House of Commons Hansard Debates for 25 Oct 1990

Mr. Hattersley : He does not deride it ; he seemed to be doing so. He seemed happy not to have these specifications in the code until they were imposed by the Prime Minister. There was no mention of them when we debated the code before, no suggestion of them in Committee and no inclusion of them in the original draft. Since 1954, the concept of objectivity and impartiality has been left entirely to the Independent Broadcasting Authority or its successors.

Mr. Roger Gale (Thanet, North) : The right hon. Gentleman has said a couple of times that these measures were imposed on my right hon. and learned Friend by the Prime Minister, but they were brought before the House by the other place. If the Opposition in the other place were so passionately opposed to them, why did they manage to muster only a fraction of their strength to vote against them? Could it be that their Lordships, in their wisdom, realised public concern in this matter?

Mr. Hattersley : The hon. Gentleman talks about public concern. He can talk about it, but he cannot demonstrate it because there is virtually no public concern on record. The Government have added to the number of institutions that exist to encourage, monitor and publish details on the amount of public concern, but the number of complaints received is minuscule. I propose to deal with the large number of complaints from Conservative Members, but they must not think that they speak for the British public--a fact that they will discover to their discomfort over the next 18 months.

I wish to go through, one by one, the detriments that will be the inevitable result of the clause being passed into law. They show why I was astonished at the words of the Minister of State in another place and even more astonished by the support given to this notion by the Minister for the Arts. They are why almost everyone who has judged these matters with authority believes that the clause will result in constant litigation.

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The chairman of the Bar Council and the professor of law at the University of Oxford predict constant litigation. That is certainly the fear of the television companies, which naturally are apprehensive about it. They fear, and we believe that they are right to fear, that every group of

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right-wing loonies will take them to court-- perhaps frivolously, perhaps contentiously, perhaps with the intention of making a point rather than with winning a case--by arguing that a programme should be covered by the impartiality guidelines, as covered by subsection (4B)(a) ; by arguing that a programme should have carried a warning that it was controversial, as covered by subsection (4B)(d) ; or by arguing that balance has not been achieved by an alternative programme putting a different point of view and being broadcast in the required period, as required by subsection (4B)(c).

Mr. Robert Adley (Christchurch) rose --

Mr. Mellor rose --

Mr. Hattersley : I shall give way first to the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Adley), who was bobbing up and down earlier, and then gave way to the Minister.

Mr. Adley : The best speech in the other place, for brevity and content, was by Lord Peyton of Yeovil. I have a philosophical question for the right hon. Gentleman--perhaps I should be careful about asking it and he should be careful about answering it. He referred to right-wing loonies. Does he agree that political proselytes can often be dangerous people?

Mr. Hattersley : Of course they can. It is rather like loving one's mother and not kicking dogs. We can all agree with that. The brave and interesting point comes when we start defining who those people are, and I propose to do so. First, I shall give way to the Minister for the Arts.

Mr. Mellor : I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. It is good of him to give way to me again, and I shall try not to make a habit of intervening. The right hon. Gentleman is making some important technical points, and I believe that it would be useful to all of us if we had a chance to explore one of his contentions.

The nub of the point seems to be that the provision will lead to constant litigation because it is an intimidatory device to be used by the Government to compel the ITC to do something for which various loonies can then hold it to account. On the right hon. Gentleman's partial reading of the clause, that does not strike me as being exactly what the clause will permit.

The right hon. Gentleman read us chunks from Lords amendment No. 22, but he did not quote these words from subsection (4B) :

"The rules so specified shall in addition"--

here are the crucial words--

"indicate to such extent as the Commission consider appropriate". In other words, it is for the commission to judge whether it considers that it is appropriate to do the things set out therein. It would be extremely difficult for a judge--although not impossible, and it would not be impossible to have masses of litigation about other matters--to say that it was wholly unreasonable for the ITC to have determined whether it was appropriate to do certain things, when the statute indicates that that was left to its discretion.

Mr. Hattersley : That point was made not by the Minister of State in another place but by one of his supporters--I took specific advice on that. The answer relates to the words that the right hon. Gentleman used in his intervention and several times in his speech--"as long as the ITC behaves reasonably". I have no doubt that the

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ITC will behave reasonably, but the television companies are afraid that the group to which I referred will insist on testing the nature of reason in court and that it will say, "In this particular, the ITC did not behave reasonably. In allocating this programme under one heading while not considering it under another, impartial or not impartial, the ITC behaved not reasonably but unreasonably." The television companies are particularly concerned about the concept of "reasonable".

