Examination of Witnesses (Questions 177
- 179)
TUESDAY 2 NOVEMBER 1999
MR STEVE
ANDERSON, MR
DAVID LLOYD,
MS ANNE
SLOMAN AND
MR PETER
PHILLIPS
Mr Gale
177. Good afternoon, lady, gentlemen. Thank
you for your memorandum and thank you for joining us this afternoon.
The Committee believes that its evidence sessions on the future
of parliamentary broadcasting would not be complete without hearing
from the PARBUL shareholders. Before I invite you to make an introductory
statement, I would be grateful if you could, from left to right—camera
left, camera right—introduce yourselves for the record.
(Ms Sloman) My name is Anne Sloman. I
am the BBC's Chief Political Adviser and one of the four BBC members
of the PARBUL board.
(Mr Anderson) My name is Steve Anderson, I am the
Controller of News and Current Affairs at ITV and I am the ITV
representative on the PARBUL board.
(Mr Lloyd) I am David Lloyd. I am Head of News and
Current Affairs and Business at Channel 4. I am also Channel 4's
member of the PARBUL.
(Mr Phillips) I am Peter Phillips. I am the BBC's
Finance Director for its news and current affairs and I am the
second of the BBC members of the PARBUL board.
178. Thank you very much indeed. Before we start
the questioning I have a rather peculiar duty to perform. I have
to declare a personal interest because, although we resisted it,
members of the Broadcasting Committee found themselves appointed
as non-executive directors of PARBUL. It was my view at the time
that it was inappropriate for members of this Committee sitting
in scrutiny on broadcasters to themselves be members of the board
but others in high places felt that this was a tradition that
had been established and so the Chairman, Eric Clarke, and myself
and Andrew Stunell are members of the board. That needs to be
recorded as a matter of interest. Before we start the questioning
do any of you wish to make an introductory statement?
(Mr Anderson) Yes, Chairman. Each of us will make
a short statement, if that is okay, and I will lead off. First
of all, thank you very much for inviting us here today to give
evidence to the Committee, it is much appreciated. I thought first
I would briefly like to recap and refresh people's memory of the
current broadcasting situation and who is using the material that
is supplied through the PARBUL mechanism because it is quite a
wide and varied output across British television and impressive.
It is worth just reflecting on that. First of all, on the main
BBC 1 Channel, there is the Nine O'Clock, Six O'Clock and One
O'Clock news programmes, very broad agendas, but parliament and
parliamentary business and activity absolutely at the core of
its cover. It is a huge operation across the road in Millbank
charged with delivering political coverage, programmes every day,
watched by a total audience of about 12 million people. At ITV,
where I work, there are three big news programmes, Lunchtime,
Evening and Nightly News programmes, again watched by anywhere
between 10 to 11 million people collectively, very broadly based
but with Michael Brunson's team at Westminster as its spearhead,
heavily reliant on the pictures and things that come out of Westminster.
Also, we have the 24 hour news reports from Sky, the BBC and,
possibly in the near future, ITN, live coverage of business in
the Chamber, absolutely essential. At the heavier end of the market
on a daily basis there is Newsnight on BBC2 and Channel 4 News,
extensive coverage of domestic politics, hugely dependant on parliamentary
coverage. Finally, the new kid on the block, Channel 5. 5 News
has a radically different editorial agenda but it still does have
a dedicated political editor, so who is saying what at Westminster
actually matters to them as well. So, uniquely, five terrestrial
channels, plus Sky, and the other cable and satellite 24 hour
services, not to mention Radio 5 Live, News Direct, Talk Radio,
all the independent local radio stations and BBC local radio,
all with one common goal which is parliamentary coverage provided
through the PARBUL mechanism. So PARBUL works for us and it gives
us all a stake in parliamentary coverage. We would recommend wholeheartedly
that it continues as a useful forum, tying us in together and
forcing us to take a keen interest in how Parliament is covered.
Breaking it up could unfortunately lead to several broadcasters
drifting off and reducing coverage of the House which I think
we would all agree would be a retrograde step. There is no disguising
that we have begun to encounter problems with the PARBUL system
over the last 18 months and we feel it is time to question the
status quo. Its rules have worked well up until now but we think
that it is time they changed. At this point I will bring Anne
Sloman in to comment further.
