HL Deb 19 May 1977 vol 383 cc884-904

3.21 p.m.

Lord WILLIS rose to call attention to the Report of the Committee on the Future of Broadcasting (Cmnd. 6753); and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move this Motion. In doing so I should like to congratulate on behalf of the whole House, if not indeed the whole country, the noble Lord, Lord Annan, and his Committee for what must have been a most valiant task. I want to establish first of all that we are grateful because in the course of my remarks I shall be rather critical of some of the proposals that come out in the report. It was, from all the evidence, an enormous task taking two and a half or more years, and according to the noble Lord, Lord Annan, 17 stone of paperwork per man of the Committee.

I know something about this because in the last week I must have had a half a hundredweight of paper from the various broadcasting organisations myself. But the result is worth while because we have a report which is lively, provocative, often rude, always well written. There is very much in it that is stimulating and sensible and must do a great deal of good. Of course it runs to over 500 pages, and one can only hope to comment on a few of the issues that it raises. It is inevitable —and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Annan, and his Committee will understand this—that one inevitably goes to deal with the areas of disagreement. One tends to take the other areas, the positive elements, for granted. I apologise for this in advance, and will move on to the points I want to make.

First, I must of course declare an interest. I am a professional freelance writer for radio and television and other media, and I am a director of a commercial radio station. Perhaps I might add as a matter of interest that I am a passionate television and radio man. I agreed so much with the noble Lord, Lord Clark, when he said that the amount of good that British television has done is remarkable. It is so often bashed and kicked and criticised that we do not realise the enormous achievements of British television in relation to other television services, indeed for the country in general, and I would add radio to that as well.

I agree very much with the opening sentence to Chapter 8 of the report: The BBC is arguably the single most important cultural organisation in the nation.

I have done a great deal of work for the ITV companies, in fact probably more than for the BBC, but when I search my soul I discover that I am basically a BBC man. It would be an enormous tragedy if anything were to happen to that great institution. I have the letters BBC "stamped on me all the way through like a stick of seaside rock. What I should like to say, therefore, must be judged in the light of those interests that I have declared and that comment.

May I also make one further brief point to the noble Lord, Lord Annan, that if during the course of my remarks I mention "Annan" I am referring to the Committee and not necessarily to the man, and I hope he will understand that.

One of the most remarkable and cheering statements in the report has really very little to do with television but it did cheer me and it comes in the second paragraph of Chapter 1, where it is declared for the first time that two members who knew something about television from the inside were appointed on to the Committee. My reaction to this was, "Big deal!" I find it absolutely bizarre and incredible that this should be regarded as something to boast about—an inquiry into television for the next 15 years and we have two whole experts on it—in fact, two and a half perhaps! So I welcome the remarks in Chapter 5 which relate to this. Speaking of appointments to the broadcasting authorities the Committee ask that, from the list sometimes referred to as 'the Great and the Good', the Prime Minister … may choose some of the Lesser and Better".

I put my hands together and raise my eyes to Heaven, or 10 Downing Street, and say, "Oh, yes please!"

There is a story whispered in the corridors of the BBC that when Mr. Heath was Prime Minister and had to appoint a new Chairman of Governors he sent for Sir Michael Swann and said, "Look, old chap, running the BBC is a bit like running a university. You get a lot of awkward young chaps running around with long hair and wild ideas. Now you have never had any trouble with your university so I want you to go to the BBC and sort that lot out."Probably that tale has grown in the telling, but it is indicative of an attitude.

I have nothing against Sir Michael Swann, or Lady Plowden, or indeed Lord Annan, but really you can have too much of a good thing. I am making a serious point. There is in this report, well written as it is, a certain lofty, high table attitude about some of the points it makes. I think for example that the attitude, the minority expression of Miss Laski, as expressed on page 228, where she blithely writes about giving the masses "bread and circuses" is breathtaking in its arrogance and its condescension. There is an element of condescension too in the report's suggestion, in Chapter 19, that the more popular channels should put one over on the public by slipping in something a little more cultural, or elevating, from time to time. That is an affront to the intelligence of the British public and to the audience.