Mr. Gerald Howarth (Cannock and Burntwood) : Does the right hon. Gentleman suggest that the ITC should be totally unaccountable and that no group of citizens should be entitled to challenge whether it has acted reasonably?

Mr. Hattersley : I do not think that the hon. Gentleman was here at the beginning of my speech, but if he was, he was not listening. I made it clear that I want impartiality to be preserved and that the ITC should have an unfettered right to make sure that that happens. I want the ITC to have the right that it has enjoyed since 1954, not least because, on the general judgment of the British public--who do not complain about partiality--the present system operates perfectly successfully. We have not heard a word today from the Minister about why a change is necessary because, despite all his debating skills, he cannot produce such an argument.

Sir Ian Gilmour (Chesham and Amersham) : If the right hon. Gentleman is right in assuming that the ITC will behave reasonably--which is what my right hon. Friend the Minister and I think--why do we need the amendment?

Mr. Hattersley : The right hon. Gentleman must not ask me. I shall not answer Home Office questions for another year or so, so the right hon. Gentleman must put his point to the Minister. I agree 100 per cent. with him--there is no justification for this change. The Minister has not even attempted to justify it. We have not yet heard any reason for making the change.

The fear of litigation is very much related to those groups that the broadcasters rightly suspect will take contentious actions, testing the concept of reasonableness with the intention of intimidating. The hon. Member for Cannock and Burntwood (Mr. Howarth) almost challenged me to suggest who those people might be. Everyone knows that the Freedom Association takes such cases to make a point rather than to win a legal battle. Everyone has heard of Lord Chalfont's media monitoring unit. The television companies are rightly apprehensive about how such groups will behave.

Let us have no doubt about the outcome of that apprehension. Programme makers will choose the bland and the anodyne because they believe that the bland and the anodyne are safe, yet the bland and the anodyne are the last things that should characterise some programmes--in particular, the documentary programmes against which the clause is directed. The amendment will result in, and is intended to result in, a reduction in controversy, yet controversy is often the life-blood of good broadcasting.

Let me put it in simple terms. Throughout the debate in the other place, several programmes were cited as the new target for these impartiality rules--for example, "Death on the Rock", "Who Bombed Birmingham?" and Harold Pinter's programme on Nicaragua. We were repeatedly told that, because of these new rules, after such a

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programme was broadcast there would be a Government health warning saying that that programme was not impartial and that, within a specified period, a programme would appear putting the contrary argument. I do not believe for a moment that that would be the outcome. The outcome will be that programmes such as "Who Bombed Birmingham?" and "Death on the Rock" will not be produced at all. I have no doubt that that is the intention of many of the proponents of the clause. That is what they want and I fear that that is what they will get if the clause is passed.

For that reason, the clause is repressive, and that is why I repeat that the next Labour Government will repeal it. We shall expect impartiality, but we shall have the sense to know that impartiality cannot be precisely defined and that the commission--and the commission alone--acting under the general law, has the duty to see that balance is preserved, not in relation to any one programme but over time. The idea that a programme's imbalance and impartiality are put right over time is wholly consistent not simply with the free society in which we live, but with the idea of plurality of broadcasting on which the Broadcasting Bill is supposed to be based. When we heard the talk of the brave new world of new broadcasting with multiple channels, the argument was always that different opinions would cancel each other out.

That argument was put before Lord Wyatt thought that he could do his worst with some programmes of which he disapproved, before he approached the Prime Minister and before the Prime Minister instructed the Minister for the Arts on what he had to do. It was put when the Broadcasting Bill was in the hands of the Home Office, not in the hands of No. 10 Downing street.

Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody (Crewe and Nantwich) : Is not my right hon. Friend being unduly unkind to the Minister for the Arts? After all, since he has rewritten two thirds of the Bill, is not it understandable that the Prime Minister would like to have the odd bit that relates to the original legislation?

Mr. Hattersley : I take my hon. Friend's point. However, I understand that most of the rewriting was done by the Home Office. The fact that this proposal was imposed on the Home Office illustrates its basic purpose--to intimidate broadcasters. The result will be a reduction in high -quality broadcasting, a reduction in tolerance and a reduction in freedom- -a reduction of the values that we want to see in our society. I repeat, for the third time, that we will repeal the clause at the first opportunity and, for that reason, we shall tonight vote against its incorporation in the Bill.

