Examination of Witnesses (Questions 360
- 379)
WEDNESDAY 13 JUNE 2007
SIR MICHAEL
LYONS
Q360 Lord King of Bridgwater:
It is the public perception in these issues that matters. I am
sure the Royal Shakespeare Company would like to have income from
the BBC?
Sir Michael Lyons: I do not think they see me
as the route to that.
Q361 Lord King of Bridgwater:
Can I say this?
Sir Michael Lyons: Please do.
Q362 Lord King of Bridgwater:
You have got here the new Code of Practice?
Sir Michael Lyons: Yes, I have.
Q363 Lord King of Bridgwater:
You have attached to it the Nolan principle?
Sir Michael Lyons: Yes, absolutely.
Q364 Lord King of Bridgwater:
Seven principles which have governed public life?
Sir Michael Lyons: Yes.
Q365 Lord King of Bridgwater:
With great respect, do you not see that, as Chairman of the BBC,
you set out the Code of Practice for all the other directors of
the BBC and make them all sign as a board. Is it not very important
that there is simply no question about, "Gentlemen, I think
it is probably all right." You have to set a standard that
is absolutely whiter than white, do you not?
Sir Michael Lyons: I agree with that. I have
no intention of living on a desert island, to protect myself from
any other influence or debate during my period as the Chairman
of the BBC. We have been through a very careful, demanding scrutiny
process, which has required me to give up a series of activities,
a number of them associated with income which I had previously
enjoyed. This has not been a painless exercise, therefore, but
it is an absolutely proper exercise. In debating in some detail
what is one side of the line and what is the other, we have come
to a conclusion, which I absolutely agree with, that the CBSO
is one side of the line—I should stand back from that, and
that is in process—the governorship of the Royal Shakespeare
Company is the other side of the line. We can take different views
on it; that is not unhealthy. However, the notion that somehow
one demonstrates one's purity by having no associations is, frankly,
unrealistic in this world.
Q366 Lord King of Bridgwater:
If you have to debate it—and if the late Lord Nolan were
sitting here, he would not waste much time arguing—there
is one action that you should take. May I just leave that thought
with you?
Sir Michael Lyons: You can leave that thought
with me. Thank you very much.
Q367 Baroness Howe of Idlicote:
Perhaps I may go back a little way. This whole role of the interests
of the licence fee payer is crucial and central to your role.
You perhaps have a much smaller budget than governors would have
had in the past; you have to do research, and all those types
of things. Going back to the group, a very interesting group of
people, who sat on the selection committee, do you think that
there was really enough representation of the licence fee payer?
There was of course Sheila Drew Smith on public appointments generally,
but that is a wider interest.
Sir Michael Lyons: It is an interesting and
debatable point. Parliament has decided on that arrangement for
public appointments. You are—and I see no harm in this—debating
whether you might adopt other arrangements in the future. All
of these things have to be weighed, do they not? Clearly these
are experienced and distinguished people in their own right, with
considerable knowledge of the governance of public bodies. It
seems to me that set of skills was well represented there. I think
that it is a matter for Parliament to determine whether you need
to reinforce that by a stronger voice on behalf of the public
and licence fee payer.
Q368 Baroness Howe of Idlicote:
You would therefore see it as a matter for Parliament -because
of course Parliament is not really involved in this process.
Sir Michael Lyons: Parliament certainly has
a strong voice in the setting of the current processes for public
appointments.
Q369 Chairman:
It is a very interesting point, but if there was a parliamentary
process whereby whoever was nominated as the new Chairman of the
BBC was put before a parliamentary committee—let us say
a joint committee of the two select committees, something of that
kind—would that put you off applying for the job?
Sir Michael Lyons: I think that it really depends
at which stage in the process this took place. I am on record
elsewhere, from other work that I have done, of being in favour
of a strengthened parliamentary scrutiny: not in this area but
in other areas. It would therefore be bizarre if I for a moment
suggested that there might not be a case for stronger parliamentary
scrutiny. It would not have put me off. Indeed, I am sitting here
in front of you today, for what is clearly post-op scrutiny of
my appointment; so I would hardly find that offensive or difficult,
although maybe not my chosen pastime.
Q370 Chairman:
Really? I am disappointed.
Sir Michael Lyons: I am sorry to disappoint
you, but I may have to!
Q371 Lord King of Bridgwater:
You will have to get used to it!
Sir Michael Lyons: Although it is not new to
me, of course. One thing I can be absolutely clear about is if
it were pre-appointment, I would not have put my name forward.
Chairman: I do not think that anyone
is suggesting that—apart from Lord King. What is being suggested
is some sort of confirming arrangement.