I find this high table attitude typical of the approach of too many academics who never seem to me to inhabit the same world as I do, so I applaud the report's suggestion that governors should be drawn from a wider spectrum. I seriously believe that almost the single most important thing the Government could do to improve television and radio over the next 15 years would be to rescue us from this academic Mafia; to save us from this pestilence of professors who keep telling us how to run our business.

My Lords, I make one or two comments on the report as a whole before coming to specific issues. I think we might have had a stronger report if the Committee had interpreted its brief more tightly and if it had not spread itself so thin. It seems to me to suffer from the same confusion of purpose of which it accuses the BBC. I get the impression that the Committee found itself running out of time and that some areas of investigation were rushed at the last minute. I may be wrong, but that is the impression it gives.

It could be argued, for example, that the Committee covered a lot of ground which was not strictly within its brief—for example, detailed investigation into aspects of programming—and that it left too little time for some things that were within the brief, notably the outline and structure of television. For example, I was disappointed in what it had to say about cable television and pay TV. I think it underestimates the possible impact and importance of this. I cannot go into this in too great detail this afternoon, but I do know that the noble Earl, Lord De La Warr, is going to speak on this matter today with some expert knowledge. I urge the Government to look at this again. Television relies to a great extent on the film industry. I believe for example that cable television and pay television could do a great deal to rescue our film industry from the doldrums. So I urge that they pay a little more attention to this question of cable and pay television.

On the other hand we have the subject of music, which is mentioned in the report. It would not appear to me to be within the brief of the Committee to debate whether or not the BBC should maintain its orchestras. It seems to me that that is a matter for the BBC itself. It seems to me odd and contradictory to quote with approval Lord Redcliffe-Maud's report about the enormous contribution that broadcasting has made to the arts of music and opera, and then to suggest that some BBC orchestras might be declared redundant. I find that shocking. This to me would be a disastrous step backwards. It takes years to build an orchestra, and to kill even one at the stroke of a pen would be wanton vandalism. I cannot understand what got into the mind of the Committee that such a suggestion should be made. A contradiction appears, too, in the report's comments on current affairs and news, and there are some very stern strictures in Chapter 8, where words like "feebleness", "banality" and "palsy" are used in reference to the BBC's output in this area and where ITV is praised in comparison. I do not want to go too far down this road—it would be a futile and sterile exercise—and it is only a tiny remark in the report. The Committee might just as well have written this section in the sand with their big toe because their views could be washed away by another tide tomorrow; these things change very quickly.

Let us assume that ITV is stronger than the BBC in current affairs programmes. Where does this strength come from? It comes mainly from the fact that the ITV companies have regional and local links; ITV is an alliance of companies which have roots in all areas and their producers work in smaller units under different bosses. Somehow Annan contrived to miss this point. It would have been logical to suggest to the BBC that it took a leaf out of ITV's book and made itself stronger in the regions and localities, broke itself up a bit, building up smaller, self-governing current affairs units on the lines of the ITV companies. But no, on the contrary. Having made this big point, the Committee then actually suggests that the BBC should become more metropolitan rather than less—that it should put the brake on regional development and give away its local radio stations. That is what I mean by some of the odd and contradictory things that appear in the report.

I come to a few of the key issues as I see them. The report is very strong on contact with the public; one might even say that it goes overboard on this subject. It proposes, first, that a public inquiry board should be set up which would hold hearings every seven years and, on specific broadcasting issues, in between. It suggests, secondly, that there should also be separate public hearings organised by the BBC and the IBA. Thirdly, it is recommended that individual producers and executives should be required to visit groups of viewers and listeners to discuss programmes. One wonders when the producers will have time to make any programmes; but no matter. Fourthly, there is provision for a complaints commission to deal with complaints of misrepresentation or unjust treatment in programmes.

In my view there is great merit in that last suggestion of a complaints commission. As noble Lords may know, the BBC has a semi-independent complaints commission; it is maintained by the BBC but it consists of independent people. The IBA method is slightly different. It has a complaints committee but it is made up of officers of the IBA. I think it would be sensible to have one complaints commission spread over both authorities and paid for by both authorities, and in that respect the Committee has made a sound suggestion. There is, in my view, an equally good case for requiring that the broadcasting authorities should hold regular hearings in all parts of the country, and especially when a new franchise is to be allocated.