Mr. Julian Critchley (Aldershot) : What on earth is all the fuss about? We left for our summer hols in July happy in the knowledge that we had persuaded the Minister of State that, at long last, he was on the right lines, only to find in October that he has been shunted into a siding. That is due to an unholy alliance between Lord Wyatt and an early-day motion signed by 100 Conservative Back Benchers--one sage and a hundred onions. [Laughter.] I am not getting paid for this.

Some of us remember Lord Wyatt--Mr. Woodrow Wyatt as he then was--when he was a Member of the House of Commons. Once heard, never forgotten. The

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most accurate description of him then would probably have been "crypto-socialist". In more recent and happier times, he is the author of a column in the News of the World entitled, believe it or not, "The Voice of Reason". He is even better known as a man of views ; he has more views than a dog has fleas. How suitable it is that he should have devoted his remaining energies to emasculating his media rivals elsewhere.

Why is it that many hon. Members--I was going to say "of my great party", but that would be presumptuous--of our great party believe that we have the best newspapers in the world and the worst broadcasting, when all the evidence suggests that it is the other way round? Could it be because youthful left wingers are persuaded to join the media, while youthful right wingers go into the City, become estate agents or manage, for a time, the Scottish Conservative party?

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Perhaps, in the dog days of summer, I should have tabled an amendment that would have put the BBC and ITV firmly under the control of Conservative central office. Let us suppose that we had passed such an amendment. I should like to offer an example of some of the programmes that we might have been enjoying this winter. We might have had "Thought for the Day" by Mr. J. Archer and "Listen with Mother" with Mrs. Angela Rumbold. "The Weather" would be the province of my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) with "England fog-bound ; the continent isolated." There would have been a new series of "Dr. Finlay's Casebook" in which those two loveable Scots, Dr. Finlay and Dr. Cameron, would be played by Messrs. Forth and Forsyth. We might have had "Last of the Summer Wine" starring Sir Marcus Fox and "The Money Programme" fronted by a series of "friends of the family".

I can assure the House that no old films would be shown over bank holidays and the Christmas period. We should no longer have to watch "The Guns of Navarone" for the umpteenth time. Bank holidays would be filled by extracts from the Prime Minister's speeches at party conferences ranging over the past nine or 10 years. Such a regime would not be without its entertainment and its quiz shows. There would be a quiz show entitled "Standing Ovation" in which Young Conservatives were encouraged to make speeches and in which the one who got the longest applause would be awarded shares in the electricity industry.

Would not my clause have solved, once and for all, the problem of bias? Many of my hon. Friends on the Back Benches would have been able to boast of Britain's good fortune in possessing not only newspapers such as the Sun, the News of the World, the Sunday Sport and The People, but the fairest, cleanest and best broadcasting in the world. Sadly, we have missed yet another opportunity.

Mr. Maclennan : The late Norman Buchan would have enjoyed that speech. His presence in this debate is felt by all of us ; that is why we thank the Minister for paying a well-deserved tribute to him. He inspired not only the interest of which the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) properly spoke, but something pretty close to affection among hon. Members of all parties. He would have cared about this debate.

In all fairness to him, I must say that the Minister did not attempt to discharge the onus of proof which I

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suggested, in the concluding moments of his speech, that he might do, because it is not possible to demonstrate widespread public dissatisfaction about impartiality in broadcasting. Tens of millions of viewers watch controversial and less controversial current affairs, news and documentary programmes, but the number of complaints on the ground of partiality is very small.

In the year ending March 1990, there were only 245 complaints from the public to the Independent Broadcasting Authority about impartiality. The IBA's own annual survey in 1990 on public opinion showed a pattern similar to previous years. Between 76 per cent. and 78 per cent. of the public thought that no favouritism towards any party was shown either by ITV or Channel 4. In 1988-89 the Broadcasting Complaints Commission adjudicated on only 19 complaints relating to unfairness or unjustified invasions of privacy. Six complaints were upheld wholly, five were upheld in part and eight were not upheld. In the light of those figures, it is hard to see why we should weigh in the balance Lord Wyatt and the 100 onions and allow the Government to amend the Bill in such a significant fashion at this last gasp.

In my intervention I reminded the Minister that he made his views clear not only in his speech to the Royal Television Society, to which the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) referred, but rather more fully in Committee on 30 January when he said :

"When I was presented with the opportunity to reflect on whether we should make changes to the impartiality requirement it occurred to me that a Government of any stripe are always the last group to be credited with impartiality. I decided that it was better to leave well alone. That is what I have done. We have not fiddled around with the impartiality arrangements. We felt that it was better to leave goalposts where they were."--[ Official Report, Standing Committee F, 30 January 1990 ; c. 411.]

