BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION. (Hansard, 2 March 1937)

§ Major-General Sir Alfred Knox
I wish to raise the question, of which I gave notice yesterday, of the possibility of supplying verbatim reports of broadcasts by the British Broadcasting Corporation to the Library of the House. I put a question yesterday to the Postmaster-General which explains the position I desire to bring about. I asked him whether there is any practical difficulty in furnishing to the House of Commons Library daily verbatim reports of broadcasts, since Members of Parliament are unable, through lack of time, to check the complaints of constituents either by listening-in or by visiting the British Broadcasting Corporation? "[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st March, 1937; col. 14, Vol. 321.] Some weeks ago the hon. and learned Member for East Leicester (Mr. Lyons) put a similar question and the Postmaster-General told him that verbatim reports were always available at the British Broadcasting Corporation and that Members of Parliament could go there and see the reports for themselves. I submit that Members of Parliament have not the time to do so. Another suggestion made by a right hon. Gentleman on the Opposition side was that we might have a room here in which Members, when they so desired, could listen to broadcasts. I submit that that is not sufficient, because many of the broadcasts to which our constituents object take place in the morning when Members are not ordinarily here. The Postmaster-General, in his reply yesterday, said, first, that the number of words broadcast weekly was in excess of 400,000 and he intimated that that would be far too large a volume to stock in the Library. I would point out that, on a rough calculation, the number of words spoken in this Chamber in a short week of from four days and part of a fifth amounts to double that number, and the records of our proceedings are printed and we have many copies of them in the Library. Another point is that we do not propose that these reports should remain in the Library in perpetuity. They are of ephemeral interest, but they should be available for a week or To days, so that Members could investigate the weight, or otherwise, of the complaints which are made.
326 The Postmaster-General also said that the compilation would involve a great amount of labour, and he did not think it fair to ask the Corporation to undertake this extra work. I would point out that every broadcaster has to furnish a copy of what he is going to say in typewritten script before he delivers his broadcast. It would be simple for the Corporation to require broadcasters to supply that copy in duplicate and for one copy to be sent here to be filed in our Library. One hon. Member said that we required copies of only the news bulletins. I do not consider that it sufficient. We require, above all, verbatim copies of the broadcasts to schools which take place very often. We do not require verbatim copies of such technical subjects as the habits of frogs and ants. I should like to limit the copies of broadcasts to contentious subjects, on which people in this House have different opinions. We should like to see what force there is in the complaints of our constituents. The Postmaster-General said the difficulty was not with the people who heard the broadcasts but with the people who heard unfair accounts of them. That is an argument for our point of view. It is because those accounts may be unfair that we want to see the genuine accounts; then we shall be able to judge.
There has been a great deal said about the garbled report of a certain broadcast. I compared that report with the verbatim report, and I did not find that it was so garbled as some people tried to make out. I would ask the Postmaster-General whether it is possible to arrange for what I ask. We have erected this enormous Corporation, and it is very powerful. It is no use the Postmaster-General saying that it is impossible to ask the British Broadcasting Corporation to do this, because Parliament, after all, is supreme. We are democratically elected, and we are representative of the people of this country. We can compel the British Broadcasting Corporation to do what we want. I demand that they shall be told in no uncertain voice that they ought to send these reports here, so that we can judge. This House spends many hours weekly in the making of eloquent speeches, and we spend a great deal of money—I believe £40,000 a year—in having reports of our speeches printed and circulated to people who do not read a word of them. All that money 327 is spent in sending these speeches out, and meanwhile the Broadcasting Corporation is getting direct to the people. Every word that is spoken through the broadcast is listened to by many thousands of people, who never trouble to read a single word that is uttered in this House. For that reason, if we are still to go on representing the people of this country and their real wishes, we ought to have some control over the stuff that is put out.

§ Mr. Muff
I wish to put the other point of view. I am in agreement with the hon. and gallant Member in thinking that the British Broadcasting Corporation many times is very partial, especially to one party, and I have come to the conclusion on several occasions that the party opposite receive more attention than the party which sits on this side of the House. I am, I suppose, a wireless fan. I listen in on every possible occasion and, having a sense of humour, I hope, I have come to the conclusion, on balance, that the British Broadcasting Corporation performs a very difficult job in a very splendid manner. Sometimes when I have listened to the news—by the way, the news is practically a replica of the news we get on the tape—I have thought that it was somewhat partial, and then when I have examined my own point of view I have come to the conclusion that it was because the news was not what I personally liked. I have sometimes upset my family on a Saturday evening when I have learned over the wireless that my favourite football team has lost for the eighteenth time and are going into the Third Division. I cannot congratulate the hon. and gallant Member on his fan mail; the decorous maiden ladies who insist on writing to the dear General on their own personal affairs. I have never received any letters like that.