That is all good stuff. But I do not really believe that we need, on top of all that, a separate public inquiry board. As I see it, it would be a smaller sort of Annan set up on a permanent basis, and I believe that would be wrong. It would simply create another establishment of a permanent nature, whereas I think it is much better to have ad hoc inquiries like Pilkington and Annan rather than a regular public inquiry board. I would prefer to bring in, every ten years or so, a fresh outside approach in the way we have suggested in the report. I would also recommend that the terms of reference should in future be narrowed down because one of the problems with the report as printed is that it covers too much ground and the Committee found its work virtually impossible in some areas. On the other hand, perhaps the work could be divided. Certainly it is too mammoth a task for any committee to do, even over three years.

I suppose there is some merit in the proposal that producers should go out and meet viewers but, frankly, I am suspicious of it. It is too formal. It is an academic answer and it shows a lack of understanding of the creative process. Contact between a producer and a writer and the audience is a far more subtle thing. It is a question of mental antennae, of feeling and instinct, and if you do not have it you are in the wrong job; you should not be doing it and, if you do not have that sensitivity, no amount of public hearings or meetings will put it right.

Last year my son produced a documentary called "Johnnie-Go-Home", and this year he produced a documentary called "Longfellow Road", which achieved a certain notoriety. Tell him that he needs contact with his audience and he will give you a hollow groan, because for the past two years he has practically lived among the people he has been filming and if anybody knows anything about the audience it would be him. Using him only as an example, that would apply to most producers; they have, by the very nature of their job much greater contact with the public and their audience than many executives. Thus, in my view, that suggestion would not be either very useful or very welcome.

While I am talking about contact, would make the point that in the television programme with Robin Ray which took place on the basis of this report, when they were discussing violence, Lady Plowden, the chairman of IBA, said: You've got to talk to writers about … this question of violence … it is the people who originally write the things that you have to look at". That must be the most dramatic conversion since decimalisation. I am president of the Writers' Guild of Great Britain and my members write probably 90 per cent. of the indigenous programmes on television. Lady Plowden has been chairman of the IBA for two years, yet I have never met her. I have seen her at functions across a crowded room, but never once has she asked me or members of my association to go along and discuss some of the problems associated with television programmes. I do not sort her out for any particular acrimony. I quote her words as an example of what I earlier called a rather lofty attitude, and it seems to me, while on the subject of contact for producers, that we might talk in a little more detail about contact for chairmen and governors.

I come to the question of the fourth television channel. It is already available, but is not in operation; it has been described as the spare room of television waiting only to be furnished. The IBA and ITV companies put in a strong plea for this channel, arguing that they could give a wider service if they, like the BBC, had two channels. The Committee rejected what they described as a formidable case "and recommended that a new body should be set up to run the fourth channel, to be called the Open Broadcasting Authority.

They not only rejected the ITV claim but gave the IBA a poke in the eye with a wet stick by proposing that it should be renamed the Regional Broadcasting Authority. I hope the Government will set their face against that particularly insensitive bit of name-changing. It is unnecessary and downright silly. It would be change for the sake of change and its effect on the morale of the people working in independent television would be disastrous. Whatever we may think, labels are important and such a change of name would imply a step down to a lower division. It is so unnecessary that we should avoid it. It is not even true because ITV must, by its nature, remain a national network and provide a national service based on the regions, and it should therefore keep its name.

I hope the Government will also reject the idea that a new authority should be set up to run the fourth channel. It is an interesting and arresting concept and I am glad Lord Annan's Committee advanced it because it has created a great deal of discussion and has made us think quite deeply about the problems. It is rather like the notion of a channel tunnel; it is possible and even interesting but for many reasons it is not, in my view, practical. Annan proposes that the fourth channel should be a kind of publishing house which would commission programmes, in the main from independent producers, but would also have programmes from the ITV companies and from other areas. He wants a big slice of the channel to be filled by independent producers and proposes that it should be financed by advertising of every kind.