I understand the ways of politics and the pressures that Ministers can be put under by other Ministers, sometimes senior ones. I do not find it in any way disreputable that the Minister should have deployed the argument that he has deployed this afternoon with his customary skill. His position today is in stark contrast to what he has said publicly and in the House on a number of occasions.

Mr. Mellor : I reject that imputation, however courteously put, because it is not so. The burden of what I was trying to say to the House earlier is that the law on impartiality, the requirement that there should be due impartiality on matters of current industrial and political controversy and so on, is precisely the law as it was in 1954. I was not prepared to make that change. What I said in January stands and what I said in September was said in the clear knowledge that we were going to do what we have subsequently done.

Mr. Robin Corbett (Birmingham, Erdington) : Oh!

Mr. Mellor : Oh yes, absolutely.

In September I dealt with some of the solutions put forward by Lord Wyatt which I thought, and have successfully been able to persuade others, were not workable. We have not moved the goalposts. Everyone agreed that the referee should have a proper rule book so that the players knew what rules they were playing to. We are simply saying that that rule book should contain rules to be determined as to those particular aspects of the game and not by us.

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I am prepared to be criticised for making a change that some people see as purely cosmetic, but that change does not go to the root of the impartiality law, which is exactly as it was.

Mr. Maclennan : The Minister says that in his speech to the Royal Television Society he knew exactly what was going to happen, but the proposals have changed three or four times since then and we are now dealing with a proposition that is quite different from that first put forward in the other place.

I admire the Minister's dexterity in a purely rhetorical sense as he has tried to reconcile the irreconcilable. Neither he nor I, nor the public, are interested in the thought processes that led him to arrive at his stand --we are more interested in the effect of what has been done.

Mr. Mellor : I respect the hon. Gentleman's contribution to the Bill and I want to pose to him this question : what will be the difference that television companies will face today, as against what they have faced for nearly 40 years, apart from the fact that there will be a code about which everyone agreed anyway? What substantive change wreaks the mischief complained of?

Mr. Maclennan : As I said in my earlier intervention, I believe that the onus of proof on the mischief lies with the Minister. I do not believe that he has discharged it. As to what will be the consequence of this, who am I to put myself in the shoes of many broadcasters who have cast doubts upon the appropriateness of the clause as amended? There is not one broadcasting company that has not expressed its grave reservations about this change. They have all taken endless legal advice. Some of us have received the authorative opinion of Mr. Anthony Scrivener, chairman of the Bar Council. He has spoken of continuing litigation that will be necessary to sort out the consequences of the amended clause.

It is plainly not possible for me to answer the question posed by the Minister, any more than it is for the broadcasters to answer it. That is the nub of the problem. The clause will leave us with a vast uncertainty that cannot be resolved by debate across the Floor, but by a whole series of cases in the courts. It will not be solved by one case as the judges themselves may disagree. Those cases will be pursued by people who have a desire to obstruct the freedom of expression that the Minister and I are at one in seeking to preserve.

Mr. Mellor : The requirement on broadcasters today is that they should adhere to due impartiality on matters of current industrial and political controversy. That is almost exactly the same as the rule that they will face under the Bill. As far as I am aware, that requirement has not been the subject of frequent legal challenges in the past 40 years, and I doubt that it will be during the next 40. The substantive law, the requirement to observe due impartiality, is precisely the same in the Bill as it is in today's law.

Mr. Maclennan : If we were debating precisely the same provisions as the substantive law set out in the 1954 Act I do not imagine that we would have had a long debate or any debate. The Minister knows that the Government are imposing upon the ITC an obligation to prepare a code with specific, new, substantive requirements. That code

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will create uncertainty and that uncertainty will cause problems for broadcasters and make the mischief of which I complain. We are fortunate to have television and radio stations that are not afraid to make controversial programmes. Broadcasters are entitled to put out such programmes. Hon. Members have already mentioned Harold Pinter's programme on Nicaragua, and what about Norman Stone on Poland? Those programmes contain different views held by very different individuals on important current events. No one believes that the views expressed are those of the broadcaster--clearly they are the views of those participating in the programme. That very independence is at risk. Companies competing in an ever-hostile commercial climate will be frightened of making such programmes if there is a risk of organisations such as the Freedom

Association--there are plenty of such well-heeled organisations--taking those companies to court.

