HC Deb 19 May 1988 vol 133 cc1085-6
4. Mr. Morley

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he has yet decided on the terms of reference for the Broadcasting Standards Council.

Mr. Renton

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State set out the terms of reference for the Broadcasting Standards Council in his statement to the House on 16 May.

Mr. Morley

Is the Minister aware that on 16 May the Secretary of State failed to give an assurance to my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) that the Broadcasting Standards Council would not interfere with the political and current affairs contents of programmes and would restrict itself to standards of decency? Is he further aware that there is a great deal of anxiety that the council will duplicate what already exists simply so that the Government can manipulate it? The Government already have the press in their pocket. Can the Minister give the House a categorical assurance that the broadcasting authorities will be free to comment as they see fit?

Mr. Renton

Of course broadcasting authorities will be free to comment as they see fit. They have already commented and made known their views on the setting up of the Broadcasting Standards Council. Doubtless it is right that they should have that democratic right, and that will continue.

On his first point, the hon. Gentleman is wrong. When my right hon. Friend announced the setting up of the council, he described its remit and said that it was strictly confined to questions of sex, violence and standards of taste and decency. When asked whether it would be possible for those powers to be added to or diminished, he made the point that the council's role will be debated in the House—for example, in the course of future legislation. I have no doubt that at that time hon. Members on both sides of the House will seek to add to or diminish its powers.

Mr. Lawrence

Is my hon. Friend aware that many parents in Britain are angry about the steady diet of pornography, near-pornography and violence that is fed to their children on practically a nightly basis and fed up with the whining and whingeing of the broadcasting authorities which have been given plenty of opportunities to put their house in order, but have deliberately refused to do so?

Mr. Renton

I agree with my hon. the learned Friend. It was because of that anxiety that, in our election manifesto a year ago, we committed ourselves to bringing forward proposals for stronger and more effective arrangements. That is what we are now doing. I hope that the Broadcasting Standards Council will prove the cure to the disease. If so, its setting up will prove a worthwhile exercise.

Mr. Tony Banks

I am sure that the Prime Minister wants to make the BBC as fair and impartial as The Sun and the Daily Mail. How long will the Broadcasting Standards Council exist on a non-statutory basis, and how much will Sir William Rees-Mogg be paid as chairman of that censorship body?

Mr. Renton

The hon. Gentleman is wrong to refer to the council as a censorship body. Its purpose to reflect the views of and receive complaints from the public on programme content and decency. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has constituents, as I have, who will be pleased that an outside body is now looking at such complaints.

Sir William Rees-Mogg will receive a salary at the outset of £30,000 a year. We are setting up the council on a non-statutory basis so that it can get on with its work straight away. If legislation is needed to reinforce its work, that will be incorporated in the major broadcasting Bill that we shall bring before Parliament in due course.