(Ms Sloman) Just endorsing what Steve Anderson has
said, we do very much welcome the Committee's interest in PARBUL.
We do feel that it has worked very well and our questioning, and
our desire to question which we will come on to later, really
comes from a very strong desire to take this positively into the
next century, not just a carp about the current arrangements but
to think of very positive ways forward to take PARBUL forward
to the next century. It is a good moment to look at it. We are
concerned that the rules established ten years ago for coverage
are really desperately out of date. We think that now there should
be sufficient trust and confidence between broadcasters and Parliament
to relax them. My colleague, David Lloyd, will talk about that
in some detail in a moment. You remember when parliamentary broadcasting
was established there was a feeling of nervousness I think on
the side of Parliament. We hope that nothing has happened in the
meantime and that now people will feel we can go forward. It is
interesting that in Scotland and Wales a much more open regime
has been established and one that from the broadcasters' point
of view, and I think from the politicians' as well, has been a
great deal more satisfactory. I am very happy to answer questions
about the financial basis of the settlement in Scotland and Wales
later if you wish to ask me in detail about that. In terms of
the coverage rules, there really are not any and in Scotland they
very much took the view that the cameras were there as a surrogate
for being in the public gallery, so anything you can see in the
public gallery should be available on the electorate's television
screens at home; the same has happened in Wales. The effect of
the rules is to make the coverage incredibly static compared with
other serious outside broadcast events, for example party conferences.
Parliament looks different even to a non-television professional
because we are so hampered by the static nature of the rules.
I think another point is access to the building. Politicians often
complain to us that action is taking place at Millbank or, when
the weather is nice, on College Green but that has happened because
the broadcasters cannot get into the Palace of Westminster. When
I was in the Scottish Parliament last week they have got much
less space in the temporary building but they have set aside what
is known as the black and white corridor with a fixed point where
short, brief interviews can be given. It has been negotiated very
carefully so that it does not impinge on the privacy of Members
of Parliament or, indeed, the writing press who sometimes want
to talk to people without it being seen who they are talking to.
It is an arrangement that is working and it is making the place
seem much more lively to the audiences. In the permanent building
this has been built in as a point of principle in the design that
there will be access points, and there are access points in Wales
too. Before I hand over to David to talk about the detailed rules,
there is just one point we want to leave no uncertainty about
and that is we are not asking for any relaxation of the rules
that prevents parliamentary coverage being used on satire light
entertainment drama programmes. We are talking entirely in the
context of news and current affairs and serious factual programming,
we are not asking at any point to renegotiate that rule which
we know Parliament feels strongly about and which we endorse.
(Mr Lloyd) Chairman, thank you. I went back to the
text of the rules as they currently exist and to the objective
as stated in those rules. The objective is as follows: "the
director should seek to give a full, balanced, fair and accurate
account of proceedings". While I think it is true that broadcasters
can demonstrate their obligation throughout the last ten years
to fair and balanced coverage, I think we all have to ask whether
these rules as they currently are can possibly be judged to deliver
coverage that is full and accurate? Let us take, first of all,
if I may, the stricture against close-up shots. The technical
rule states: "The standard format for depicting the Member
who has the floor should be a head and shoulders shot, not a close-up".
I think it is fair to ask why exactly? The whole point about modern
television direction is that a close-up is sometimes appropriate,
and sometimes not. All good directors use the close-up sparingly
so as not to devalue the coinage. So why is it, I think we must
ask, that a director can be trusted to judge the use of close-ups
at a party conference, on Newsnight, on Channel 4 News, but not
in the Chamber of the House of Commons? Small wonder perhaps that
some of our viewers find the coverage distant and unexciting as
a result. Take, again, perhaps the protocol on cut-away shots.