I do not believe that would work for a number of reasons. If the channel is to be financed by advertising, then it must compete. That is the law. Advertisers are not given to making donations to charity and they will want value for their money, and that means audiences. There will be steady pressure on this new channel to put on popular mass programmes at peak times to attract the audiences, build the ratings and win the advertising. The Open Broadcasting Authority will be ill equipped for such a battle, quite apart from the fact that to do battle would be to negate its role. It would be a contradiction. So at the very beginning there is a dilemma: to get the money one must go for the wider audiences and if one goes for the wider audiences one will simply be creating another ITV 1 or BBC 1.

It has been argued that there are other sources of revenue and different types of advertising. That has been described as "pie in the sky" and I believe it to be so. I am not convinced. The great national advertisers spend their money to reach an audience on ITV, in the Press and on local radio. They will continue to do so. The type of advertiser who is left will not be able to afford immensely high rates for a place on the fourth channel, so, in my view, there will not be the money. If the money is not available, there will be no commissions for the independent producers who are lining up in the wings waiting to play a key role in this new set-up. So bang! goes the basic reason for having an Open Broadcasting Authority. There will be no independent production.

All this also quite blithely leaves out of account the cost of production to an independent, an area in which the Committee are astonishingly naive. The cost of the production of even a single television drama is enormous these days and is rising every year. The experience of the film industry is a very good example. One might say that the film distributors in this country stand in the same relationship to independent producers as the proposed Open Broadcasting Authority; that is to say that, if I am an independent producer, I can go along to a film distributor and say, "Look I've got this marvellous idea for a film on the subject of the House of Lords. It will cost half a million pounds to make. Will you give me the money? "They say," Yes, we like the idea, we will give you half a million pounds to make this picture." However, they then own it, lock, stock and barrel. One then has to give them a copy of the script and if they do not like it they will cut it down, alter it and change it, or else they do not make the picture. When I tell your Lordships that out of every 10 subjects put up to film distributors, only one gets made, that will give you some idea of what I am talking about.

We should have much the same situation with this Open Broadcasting Authority. An independent producer would go along saying that he wanted to make a television series about the House of Lords. That might cost something like £200,000 spread over several episodes. The Authority would have to find that £200,000 somewhere and all the pressure would be towards making the programme more and more popular so that it could be shown in peak time. They are going to become panicky when the money is not coming in: they will put on every kind of pressure and the result will be to negate the whole reason for the exercise. The OBA, in other words, would need to have immense funds to commission, say, six to eight hours a week of good independent production, and I cannot see those funds coming in, in view of the way that it is to be set out.

For these and several other reasons, I think that this is a non-runner. It has not got the legs. I believe that the fourth channel should go to the IBA. Annan is full of praise for the way in which the IBA has policed the commercial services and I am quite sure that it could exercise control over a new channel. There is no reason at all why the channel should not be run by the ITV companies along the lines suggested by Annan. Indeed, John Freeman of London Weekend has said that ITV's proposals for the fourth channel differ only in the odd detail from those of Annan. The ITV companies could finance the channel. There would be no problem there. They have the resources. It would cost the public something, but very little. It would use unused resources and would take up slack in studios in terms of personnel and equipment. Above all, it would give the talent in ITV and the independents the extension and the challenge that they need and which they have not got at the moment.

Annan argues that if you give the extra channel to the IBA, you will intensify the ratings battle. I hope that I have convinced your Lordships that if it were given to the OBA there would be a ratings battle anyway. There is no way one can avoid this and it is naive to think otherwise. So long as we have television, particularly if it is financed by advertising, there will be a ratings battle. Even if it is not financed by advertising, a channel's, raison d'être is to get people looking at it and the more the better. So there is always going to be a ratings battle, whatever the channels. However, one can minimise this with proper control and one can save the public from the worst excesses of the American system.

Paradoxically, because the ITV companies have the experience and the resources, they are better placed to accept the control that the IBA would inevitably have to put upon them. If they are given the new channel, the ITV companies should be required to take their full part in Open University or similar projects, to screen programmes of minority interest, to give time and support to independent productions. All this, they are prepared to do. Better that than another authority and the inevitable bureaucracy that would go with it. There is no philosophical difference of approach on this issue between the IBA and Annan. It is simply a question of finance, resources and controls. ITV has the first two and Parliament and the IBA can provide the third. So why not go for what is simple, feasible and clear cut?