Q372 Lord King of Bridgwater:
A process which simply requires it before appointment.
Sir Michael Lyons: It is extremely successful
at bringing a wide range of candidates forward, as I see it.
Q373 Chairman:
Let us not misunderstand each other. I think that what you are
saying is, much earlier in the process, some parliamentary scrutiny.
Is that my understanding of what you are saying?
Sir Michael Lyons: I am saying, after appointment,
the appointment being subject to scrutiny certainly would not
have deterred me from being a candidate; but, at the stage while
you are still one of a number of candidates, that would have been
definitely out of the question.
Q374 Chairman:
That is what I understood you to say. Scrutiny after appointment.
Sir Michael Lyons: I think that I prefer scrutiny
after confirmation, but I can see the line of your argument.
Q375 Chairman:
I want to move on to other issues. Let me put one other point
to you which we have not covered and which I think we should.
Hugo Swire, who we are interviewing later today, was quoted as
saying on your appointment that we needed to be clear about the
criteria, and that not only were you a former Labour councillor,
but you were commissioned by Mr Gordon Brown to carry out two
major reviews for the Government, "for which he was paid
£500,000". Not quite on the scale of Jonathan Ross,
but nevertheless a substantial sum. Do you think that there was
anything in your appointment about you being a Government trusty?
Sir Michael Lyons: I doubt it, but there is
an important word missing from Hugo Swire's statement. You have
not misquoted him, but there is an important word missing. The
word is "independent". Each one of the three reviews
that I undertook, jointly commissioned by the Chancellor and the
Deputy Prime Minister, was explicitly headed as an independent
review, and that is the only basis on which I took them on. Anybody
who looks through a published report of my work will have no doubts
at all that the conclusions I reached in every case were independent,
and in some cases challenging for Government, not least in the
area of local government.
Q376 Bishop of Manchester:
Sir Michael, I notice your appointment is until 30 April 2011.
I am not a betting man, but let us pretend that I am and I now
seek your advice. Do I put my money on your serving a full term
or on a sudden, voluntary departure?
Sir Michael Lyons: A challenging question! In
good Trust style, I would encourage you to look at the facts and
to draw your conclusion from those. If you look at the facts about
the longevity of previous chairmen, you would probably put your
money against my staying very long. If you put your money on my
track record, for instance as being the longest-serving chief
executive in the City of Birmingham for 32 years, then you might
say that I have a better prospect than others; and you might get
good odds for it. You might therefore decide that was a very sensible
thing to do.
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury: You
are tempting him!
Chairman: I thought that Manchester was
a betting city!
Q377 Bishop of Manchester:
Given your own track record and the fact that, as you have said,
if one looks back on previous chairmen of the BBC, it has been
a rather a rather uncertain and perhaps unfortunate record, do
you feel that in any sense it is important now for you as the
new Chairman of the Trust to be here for some time, because the
BBC has actually suffered from sudden departures of chairmen,
not least that of Michael Grade?
Sir Michael Lyons: I would not have taken the
job on unless it was my intention to serve the four years. I leave
open the question of a second term, which is a possibility. That
is for another day, depending upon both my performance and how
I feel about the job at that time. Why go through all of this
wonderful experience with the prospect of giving it up in a very
short period? However, the spirit of your question, that it would
be in the interests of the BBC to have some stability, I absolutely
agree with.
Q378 Bishop of Manchester:
When you came in and you assessed the situation, and noticed that
Michael Grade had gone at a time when the licence fee had not
been settled, when the governors had been dissolved, when the
new Trust was just being formally established, did you feel that
there really was a need to produce some stability and that in
fact the BBC had suffered as a result of his departure?
Sir Michael Lyons: That is a complicated question
to answer. First, I do not want to speak for Michael Grade. He
makes his own decisions. Secondly, I do want to acknowledge the
excellent job that was done by my colleague Trustees under Chitra
Bharucha in getting on and doing the job of the Trust, and putting
in place things like the public value test and the instruments
that we will use to do our job and, very clearly, provide the
evidence for the decisions that we reach. That was excellent work.
I do not want to leave the impression that somehow I have arrived
to find the BBC in any way problematic. It is getting on and doing
its job. Indeed, my biggest concern at the beginning was with
the public debate, which seemed to suggest that the Trust was
a regulatory body completely distanced from its real job of making
decisions on behalf of the public about the future of the BBC.
Q379 Bishop of Manchester:
Perhaps I could just explore that a bit further. You have now
been in for six weeks.
Sir Michael Lyons: Yes.
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