HC Deb 19 June 1952 vol 502 cc1561-4
The Prime Minister

With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I should like to make a statement.

In the White Paper on Broadcasting which was debated by the House on 11th June, it was proposed that, under the new Charter, the Governors of the British Broadcasting Corporation should be appointed by a committee consisting of the Speaker of the House of Commons, as chairman, the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, the Lord Chief Justice of England and the Lord President of the Court of Session, provided that they were willing to serve in this capacity.

The object of establishing this committee was, as is also stated in the White Paper, to take the appointment of the Governors as far as possible from the political arena, as a safeguard against any risk that the Corporation might be subordinated to political ends. This was, I think, a very reasonable proposal. However, the attitude of the Opposition, and their action in including this issue among those on which they divided the House, has defeated this object. [HON. MEMBERS: "Nonsense."] It created a new atmosphere, and has confronted with a contentious decision those prospective members of the committee whose membership was intended to guarantee its impartiality. They have accordingly asked that they may not be appointed. The Leader of the Opposition has also declined, I dare say from other reasons.

In these circumstances, Her Majesty's Government have no choice but to drop this proposal, and I shall recommend to the Queen that the present system of appointing Governors by Order in Council, on the advice of the Prime Minister, should continue. The new Charter will accordingly be prepared on this basis.

Mr. Attlee

While I am sure we shall all welcome the dropping of this extremely ill-considered proposal, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman to state the facts? The White Paper that was issued stated that these persons would be appointed provided they were willing to serve in this capacity. A White Paper was presented in which the House was asked to decide that these people should serve, and, as far as I know, and certainly in my own case, they were not approached or asked. I received no invitation to serve before the issue of the White Paper, but a mere notification that it was proposed to put this White Paper before the House.

I would ask the right hon. Gentleman if, in future, he would abstain from this very undesirable precedent of appointing persons not in the service of the Government to official positions of responsibility without asking whether they are agreeable to serve or not. I would further ask the right hon. Gentleman if he will recall that, before the matter was taken up in this House, there was, from persons of various political opinions and in newspapers of very differing views, a very great deal of adverse criticism of this innovation.

The Prime Minister

Of course, I am sorry if the right hon. Gentleman found himself in any great embarrassment. I should have thought it would, as a matter of fact, have been simpler and easier for him to know beforehand the course which his party would take before having to take such a decision. At any rate, what we were proposing was of a general character and not personal to any particular holder of any particular office.

For the time being the right hon. Gentleman is Leader of the Opposition and I am the Prime Minister of the day, but these were intended in the proposals we put forward to be offices rather than personalities. And I still think it would have been the best arrangement. But no doubt if the right hon. Gentleman secures power in the future he will be able to keep the matter entirely in his own hands. I can only say that, while I willingly accept that responsibility, I think the alternative would, on the whole, have been capable of giving a greater measure of confidence to this country.

Mr. Attlee

May I remind the right hon. Gentleman that, while it is true that offices were named, these offices happened to be occupied by particular persons who would be called upon to serve at once. I should like to know what the right hon. Gentleman would have said if, when I was Prime Minister, he had suddenly found himself, in a White Paper, appointed to serve on some committee without being asked.

The Prime Minister

I should not have found the slightest difficulty in declining if I had chosen to do so.

Mr. Attlee

It would have been more courteous to have asked first.

The Prime Minister

There was no intention of discourtesy at all. It was thought better to put the proposal forward, and it was not expected at the time that the Opposition would take this partisan line against it which they did.

Mr. H. Morrison

Now that the Prime Minister has reached a happy conclusion on an unhappy proposal on one aspect and has to produce a new or supplementary Charter presumably, will he not now—I beg of him in the national interest—make a completely clean breast of it and drop the proposal for commercially sponsored programmes?

The Prime Minister

I must say that the longer I have studied this matter and watched its development in the last few months, the more convinced I am that the present complete monopoly should not continue.

Mr. Profumo

Is my right hon. Friend aware that there will be just as many people in the country who are distressed at the decision the Government have had to take as there will be people who are as pleased as hon. Members opposite appear to be, and is it not a fact that it is only because of the Opposition's petty and prejudiced attitude that the officials concerned have felt obliged to ask not to serve?

Mr. Bing

Will the Prime Minister state whether Mr. Speaker, the Lord Chief Justice or the other gentlemen concerned were consulted before their names appeared in the White Paper?

The Prime Minister

I do not think there was any formal consultation, and it was very necessary to judge this matter in relation to the way in which the House received and treated it. I am bound to say that I did hope there would be a wish that we should keep broadcasting affairs out of the ebb and flow of party strife. I should have thought the arrangement we proposed was one in every way suitable and dignified, but, of course, Mr. Speaker must judge of this matter, as must the others concerned, by whether it is a controversial matter or not. Nobody in those high positions wants to be involved in controversy.

Mr. Attlee

Was it not unfortunate that when in the debate on the White Paper the right hon. Gentleman found there was no general agreement to this, he still insisted on having a vote of the House and carrying it by a small majority on a three-line Whip?

The Prime Minister

We thought we were entitled, having convictions on the matter, to put our views forward. I am quite sure that as time unfolds it will be found that ours was a proposal better in character than leaving it entirely to the Prime Minister of the day, though I am the last to undervalue that process.

Mr. Lewis

On a point of order. All hon. Members in this House rightly admire and look upon you, Mr. Speaker, as the impartial occupant of the Chair and as the servant of all Members of the House, whether they be Government Ministers or back benchers on either side. As such, may I ask you, Mr. Speaker, what is the position when, without consultation with you a Minister of the Crown has what I believe to be the audacity to suggest that you should occupy some position? Is that not, in fact, a reflection upon the Chair and upon hon. Members of this House?

Mr. Speaker

There is no reflection on the Chair involved in that. The Speaker has by Statute several duties to perform outside this House, and the House has on many occasions ordered Mr. Speaker to perform duties not connected with this House at all. There is nothing in any way out of order in a proposal of that kind, and I hope that in discussions on this matter the House will try to keep me out of it.

Mr. H. Morrison

As the right hon. Gentleman has asserted, I think wrongly, that the B.B.C. is a monopoly, and by implication a terrible monopoly, why should that lead him to the conclusion that the influence of Parliament over the composition of the Board of Governors of the B.B.C. should be weakened? Is it not utterly illogical that the Government should have tried to remove Parliamentary influence from an institution which they themselves allege is a monopoly?

The Prime Minister

I know the difficulty, of course, is that a majority in Parliament might misuse its power, and in this and other countries outside the Iron Curtain effective protection is given to the rights and interests of minorities.

Several Hon. Members rose——

Mr. Speaker

The House is having a debate with no Question before it, and that is most irregular.