be so many different aspects of why some people want to leave the EU and some people want to stay in the EU, for contrasting reasons. There will probably be multiple campaigns on one or maybe both sides of this binary argument. We know the Electoral Commission is required to designate one lead campaign on each side. That does not mean there will not be other powerful voices putting forward different arguments aimed at the same outcome. Delivering impartiality by numbers is never going to satisfy that requirement.
The BBC has to ensure, to the best of its ability, across all its output, that the arguments are given a fair hearing from all sides. There will be some areas—referendum broadcasts are the most obvious—in which, by law, it will be the designated lead campaigns that take equal numbers of referendum broadcasts. In casting programmes day-to-day, the editor’s job is, “How do I get at the arguments?”, wherever they come from, whether they are from politicians, industry, unions or, to take the point made by one of your colleagues earlier, ordinary people in the street who feel passionately one way or the other on this issue.
This is not something to be solved by mathematics. It is something that may not be soluble at all. It certainly will not be soluble to the satisfaction of everybody around this table. The important thing is that the BBC understands that that is its aim, that is its objective and it will be held to account for it.
Q87 Chair: With respect to the issue of voices, which is one of the issues that Prebble addressed—I think it was Prebble—it is very important that voices should be heard, but it is also very important that the arguments are heard on both sides. In order to ascertain whether or not the monitoring has taken place properly, I put the issue to David Jordan when he came, and basically it was this. We had the Wilson report and, in the aftermath of the Wilson report—and I am sure you have read all this in the transcript—it was made quite clear by the BBC that they were going to have a proper monitoring system, of a kind that Newswatch, for example, might recognise, which was properly logged, so that people knew what was going on and, as I put it in that exchange, it was not just looking for a needle in a haystack. Richard Drax has just referred to the same problem.
Ultimately, if you do not have the ability to track what was said, it is like looking for a needle in a haystack because there are so many different programmes. It is not purely the Today programme; it could be all sorts of other programmes, including even chat shows. Really, what I cannot understand, and I would like your comment on this, is, given that in the aftermath of Wilson, the BBC said, yes, it will have a proper monitoring system—let us say in broad terms like Newswatch produces—and given your £3.5 billion revenue from the licence fee payer, why that has been abandoned when it is so obvious that it is necessary in order to evaluate the extent to which people have or have not reached impartiality.
Richard Ayre: As Rona said, Wilson was 10 years ago. That is not only before us; it is before the trust. It was the board of governors’ time. The questions you ask about monitoring are clearly operational questions for the executive. I know you asked them of Tony Hall, David Jordan and James Harding a few weeks ago.
I do not think we have anything useful to add to that, except this. Every programme during an election campaign or a referendum campaign, during a time when there is a heightened requirement for delivering the tightest form of impartiality, is expected to keep track of how it has done that. Every editor is responsible. Every supervising editor is responsible for doing that over a range of programmes. They all meet with the Director of News on a daily basis to account for how they have done that. Crucially, from the trust’s point of view, when a complaint alleging lack of impartiality comes to the trust, we will require them to give us evidence as to why they believe they have acted impartially, contrary to the claim of the complainant. That may involve their citing a whole range of data.
Keeping the data—if they keep those and how they keep those—is an operational matter. It is entirely for the BBC Executive, not for the trust.
Q88 Chair: Also, there is talk of having it taken away from the BBC so that the trust effectively—this is part of the charter review—would be replaced, be it by Ofcom or by some other organisation. What is your comment on that?
Richard Ayre: We were the first of the relevant bodies to say this publically. Rona made a speech at the start of this year, about the time we last appeared before this Committee, saying that the BBC Trust believes the current charter makes it extremely difficult for one body, namely the trust, to exercise both governance and regulation of the BBC. However diligently we attempt to be clear with everybody, including yourselves, that the BBC is run by the Director‑General, he has operational control and we have a strategic and regulatory oversight, the fact is that there is a widespread public perception that the trust is responsible for everything the BBC does.
That is clearly untenable in the long run. Rona suggested at the start of this year—this is the unanimous view of trustees—that the next charter needs to separate the running of the BBC from its regulation. How it achieves the regulatory part of that, which is the trust’s most pertinent interest going forward, is a matter for the charter debate with DCMS, and we have made formal submissions about that.
Chair: That raises the quis custodiet ipsos custodes issue as well, as it happens.
Q89 Damian Green: Since we are all confessing our pasts, I should also point out that I was a BBC journalist trainee and, indeed, have worked on the Today programme preparing interviews for presenters. I hope I can reassure the Chair that it is possible to hold strong enough political views that you end up as a Member of Parliament and still act as an impartial journalist, because I can absolutely guarantee that if I had produced a Tory set of questions for someone like Brian Redhead, who was presenting the Today programme at the time, not only would he have made his views clear but so would the editors.