I should like now to turn briefly to local radio. I welcome the Committee's obvious enthusiasm for local radio. It is an excitement that I share. It is the most exhilarating development since the birth of radio itself. Above all, I welcome the suggestion that local radio should be extended as rapidly as possible to cover the whole of the United Kingdom. Where I part company with the Committee is with the proposal on how this should be achieved. There is some contradiction here too. Although the report talks about diversity in local radio, it in fact recommends that the competition between the BBC and independent local radio should stop and that all local radio stations should be financed largely by advertising.

I cannot put the case any better than Tom Jackson, a member of the Committee, in his Note of Dissent on Page 226. He said, If local stations are to be dependent on advertising for their revenue then the character of those local radio stations at present run by the BBC will be very considerably changed". I believe that that would be a pity. I believe that my colleagues on the Committee have grossly over-estimated the possiblity that funds for local radio can be raised from sources other than either the licence fee or advertising. If this is right, and BBC experience when first setting up local radio stations proved this to be the case. then the setting up of an LBA and the withdrawal of BBC will mean that almost all the finance for local radio will need to come from advertising. There is a great difference between the BBC local radio stations and those for which the IBA are responsible. I do not condemn either the output or the quality of staff in the commercial local radio stations but they are very different in output to those organised and run by the BBC. I would be very unhappy if the whole of local radio was to become commercial in character and if the essential public service nature of BBC local broadcasting was to disappear. If this happens there will be a great loss to those local communities who have grown used to the sort of output which the BBC at present provides … I believe it is wrong to set up another Authority to deal with local broadcasting. The proposals of the major portion of the Committee already allow for three authorities excluding the LBA, a minority of members would increase this to four. I believe that a fourth or fifth Authority would be far too many … Both Britain and broadcasting are in danger of having too many authorities and not enough choice. Those were Tom Jackson's words and I feel that he has put it very explicitly. I urge the Government to study his minority comment on the Local Broadcasting Authority in great detail. He makes other valid points, but that is the essence of his argument. In my view, it is unanswerable. I hope that the Government will accept it, and, at the same time, give the go-ahead to the BBC and the IBA for the speediest development of local radio.

I cannot leave this question without ! clearing up one—I am sure, unintentional—injustice in the report. This is its comments on Capital Radio. The report criticises Capital Radio's output, but makes no mention of the very many useful community programmes that Capital puts out. Worst of all, the Committee did not give the true facts. They must have known that Capital Radio was set up at the same time as London Broadcasting, not to compete with it, but in fact for them to be the two sides of the same coin. London Broadcasting was to be an all-news, talks programme; Capital was called the entertainment programme. The LBC was enjoined to provide the news, the features, and the talks, and Capital to provide the music, the comedy, and so forth. I agree that it was not a very sensible arrangement, but it is unfair to blame either Capital or London Broadcasting for doing the job they were asked to do. And since Capital has in three years grown to be the most popular radio station in Greater London—with an audience of over 4 million—this would I think suggest that there was some lack before it went on the air, and it is fulfilling a need that the public wanted.

My Lords, as I said at the beginning, it is inevitable that one should pick on the areas of disagreement. But on many big issues I believe that Annan did get it right. They are, in a sense, the negative ones, but they are important. I mean, for example, the relationship between Government and broadcasting. In my view they were absolutely right to resist the idea of more Government control, to resist the idea of the creation of some super body to oversee the IBA and the BBC. This is a central issue.

Our broadcasting system needs really no defence. It has proved itself, and is the envy of others throughout the world. I would urge that we do not tinker with it or make changes for the sake of change. If Annan has his way we shall enter the 'eighties with the BBC, the Regional Television Authority, the Local Broadcasting Authority, the Open Broadcasting Authority, the Broadcasting Complaints Commission, the Telecommunications Advisory Committee, and a Public Inquiry Board; or, as Robin Day put it, we shall have the BBC, the RTA, the LBA, the OBA, the BCC, the TACC and the PABB. No doubt the academics will bless the Annan Committee—all those lovely jobs—but it scares me to death. So I hope that the Government s ill resist the more extravagant of these proposals and keep bureaucracy down to a basic limit. I welcome the report. I welcome its many merits and the continuing debate that it must arouse.

