British Broadcasting Corporation (External Services) (Hansard, 21 July 1981)

§ Mr. Greville Janner (Leicester, West)
I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to establish a Royal Commission on the British Broadcasting Corporation's external services; and for connected purposes.
The proposed Bill is of great importance to the House and to the country. It concerns the BBC external services. It has the support of right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House, and we are to be given no other opportunity, prior to the recess, to consider the disgraceful reduction in the strength and power of this country's voice through the BBC external and transcription services.
The Bill seeks to establish a Royal Commission on the British Broadcasting Corporation's external services. The Bill is in this form because no private Member may introduce a money Bill under the Ten Minutes Rule. Therefore, the Bill seeks to protect the BBC, through the establishment of a Royal Commission, against the cuts which have been introduced by the Government and which would be totally contrary to the wishes of the House were it able to express them.
The cuts, against which the Bill will provide a clear protest, are first in the transcription service, which provides 785 hours of programmes every year. It has substantial audiences in 100 countries. It includes amongst its services a Caribbean service frequently used by the Government Minister concerned so that his voice as well as that of the country may be heard in that area.
Second, the Brazilian service, amounting to 15¾ hours a week, is to go. The French service to Europe is to go. It has been built up since 1939 into a clear expression of accepted, objective reporting of news and the provision of comment for people who are unable to obtain it and understand it in English. The world service is, of course, restricted to those listeners who are educated enough to understand our language.
The Spanish service to Europe of seven hours a week is to go. The Italian service of seven hours a week is to go. The Maltese service of 35 minutes a week is to go. The Burmese service of seven hours a week is to go. With the Somali ambassador protesting vigorously, the Somali service, which amounts to only 5¼ hours a week, is to go.
The purpose of the Bill is to enable the will of this House to be heard so that we can, together, protest against an arrangement which will, if carried through, put us into the same broadcasting league as Albania and Egypt. Every service which disappears will be replaced by services most willingly provided by the USSR and others only too ready to recognise that broadcasting provides the most cost-effective and successful way of letting the voice of any country be heard abroad.
Unfortunately, we have financial problems which prevent our foreign service from operating as the Ministers no doubt want them to operate. I should have hoped that the Foreign Office and those who represent it, and who are at the moment consulting on the Front Bench, would welcome the Bill. It would strengthen their hand in getting the resources which a first-class Foreign Office would want for its services. I hope that they will see the matter in that light.
Certainly the Bill is necessary because the Leader of the House has said "Yes, we would like to have a debate but 168 there will be no time for it." It is necessary because over 160 hon. Members of all parties have signed a motion calling for the cuts to be revoked. It is necessary because it is clear that there will be no other way in which the will of the House can be expressed.
All of us in the House would echo the words of Sir Ian Jacob, a former director-general of the BBC. He said: The BBC started these broadcasts in foreign languages at the request of the Government and their purpose was to state the truth with as much exactitude and sincerity as it is given to human beings to achieve; to elucidate objectively the world situation and the thoughts and actions of this country; and to build a closer understanding between peoples by providing interest, information and entertainment each in due measure according to the needs of the many audiences.
It is no answer for the Government to say "We are taking those cuts in the capital programme which have been postponed from previous years and putting them into this one, so we must cut the other services." That is a bogus argument. It is no answer to say that in future years more will be spent. We do not know what promises may again be broken, and the BBC has had to suffer from too many shattered promises in the past.
The Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, an all-party Committee, reported this morning. It protested in a footnote at the fact that the proposed cuts were not placed before the Committee when it discussed the BBC's external services. The protest is clear and all-party. Paragraph 28 of the report states: Whilst the role of Great Britain in world affairs has changed a good deal in the last 25 years, we possess two valuable assets whose significance has, if anything, increased rather than decreased over that period, namely: we are the home of the English language and have a broadcasting organisation, the BBC, which is universally admired and respected throughout the world. We feel that these advantages may not yet have been sufficiently used or understood by previous governments. Members of the House expressed their views on these matters in a debate on 13 November 1979 when the Minister recommended acceptance of a Motion that there should be no cuts to the External Services of the BBC.
I would welcome opposition to the Bill so that the House might have the opportunity to vote on it. I invite the Government to put up an hon. Member to oppose it so that it can be shown that a tiny group of Government supporters, roped in by their Whips, support the Government's cuts. I invite the House, however, to vote in favour of the Bill massively, or, if I am given unopposed leave to introduce the Bill, to treat that as an indication of the united will of the House to proclaim to the world that we salute the BBC for the job that it is doing and that we wish it to continue that job with our full support and with the money that it needs.

§ The Chairman
I understand that the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Lewis) wishes to oppose the motion.

§ Mr. Arthur Lewis (Newham, North-West)
May I first intimate to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Leicester, West (Mr. Janner) that I am not speaking on behalf of the Government or the Government Whips? They have not asked me to speak. I do so because I happened to hear my hon. and learned Friend on the overseas programme. There is a rule that an hon. Member should declare his interest. On this question, I wish hon. Members would declare interests and that they would admit that the BBC and its overseas services waste the taxpayers' money.

§ Mr. Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield, East)
Rubbish!

§ Mr. Lewis
My hon. Friend may say "Rubbish". I shall give proof.
On the overseas programme that I listen to consistently when there are all-night sittings in the House, rather than sit in the House, I hear such drivel as "Charades" and "The Word Game". The hon. Member for Isle of Ely (Mr. Freud)—I think that he is one of the sponsors of the proposed Bill—takes part in that programme, and he is paid very well for it. I know that a small group of hon. Members regularly contribute. Not only do they get good fees for doing so, but some of them also get cars. Because they do not drive Datsuns, taxpayers' cars are supplied by Leyland. Then they take part in these programmes, religiously and regularly. Of course, they are all in favour of an incomes policy, but not for themselves, and then they come here and shed crocodile tears about what the BBC is doing. Does my hon. and learned Friend know that only last week the chairman of the BBC went on a flip to New York? He could have gone on an ordinary flight, but not he. He had to take two seats on Concorde.
I like hon. Members to declare their interests. Are they really interested in this motion? Some of the programmes that I listen to are a lot of drivel. I listen to them only because it is better drivel than the drivel that I have to listen to here.
On another occasion, which is so farcical that it is unbelievable, the BBC spent £64—it may not seem a lot, but one must realise that the sick, the disabled, old-age pensioners and the rest have to pay their licence fees—to send a taxi from London to Newcastle to pick up four spiders for a television programme. The BBC's men could have gone to the street corner and picked up the first kid that they saw. He would have given them all the spiders they wanted.
170 There is a gross waste of money in the BBC. The regular contributors to "Any Questions", who get £300 or £400 and are all in favour of an incomes policy—

§ Mr. Cyril Smith (Rochdale)
How much did the hon. Gentleman say?

§ Mr. Lewis
They get £300 or £400, which they never reveal, and of course a big fat dinner as well. Let us have some honesty. Let us admit that there is a need for a cut in some of the services, when there is waste and when money is being spent unnecessarily. There are two sides to every question. We should be assured that when any organisation—whether it is the Labour Party, the Tory Party or what I understand is known as the SDF—wastes the taxpayers' money, that will be manifested.
We must not forget that the taxpayers include the sick, disabled and people with no limbs. Every time they buy a packet of cigarettes, for example, they pay tax, which goes towards giving certain people a good additional income that none of them thinks of declaring.