"Occasional cut-away shots to illustrate individual reactions
are allowed, but only to show a Member who has been referred to
by the Member speaking". The point, though, about any political
debate, surely—one might say about any human interaction—is
that it cannot be fully or accurately represented within such
stilted regulations. No wonder again that some of our viewers
find so much of the coverage lacking in the very dynamic that
they experienced when sitting in the public gallery, and yet the
objective, clearly stated, was to have been a full and accurate
account of proceedings. One should not forget that this concession
as to cut-aways is not vouchsafed in Question Time, Private Notice
Questions or Ministerial Statements. Here any depiction of interest,
or even disinterest, on the part of any Member referred to is
out of bounds to our audience, your electorate. All this within
the stated rubric of providing a full and accurate account of
proceedings. Now, in the time available to me I will pass over
the resistance to the use of panning shots even though they are
part of the everyday parlance of today's television, or a situation
where there are two virtually identical wide-angles of the Chamber
provided, one of which may be used for live transmission and one
of which may not. It is precisely because, from the broadcaster's
side, I was there at the outset of this experiment and was privy
to the negotiation of the rules at the time, that I hope I can
declare with some authority that the need for the great majority
of those rules really has now passed. As a broadcaster I spend
a great deal of my time thinking how to bring current affairs
in general, and politics in particular, home to a younger under-35
audience. This is the generation that has an enormous visual literacy
with an instantaneous instinct for anything that they regard as
at all dull, stuffy, old-fashioned. If it is any of those things
then they do not watch. I have to say that if we were to loosen
the shackles of the current rules I believe that the director
could be allowed to portray the business of the House as fully
and accurately as any other aspect of politics. We could then
allow the viewer the same engagement as is vouchsafed to anyone
in the public gallery and, we all hope, bring a new audience to
politics and relocate a departed one.
179. Thank you. Mr Phillips?
(Mr Phillips) The other area where the PARBUL shareholders
feel that there is a need to look again at the arrangements with
PARBUL is around its funding. Through PARBUL the broadcaster shareholders
have paid some £7 million to televise Parliament over the
last decade including all of the operating costs of PARBUL. Over
that same period Parliament has also paid a substantial amount
although slightly less, we estimate around £5 million, mostly
in investment in facilities. There is currently no clear set of
principles as to what Parliament should pay for and what the broadcasters
should pay for. Clear rules have been established for the Scottish
Parliament and for the Welsh Assembly and we believe that these
are helpful both for the broadcasters and for the bodies themselves.
The principles that we need cover two main funding issues. The
first one is who pays for capital investment and the second is
who pays for operating costs? We believe that the extent to which
the broadcasters or Parliament should pay for capital needs to
reflect to some extent which of the parties is driving the need
for that particular investment. As one example, the broadcasters
do not feel currently that major investment in new equipment for
the Chambers is a priority given their financial constraints as
they believe that the equipment could continue for some time.
On the operating costs, the broadcasters currently, as I have
said, pay for all the operating costs for televising Westminster.
It is interesting to note that the Scottish Parliament and the
Welsh Assembly both make substantial contributions to the operating
costs of televising their proceedings as well as paying for most
or all of the relevant capital investment. The broadcasters have
raised these points already with the parliamentary members of
PARBUL and as a result at a PARBUL Board meeting in July it was
agreed that a committee of three representatives from the broadcasters,
along with Sir Alan Haselhurst, Lord Thomson and the Leader of
the House, would review the question on PARBUL's funding later
this autumn.
Mr Gale: Thank you very much indeed.
In a moment I am going to ask Eileen Gordon to pursue the matter
of changing the rules but I do not think I can let these points
get away when one or two of the observations that have been made
Eileen may not be aware of. First of all, it would be interesting
in a moment if you could clarify in terms of close-up shots where
you believe you should be allowed to zoom because a zoom, of course,
can be used very effectively indeed for dramatic effect. I think
that some of my colleagues might find the blurring of the lines
between reporting and drama a little uncomfortable to accept.
You have laid some emphasis on the fact that coverage should be
full and accurate but, of course, most of what the viewers see
is neither because it is taken out of context and used by the
broadcasters to highlight or to illustrate programmes rather than
to be seen in the full context unedited. You may wish to comment
on that. Mrs Gordon, would you like to start the questioning?
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