I have one final personal word of thanks. Tucked away in the report is a recommendation, to which I hope the BBC will listen, because ITV has already done so: that freelance workers in television should have a contributory pension scheme. I have never understood why Lew Grade should retire at 70 and get a huge pension, while I have worked in television for as long as he has but when I retire I shall not get a penny. I think that ITV has already accepted this principle, and I hope that the BBC does so, too. For that small personal thing, I thank you! Lastly, I should like to thank all the many speakers who have put down their name to speak in the debate. I think that this must be a great tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Annan; he must be pleased with it. I am sure that we shall have a very useful debate, and I should personally like to thank all the speakers in advance. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.

3.53 p.m.

Lord CARRINGTON

My Lords, your Lordships' House seems to be a most suitable place in which the first Parliamentary discussion of the Annan Report should take place, and we are very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Willis, for introducing it, and for the manner in which he has done so. There may be some Members of your Lordships' House, though I think perhaps not very many, who remember the debates on the introduction of commercial television in 1953 and 1954. They were—and I remember them very well—heated debates, and, one must admit, in some cases rather bad tempered. The giants of the day took part: the Archbishop of Canterbury crossed swords with Lord Salisbury; the olympian Lord Reith swooped upon Lord Woolton; and I remember Lord Samuel philosophising to an increasingly irate and impatient Lord Winterton.

At the end of the two-day debate on the introduction of the Television Bill, I remember one of the most powerful speeches that I have ever heard made in opposition to any Bill. Those opposing the Television Bill had been accused by my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye as having hearts of gold and heads of ivory, and the noble Lord winding up for those opposed to the Bill said: … ivory is a substance altogether too hard to describe the inspissate incomprehension with which our whole argument has been treated. We want something very much softer than that to describe the minds of Ministers. A thin mucus of liquefied indiarubber, something which constantly flows back to the channels from which it has been industriously brushed, would be more like it. And this invincible ignorance, which undoubtedly will save their souls … certainly damns their case ….".—[Official Report, 1/7/54; col. 383.] The noble Lord ended up with the following words: Your Lordships' House has suffered for many years under the reproach (I believe an unjust reproach) of being only an instrument in the hands of the Conservative Party. Reject this evil, mischievous, ill-considered Bill and a reproach would be for ever overcome; and, in addition, an evil will have been averted, the full consequences and mischief of which may still be apparent only to a very few."—[Col. 398.] It was, as Lord Winterton subsequently remarked," a magnificent oration", and it was of course made by my noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham. And, though I fear that as a junior Minister I voted with the Government, I must admit that my sympathies were very largely with Lord Hailsham, for I remember vividly the doubts that I had at that time as to what would happen to the quality of our broadcasting and our television services if commercial television were introduced. Perhaps it all seems a little exaggerated now—

Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE

Not at all; good stuff!

Lord CARRINGTON

Good stuff—but perhaps a little exaggerated. After all, my Lords, we had all been brought up in the "Reithian" era, and whatever may be said of it by those who find that that kind of stern paternalism is out of date, there can be no doubt about the quality of what was done by the BBC, both in radio and television, and the effect that it had on public taste. The only experience that any of us had ever had at that time of commercial television was in the United States, and I do not think that it would be going too far to suggest that some of us did not find the possibility of the introduction here of similar programmes a very attractive idea. I think we feared that commercial television would, by appealing to the advertiser, inevitably affect the quality of both channels and debate the standards of the BBC.

I think that after a lapse of over 20 years we were, on the whole, wrong, and I believe that most people still think that our radio and television services are much better than most, and recognise the high standards of a great many programmes on both BBC and ITV. So, in a sense, I stand in a white sheet, and I speak largely this afternoon as a consumer and an occasional performer on what I am only too well aware are programmes with very low audience ratings. I will therefore be brief and concentrate upon the two main issues of the Annan Report: the fourth channel and the Local Broadcasting Authority.

Before I do so, I should like for a few moments to say something of a more general character—and I suppose that in a way it is an admission of yet another mistake. When the Annan Committee was originally appointed in 1969 or 1970I do not remember which—I was wholly opposed to it. It did not seem to me that it could perform a useful or valuable function. We had had so many committees investigating broadcasting, that yet another one seemed not only unnecessary, but positively harmful. In the event it did not take place, and it was not until nearly five years later that the noble Lord was reincarnated.