I do not regard the opinion of any single lawyer on this matter as conclusive. It is the multiplicity of views that have been expressed by lawyers that could be regarded as giving rise to concern. There is no doubt that the balance of legal opinion on this is in line with that expressed by Lord Goodman, to which the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook referred. He believes that it will create a legal picnic. We managed at an earlier stage of the Bill to persuade the Minister of the undesirability of that in the context of the quality threshold. He showed himself then to be sensitive to the undesirability of dragging these matters, which should be handled by the regulators, to the regulation of the courts, or to the establishment of precedents with one test case after another. They will not all follow in line, for the sort of subject matter that could be challenged, particularly in considering whether a matter is major, as required by the measure, will be extremely difficult. 5.30 pm

The Minister has won his spurs in the House. Indeed, he has won recognition in the Government, in view of his elevation to his important post, as a result of the manner in which he handled the Bill, listened to opinion and weighed it up. He did not favour a particular view but weighed the argument.

The argument deployed in the other place in favour of the clause as drafted was of the strength of gossamer. If the Minister has any scope for manoeuvre, I urge him to drop this worthless and dangerous clause. The previous three chairmen of the IBA wrote a powerful letter to The Times warning of the dangers of what the right hon. and learned Gentleman has in mind. I read with interest what Mr. Glyn Mathias, an experienced programme maker and broadcaster for ITN, and a man known to most of us, said on the subject. He commented : "The application of due impartiality can vary depending on the number of differing views on any one issue. It is rarely just a question of a right-wing view versus a left-wing view. The result of the amendment will be to neuter the news and to impede our ability to cover events as we have in the past."

Coming from a man such as Glyn Mathias, that is serious, for he weighs his words with care.

I have also paid attention to what has been said by the IBA and the shadow ITC. They were not persuaded of the

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need for what is proposed by anything the Minister or anyone else said. On 3 July they issued a briefing on the question of impartiality in which they said :

"In our view, the Bill as drafted offers appropriate safeguards for impartiality."

That is why there was no debate on the issue on Report and why there was no serious lengthy debate about impartiality in Committee, for we are united in recognising that impartiality is the bedrock of television and we are satisfied that it has been adequately secured in the past.

I conclude with an appeal not in my words but in the words of a leader writer in The Daily Telegraph. Perhaps it was written by Mr. Max Hastings, who in matters of freedom is a voice to be listened to. I should not attribute it to him because I cannot be certain that he wrote it, but the writer stated :

"A classic test of any government is how far it seeks superintendence over matters left to good sense. The amendment takes intervention well beyond what should be acceptable to Conservatives."

I hope that Conservative Members will heed that and will vote tonight with my hon. Friends and Her Majesty's Opposition.

Mr. Graham Riddick (Colne Valley) : I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Critchley) on a highly entertaining speech. I hope that the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) will forgive me if I do not express the same congratulations on his remarks. My hon. Friend achieved his laughs, not for the first time, at the expense of some of his colleagues. He complained that he was not paid for his performance here this afternoon. Perhaps he should look for a forum where he will be suitably rewarded, because he is assuredly good enough to be paid. I fear that he will never need to worry about the ITC getting at him about being partial or biased over a major matter.

I strongly support the amendments on impartiality, particularly No. 22. The broadcasters have only themselves to blame for the amendments. I suggest that the original amendments in the other place were introduced in frustration at the arrogance of a minority of broadcasters, in the ITV companies and in the BBC, who have abused their positions of influence by producing programmes that peddle their political viewpoints--

Mr. Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby) : Name them.

Mr. Riddick : If the hon. Gentleman will be patient, I shall refer to a few programmes.

The hysterical response to the impartiality amendments has brought no credit to some of the broadcasters concerned. Many of their claims have been highly misleading, while some have been merely abusive. Michael Grade, chief executive of Channel 4, said that Tory Members of Parliament were employing "McCarthyite tactics" and claimed that "this campaigning has been orchestrated by a small right-wing lobby."

Was he referring to Lord Wyatt, to the Media Monitoring Unit, to the Freedom Association or to the 113 hon. Members who signed the early-day motion? I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot that they are not all Conservative Members. The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland will be pleased to hear that they include a Liberal, and there are a few Ulster Unionists. At any rate,

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the 113 hon. Members who signed the early- day motion represent not a small but a substantial lobby that is not without influence. The most misleading claim that broadcasters have made is that the amendments introduce a new concept into broadcasting law. That is not true, and I was pleased that the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) did not try to put forward that argument.