It is perfectly possible to hold political views quite strongly and, if you are a competent BBC journalist, act impartially in a journalistic capacity. Even if you then go on afterwards and express strong political views in private conversations, it should never, ever bleed through onto the air. Like you, Mr Ayre, I have observed a series of BBC political editors and journalists, who I know hold political views of certain kinds. On the whole, they tend to bend over backwards—and, if anything, go slightly the other way—to make sure their personal views never go through.
I want to talk about the editorial guidelines, but I have one other question about your role in protecting BBC impartiality. It is clear that one of the two campaigns vying to be the “out” campaign has already started a conscious campaign of trying to intimidate business voices from speaking out in favour of Britain staying in. I have no doubt that this campaign of intimidation will, in the end, extend to the BBC and other broadcasters as well. Do you see it as part of your role to protect the BBC against that kind of intimidation?
Richard Ayre: Absolutely, yes. It is in the charter and agreement. One of the trust’s primary functions under the royal charter is to protect the BBC’s independence. Everything Rona and I do and say in public is designed to do that. It is entirely understandable why a lot of people might wish Rona, as the Chairman of the BBC, to step in and do something about a particular programme or editorial decision. It is utterly fundamental that the Director‑General, as editor‑in‑chief, is independent of pressure on content from us, from you and from any political party. That is absolutely fundamental to our role.
Q90 Damian Green: We talked about the editorial guidelines you have put out for consultation. Do they cover all output, including comedy and drama? One can imagine, in this particularly fevered period, as you said, that it will not be just news and current affairs output that people are looking at very sensitively.
Richard Ayre: That is a good question. The referendum guidelines apply to all output, but remember that the key term in the agreement is “due impartiality”. What is “due” depends—as I said in answer to an accuracy question about the use of the word “Europe”—among other things, on context. Clearly, the most keenly scrutinised part of the output is going to be the journalism, but, speaking from experience of when I used to work for the BBC, it was surprising how often, at times of heightened political awareness, the BBC got into trouble not because of the Today programme or Newsnight, but because someone somewhere in some non‑journalism bit of the BBC did not think. “Is there a problem with inviting the Prime Minister on and asking him to do X, Y and Z? Yes, there is a problem.”
David Jordan, who spoke to you a few weeks ago, will be the point of contact for programmes outside the news and current affairs area that even dream of doing anything that is remotely political. If a cookery programme decides to do “tastes of Europe”, or maybe “tastes of the European Union”, it will need to talk to David Jordan to get his imprimatur.
Q91 Chair: You made a very impassioned case for the Director‑General as chairman of the executive board of the BBC but also in his role as editor‑in‑chief. It is well known in corporate governance that there is a very important reason for separating out the possibilities of conflicts of interest. Of course, it is just impossible for Lord Hall, as editor‑in‑chief, to do the job of monitoring every single programme. No one would expect him to do so. Nor is it his job to evaluate the outcome of any complaints, which is your job, with the reservation that there are also questions that have to be dealt with in terms of alternative systems of regulation. In a nutshell, do you not think it is a good idea to separate the role of the editor‑in‑chief from the chairman of the executive board of the BBC, as Director‑General?
Richard Ayre: Yes, we have said that.
Rona Fairhead: We have been clear that it should be a unitary board with an independent non‑executive chairman that conforms to the combined code. We have said that that has to be the front-runner, because we think it will give that clarity.
Chair: I wanted that on the record.
Rona Fairhead: There you have it.
Chair: It goes to the heart of the issue, in many ways.
Q92 Mr Turner: I am sure I do the same. I use the word “Europe” in casual conversation, but I try very hard not to use the word “Europe” when I am talking about the EU. You seem to have mixed them up during our conversation here, which is not an informal area. Do you really think we can stop using the word “Europe” when we mean the European Union?
Richard Ayre: No, I do not think we can and I do not think we should. The context is important. I went through the transcript of the last Committee session, when you questioned the executive. With respect, some members of the Committee used “Europe” when they meant the European Union. The context was very, very, very clear. Context is everything.
When you see people outside in the streets, waving placards about Europe—they will not be waving them today, but they will at some point in the near future, I guess, as we get close to the referendum—they will use the word “Europe” and it will be completely clear that they are campaigning either to stay in or to pull out of the European Union. If there is any doubt in the audience’s mind as to what a programme is talking about, it is clearly a mistake. But I submit that, in most conversations that begin talking about the European Union, people on any side of this argument will talk about Europe from time to time, and it will be clear that they mean the European Union. When somebody says, “Do you want to pull out of Europe?”, nobody imagines that they mean dig a trench down the middle of the English Channel; they mean pull out of the European Union.