My Lords, I think that I was wrong. I think that the Committee has done a very good job indeed, and, what is more, it has produced a report which is both readable and stimulating, and full, I think, of good sense, as one might expect from the noble Lord, Lord Annan, and the other members of his Committee. If only all reports were as readable as this one perhaps more of them might be read and more attention paid to them. I agree very much with what Lord Annan said in his Fleming Memorial Lecture at the end of April this year, when he said that he was not at all sure that the most important thing in his report was what the Committee did not recommend. It would, I am convinced, have been quite wrong to break up the BBC and the ITV, and more particularly to establish a new body between Government and broadcasters: as he himself puts it, "a sort of permanent Annan Committee". It would have been a thoroughly bad move, and could well. I think, have meant the end of independence in broadcasting as we now have it and have known it.

My Lords, there is no doubt among any of us about the importance of television and radio, or the influence it has upon people's minds. I remember, not very long ago, a very experienced public relations man saying to me that politicians on the whole do not have much idea how important television and radio can be in putting over their point of view, and how little use speeches in the Press are in comparison. Yet most politicians seem to fit a television broadcast in between addressing a handful of students or 30 unwilling people in a village hall, grumbling the while about how they just can manage to squeeze it in, when they are, I suppose, in the short time that they are on the air, probably addressing more people than the combination of all those they will ever speak to live.

There is no doubt about the importance of the medium in forming public opinion, in influencing attitudes, and fashion, and in moulding tastes. Consequently, there is no doubt about the importance of proper control, and the noble Lord and his Committee have, I think very wisely, turned away from the proposal of a Broadcasting Commission, leaving it to be done by two or three (if the Local Broadcasting Authority is set up) bodies which are responsible to Parliament. I, for my part, have no particular objection to the suggestion that broadcasters and producers should have to face their public from time to time, especially in the regions, and answer questions about their activities. Indeed, I think it is a good idea, as did Lord Willis, that there should be public hearings into franchises about to be awarded, so long as we can avoid the sort of pressure groups which can be dangerous. But, with Lord Willis, I wonder whether it is really necessary that one of the roles of a public inquiry board should be to tear up broadcasting by its roots every seven years. If it has to be done at all, I am not at all sure it would not be better left to either an ad hoc body, as he suggests, or to Parliament.

I welcome, too, the other suggestion he makes in this sort of area, which is the proposal about the Broadcasting Complaints Commission. It is quite right that there should be a body outside the broadcasting authorities themselves to which individuals can complain of injustice or unfair treatment. I only hope it will not have too many staff. But the essence, surely, is that the IBA and the BBC should remain accountable to Parliament, and that the present powers over the boards of governors and finance should remain. Perhaps hitherto Parliament has not taken enough interest in broadcasting. Perhaps we should have more regular debates on the reports of the two bodies each year, in exactly the same way as regularly we have debates on the Farm Price Review, the Defence White Paper or whatever it might be.

My Lords, I think (though on this sort of subject one must be very careful) that most of us who sit on these Benches would very broadly agree that our approach is as follows. The BBC and the IBA should remain as the major authorities; they should be accountable to Parliament, not to any all-powerful broadcasting council; and we should avoid, in any changes we make, proposals which will increase staff to any large extent, or set up any new authorities which will increase the cost to the taxpayer and the licence payer—though I say that that does not, I think, necessarily exclude some of the proposals made by Lord Annan which do not seem to be significant in manpower or money terms.

Now I come to the two most discussed proposals in the Annan Report. First, the question of the fourth channel. There are, I know, those who say that there is not any need, anyway, for a fourth channel; that three is quite enough, and that more of the same thing is unnecessary. I think I would agree with the latter part of that. I think that probably more of the same thing is unnecessary, and I will confess that I was intrigued by the proposals of the Annan Committee on the Open Broadcasting Authority—different from the others, but including to a very significant extent programmes made by the existing TV companies; regulated by an authority which would be responsible for the overall balance of programmes but not accountable for the contents; operating, in a way, as has been said, like a publisher. I find that, in a way, an attractive idea, because I do not think there is really any need for a fourth channel which duplicates the other three, whether or not it would reduce the quality of those three—and I am not so wedded to that argument now.