Due impartiality has been a requirement since the 1950s, and the requirement in the Bill referring to due impartiality is word for word the same as the requirement for due impartiality in the Broadcasting Act 1981. In other words, due impartiality is not a new concept.

The wording is specific, saying that due impartiality must be achieved on matters of industrial and political concern and that that balance should be achieved within a series. Indeed, the IBA has incorporated the requirement to balance over a series in its guidelines.

The trouble is that the broadcasters have been ignoring those requirements and the IBA has proved itself unable or unwilling to enforce its own rules. That is why the amendments are necessary and why it is important that the basic outlines of what is meant by due impartiality, how it is to be achieved and the time limits within which balancing programmes are to be shown should be clearly spelt out in the Bill. That way, there can be no misunderstanding or ignoring of the impartiality rules by broadcasters and the ITC will not simply be able to turn a blind eye to abuses. The forces of law will be solidly behind the new ITC code.

There is no doubt that there has been a clear flouting of existing impartiality rules. In some cases that can be put down to sheer ignorance on the part of the broadcasters. I talked to some broadcasters who did not realise that they had a responsibility to be impartial in the way that they presented things. They simply were not aware of the current state of the law.

Mr. Corbett : Name them.

Mr. Riddick : I have talked to individual broadcasters--for example, people who have interviewed me have been unaware of such matters. However, the majority of cases in which the impartiality rules have been flouted have been deliberate.

Recently, there was a highly revealing article in The Guardian. It was written by Paul Bonner, the founder programme controller at Channel 4 and now the director of programme planning at the ITV Association. He wrote quite openly :

"to do justice to difficult and unpopular arguments has meant that balance might only be reached in terms of two or three years, rather than within any series."

He says that balance can be achieved over two or three years, which may be all very well for him. But the law says that balance should be achieved over a series. He is clearly flouting that and seems to be doing so with impunity.

In a radio discussion with my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Sir P. Hordern), Mr. Michael Grade, to whom I have already referred, actually admitted that "Oh Superman", a highly partisan and one-sided programme attacking American foreign policy and presented by Harold Pinter, was not balanced or impartial. He said that a balance to the programme was provided in a "Right to Reply" programme by an unknown individual, who was given two or three minutes to put the counter argument.

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One might say, "So what--it does not matter." But the current law--the Broadcasting Act 1981--states that impartiality must be achieved.

There is proof elsewhere that some television series are one-sided and unbalanced. I make no apology for referring to the Media Monitoring Unit, which has shown that some television series, notably "World in Action" and "Open Space", are consistently biased to the left.

Mr. Corbett : Give an example.

Mr. Riddick : The hon. Gentleman asks me to give an example. I have mentioned "World in Action" and "Open Space". I do not suppose that the hon. Gentleman has actually taken the trouble to read any of the material produced by the Media Monitoring Unit. Were he to have done so, he would have seen clearly to which specific programmes the unit was referring.

Some people might say that Tories and right-wing people would have a go at "Panorama". It is interesting that the last report by the Media Monitoring Unit found that the "Panorama" programme's output during the series in question was extremely balanced and there was little bias towards either left or right.

Mr. Gerald Howarth : Does my hon. Friend think that the reason why the "Panorama" programme was found to be balanced was that it had faced a couple of libel actions successfully brought by hon. Members?

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Mr. Riddick : My hon. Friend makes a telling point, but there is another issue. My hon. Friend knows only too well the difficulties of taking legal action against broadcasters. We have heard that it will be a lawyers' paradise, that they will have a field day and will be taking the television companies to court every five minutes. That is absolute nonsense. For a start, the amendments will not result in that, but even if they were to make litigation easier, the cost of taking such legal action is prohibitive. Therefore, to suggest that the amendments will produce much more litigation is absolute nonsense.

I am not just concerned about party political bias ; I am equally worried about a more general anti-free market, anti-big business, anti-capitalism and pro-Government intervention approach that seems to pervade so much of British broadcasting.

Mr. Austin Mitchell : Will the hon. Gentleman give an example? I hate to interrupt this tide of nonsense. Will he give us examples of producers, directors and programmes that have shown the malevolence, bias and lack of impartiality of which he accuses them all?

Mr. Riddick : I have no intention of starting to name lots of names.

I have been involved in a television programme made by one of the respectable current affairs teams, which was quite clearly biased. When I met the programme's producer and presenter it was interesting to find that they quite clearly had a specific view about the programme that they were making.

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