As long as it is clear, I just do not think it is not a problem, in terms of due accuracy. If the Director‑General or the Director of News wants to make some hard and fast rule about it, that is entirely their discretion. If we are there to judge due accuracy, we will take account of context.
Q93 Mr Turner: I am surprised. Is the launch of a review of BBC programming in devolved nations by the trust a response to criticism of BBC coverage of the Scottish referendum?
Rona Fairhead: No. As we go into the charter, when we have asked for public input in terms of feedback, particularly from the nations, a number of the nations say they do not feel they are portrayed, or as represented, as they should be. Some of it is just about programmes that have an authentic base in one of the nations, be it Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales.
There is a particular concern on news and current affairs that, as more powers become devolved, the news stories that are relevant to Scotland may be smaller than they used to be. Therefore, there is a debate to be had: what is the appropriate news and current affairs coverage that recognises that devolution of powers while still recognising that the BBC is a UK broadcaster and will provide international and UK‑wide news? If you want to characterise it, the people of Scotland do not want to have a five‑minute story about the NHS in England and then just be told, at the end, that it does not apply to Scotland.
It is about looking at the new reality of devolved powers and what the appropriate news and current affairs coverage is. That was the feedback we got from the public consultation. The executive is now sitting down in each of the nations to ask what exactly they could create that would address that concern. That is part of what the charter process is supposed to do, and they are in those discussions as we speak.
Q94 Mr Turner: I am concerned that, when we had the Scottish referendum, what was going on there was the business of the Scots, and it had very little effect on us in the south. When we are going to have a referendum on the EU—or “Europe”, as you call it—we have to be impartial on that subject. Are you saying that the Scottish referendum has one balance of impartiality, while there would be a different one in this context because we have people from all over the United Kingdom taking part?
Rona Fairhead: No, I am not saying there is any difference about impartiality. In Scotland, obviously they had their referendum. It had to be impartial across both of the options. I am not saying there is any difference in terms of impartiality for the EU decision. All we were pointing out was that, because it is all‑UK, there are many, many more elements on that spectrum, even within the two rival campaigns.
That is all we were saying: the degree of complexity is probably greater, but there is an absolute need to be impartial across both of those decisions. To Sir William’s point—James Harding is on public record saying this—it is about making sure the arguments of both sides, in all the richness they have, are handled with due balance and impartiality. I hope you did not take us as saying that Scotland had a different level of impartiality. It is about impartiality as fits a binary decision.
Q95 Mr Turner: Let us assume for a moment that three quarters of Scots wish to remain in the EU, whereas more or less than half of English people wish to remain in the EU. Does that mean you would be seen by Scots as being biased?
Richard Ayre: The BBC will be seen as being biased by Scottish, Welsh, English and Northern Irish men and women. The question you are asking is, in determining what the guidelines call a “broad balance” of coverage of the arguments, whether we apply that differently because, in one of the four nations, there appears to be a majority in one direction and, in another, there may be a majority in the other direction. The answer is no. Irrespective of what opinion polls are telling you or suggesting may happen on polling day, the BBC’s obligation will be to produce broad balance for the arguments, whether that is a network broadcast, a BBC Scotland broadcast or a BBC England broadcast.
Q96 Mr Turner: That is encouraging, but it does of course mean that, if it were 10% in favour of one view and 90% in favour of the other view, you would none the less—
Richard Ayre: Yes, it does. It is a referendum.
Rona Fairhead: It is a referendum. This is very different. A referendum is a binary choice.
Mr Turner: Yes, I realise that.
Rona Fairhead: Therefore, there has to be a balance across those two choices.
Q97 Mr Turner: You have said to me that, even if there were only 10% who believed the earth was flat and 90% who believed it was curved, you would present—
Richard Ayre: In this unlikely situation where the Government of the day, faced with that decision, calls a referendum, the BBC would deliver equality of argument for a flat earth and a round earth. It is a judgment for Government to poll the people on their views. If they call a referendum, the BBC has an obligation to be impartial in that referendum.
Rona Fairhead: A referendum is very different from normal coverage. In a referendum, people are being asked to vote one way or the other. If the Government decides to hold that referendum, it is important that both sides have broadly balanced coverage by the BBC in terms of their arguments. We do not decide what referendums take place, and I would very much doubt that would be a referendum debate.
Q98 Chair: We will bring our discussions to an end; we have a very important debate now starting up in the House. Thank you for coming. I just hope you will make sure, through your influence, that those who have the most knowledge of these questions, in both the parliamentary sense and outside Parliament, get a chance to be interviewed on them.
Richard Ayre: It is a matter for the Director‑General, but I am sure he will be listening.
Chair: I am sure he is.
Rona Fairhead: We will ensure impartiality and due accuracy.
Chair: Thank you very much.
Oral evidence: EU Scrutiny: follow up inquiry: BBC , HC 540 1