I still think there is a need for something rather different, but I think there are drawbacks to the noble Lord's proposals, and Lord Willis has enumerated some of them. For example, I really do not think it would be possible to finance the programme on the basis proposed by the Annan Committee. The Committee is proposing to increase public expenditure for educational purposes, and indeed at one point it seems to suggest that the channel should receive a Government grant to sustain its novelty and its productions. I do not think that at the moment such a proposal is possible, or likely to be acceptable, but it does not seem to me that for that reason alone it is necessary to abandon some of the excellent ideas that Lord Annan has had.

Would it not be possible, as Lord Willis has already said, to give the fourth channel to the IBA, but at the same time to impose certain conditions which would have the effect of creating a service not too dissimilar from that proposed by the Annan Committee? A number of the ideas that the Committee has proposed could be incorporated in those conditions, not least, if it is possible—and I am no expert—the suggestion that independent producers should have an opportunity certainly to insist that the IBA (in the words of the Annan Committee) see the fourth channel as a challenge to broadcasters and a nursery for new forms and new methods of presenting ideas. I would have thought that the IBA would welcome that opportunity; that it would be a more economical way of financing the fourth channel, and that it would use the equipment which the commercial companies already have in an economical and sensible way. I would not have thought that that was an impractical idea, and it would, I hope, not be too strenuously opposed by the Annan Committee.

My Lords, as for local radio, I confess to being in some doubt. There is much to be said—though this is no criticism of the local BBC radio stations—for the Committee's argument that the BBC should confine itself to national broadcasting. In the present financial situation a very persuasive case can be made for the BBC to concentrate its resources over a rather narrower field. Goodness knows, they have enough to do in the field of national radio and television! I know that the argument against this—and the BBC feel very strongly about it—is that they must have some kind of grass-roots organisation. As it is, they say, they are criticised for being too metropolitan, and without the local stations from which they use a very great deal of material on their national network the situation would be that much more difficult and open to criticism. But I would not have thought there was any reason why the BBC should not have a regional set-up, nor any reason why they cannot use, or could not use, local material from the commercial stations, which would presumably take over from the local BBC outlets.

There is equally much to be said for giving the local radio network entirely to the IBA. It is commonly acknowledged, I think, even among those who on the whole do not approve of that sort of thing, that they have done good work in setting up their local radio stations. Many of them are first-class, and, broadly speaking, the standards are high and the stations are popular in their localities. Yesterday I was sent some very remarkable figures, for example, about the local Ipswich station. The IBA now have the experience, the staff and the expertise to maintain and expand their network, and I think it could be very cogently argued that they should be allowed to do so. Nevertheless, I think there is something to be said for the idea of a new Authority concerned solely with local broadcasting. Local broadcasting, as the report says, is quite a different animal from a national network and it does not have much in common with the other IBA activities.

My Lords, I am only sure, in this respect, of one thing. I am quite sure that it would be wrong to set up another new bureaucracy with another large staff. Yet, as the noble Lord, Lord Annan, has said, there would not necessarily be any need for this; for the staff of the LBA will come from the BBC and the IBA and probably only a different building will be needed. I confess that at the end of the day I am not certain that the same objective that the noble Lord is seeking could not be achieved by giving local radio to the IBA. Arguments against this are set out in the chapter on the Local Broadcasting Authority, and need to be examined carefully. I, for one, if it could be proved that my instincts in this are wrong, would not be opposed to the setting up of such a Local Broadcasting Authority, provided that there were no increase in overheads.

It may well be that, in the present political uncertainty, it will fall upon a Conservative Government to make the arrangements before the franchises run out in 1979; so that I do not think it is necessary that any of us should make up our minds at this moment, finally, about what should be done. But I hope for example that the debate this afternoon will clarify some of the points at issue and that further discussion both here, in another place and in the country generally, will lead to a solution which will be broadly acceptable to all shades of opinion. I do not think that that would have been possible, if it is possible, without Lord Annan's Report. Even if the exact methods proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Annan, for achieving his objective are not followed, I hope that we shall agree with his purpose, which seems to me wholly right and which would ensure the independence and quality of our broadcasting in future.

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