§ Sir A. Knox
Is it because of the type of constituents the hon. Member has got?

§ Mr. Muff
I do not think it is. I have listened to the hon. Member for Kings Norton (Mr. Cartland) and the hon. and gallant Member for Thanet (Captain Balfour) and to Mr. Selfridge, and I got into a rage, but then my sense of humour came back to me, and I realised that this had been arranged to present different points of view. I have come to the conclusion that these various points 328 of view must be put. I hope that we shall long preserve our British sense of humour. I think that the hon. and gallant General must be an Englishman, but I hope we shall long preserve our sense of humour, and also that tolerance whereby we can listen to unpleasant facts, both in this House and over the wireless, in the children's hour too, which I believe is a favourite time when the hon. and gallant General likes to listen in. I trust that the Postmaster-General will not take too much notice either of the hon. and gallant Gentleman or of the hon. and learned Member for East Leicester (Mr. Lyons).

§ The Postmaster-General (Major Tryon)
I regret that the hon. and gallant Gentleman has raised this question. I do not think that he fully realises all the implications of his proposal. At the present moment the British Broadcasting Corporation receive a number of letters from all quarters, and a considerable number of letters from hon. Members, criticising their programmes. Naturally they pay special attention to any recommendation from Members of Parliament, and when I get any such recommendations I send them on at once to the British Broadcasting Corporation for their full consideration.

§ Mr. Buchanan
Are all hon. Members treated alike?

§ Major Tryon
Certainly. The hon. and gallant Member asks that verbatim reports of broadcasts should he put in the Library so that Members could keep in touch with broadcasts and see that they are being run on proper lines. He said he hoped that they would be compelled to broadcast on certain lines. I would respectfully remind the House that we have had three Debates on the B.B.C., and that the Government's recommendations were carried. Under them the responsibility for the day-to-day management of the B.B.C. is entrusted to the Governors, and not to the Postmaster-General. It is perfectly obvious what would happen if the hon. and gallant Member carried out his plan. It would mean that whenever any Member of this House heard something on the wireless which he did not like, which would happen probably on every political broadcast, the Postmaster-General would have to answer questions in this House. 329 on a matter which the House has taken out of his hands and entrusted to the Governors.
That is a very serious proposition. The hon. and gallant Member is seeking to put the Postmaster-General in an impossible position. The Postmaster-General would have the responsibility placed upon him, and the power would be entrusted to someone else. If that attitude were pursued to the extreme it would mean that there would come a demand that there should be a Minister not only responsible for the B.B.C. but definitely in charge of the B.B.C. This matter has been deliberately taken out of politics as far as possible, and above all, broadcasting has not been nationalised, as some of the more extreme Labour Members would wish. But apparently there is now a demand that this matter, which only a few weeks ago was entrusted to the Governors, should be taken away from the Governors and controlled by a Minister responsible to this House. That may be a good plan, but it is direct Socialism. I think that is a very serious proposition. It would be necessary to have a Resolution of the House tearing up this Charter and to make the Minister—I sincerely hope it will not be me responsible to the House for the music broadcasts, the news broadcasts, and so on. I should like to be saved from the discussion on the music.

§ Sir A. Knox
I did not ask for that, but only for copies of these broadcasts to be placed in the Library.

§ Major Tryon
The hon. and gallant Member forgets that the reason he gave for wanting copies was that we should control the B.B.C. I have dealt briefly with the constitutional issue, which I think is very serious. The proposal would involve having 400,000 words every week placed in the Library for hon. Members to read, and I am told that about 1,000 of the 1,300 pages would have to be specially typed out. I under- 330 stand that the Corporation are perfectly willing that hon. Members should have free access to every broadcast.

§ Sir A. Knox
How?

§ Major Tryon
If hon. Members communicate with the B.B.C., the B.B.C. will be only too happy to let them know what is being said. This is not a proposal which is in my hands. It is a proposal that certain papers should be placed in the Library. That is not a matter for me to decide. In fact, I understand that it rests with the Chair as to whether these papers should or should not be allowed to be placed in the Library.

§ Mr. George Balfour
This matter of broadcasting is under the control of Governors with whom we may disagree, and it is of such great national importance that we must in certain events resume the control of this House over the Governors. Only last week I happened on one of the rare occasions when I listen-in, to hear a broadcast with regard to population, and I have never heard a more disgusting broadcast. It was non-political, but absolutely destructive, in my opinion, of home life. Every one of my friends whom I asked as to their opinion said it was a filthy broadcast destructive of home life which put the production of families merely on a wage basis. It is that kind of broadcast that Members of this House require to have before them so that they may say in the firmest possible way, if necessary, "We must again bring before this House the charter of the B.B.C. so that it can be revised and a new charter granted giving proper control to an independent body other than the Governors."