The B.B.C. in Hansard
By JOHNCOATMAN *
THE record of the B.B.C. is contained in some hundreds of volumes of Hansard. It opens on April 3rd, 1922, with a question asking if the Postmaster-General will modify the restrictions on the use of "wireless telephones." It ends for the present on April 2nd, 1952, with a question about the jamming of certain of the B.B.C.s world-wide foreign- language broadcasts. That bare statement reveals a prodigious growth. This article shows that current controversy over certain non-essential aspects of broadcasting is merely ludicrous beside the gravity of the real issues.
The very first pronouncement on a scheme of British broad- casting, on May 4th, 1922, invites all applicants for licences to broadcast" to come together. .. and co-operate . . . that an efficient service may be rendered and that there may be no danger of monopoly." This theme of monopoly largely domi- nates Parliamentary discussion at the outset and is constant throughout the record. On August 4th, 1922, the Postmaster- General, answering continuous attacks on the monopoly, repeats ". .. There must be safeguards against monopoly .. . monopoly would sterilise developments and deprive broadcasting in this country of the benefits of inventions." The monopoly feared was not only that of the supply of radio goods in the home market, and all arguments are relevant to the existing monopoly.
As broadcasting began to reveal its potentialities, the attack on the monopoly grew in penetration and influence. Mr. Attlee, in a debate on broadcasting opened by himself on December 11th, 1931, attacked the use of the B.B.C. in politics, saying : "It is a subject well worthy of consideration by those who believe in democratic institutions to see that we have not in the B.B.C. created a Frankenstein which is going to break up our political life." A year earlier Mr. Attlee's party was in office and it was Mr. Churchill who asked on May 28th, 1930, "when we may expect some arrangement . . . which will allow other parties to use the broadcasting, besides the Labour Party ? "
The monopoly was attacked not only by the minority 'party in Parliament. Spokesmen of other minorities pleaded their causes repeatedly, but the most weighty protest came from Mr. Churchill, Mr. Lloyd George and Sir Austen Chamberlain, who, in 1934, in connection with the series of talks "The Debate Continues," alleged that a new principle of political discrimina- tion had now been introduced in this country by silencing Members of Parliament who were not nominated by party leaders or whips. The world was then drifting into the Second War, but the view of world affairs consistently repre- sented by the B.B.C. was that of the Government. Mr. Attlee said on July 24th, 1933, ". . . there seems to be a general ten- dency on the part of the B.B.C. to regard what the Government says as right." Today, as in 1931, the political pendulum has swung, and Conservative spokesmen complain that no true presentation of this country's economic position was made to • the public in recent years. These influential voices express the opinions of scores who could be quoted. The record shows . beyond doubt that in these crucially important manifestations of the monopoly party views and interests are absolutely identical.
Next, the record reveals a steadily growing sense of frus- tration among Members of all parties at their inability to come to grips with the B.B.C. in matters of public concern. Ques- tions do not get beyond the Table, or the Member is told that his question refers to matters entirely under the B.B.C.s control. Consider the troubles of bad reception which are endemic in some parts of the country, a permanent hardship. On Decem-
* Director of Research in the Social Sciences, St Andrews University.
ber 10th, 1929, the Speaker had to ask the Postmaster-General to assist him with a question concerning bad reception in Scot- land, since he understood that no Minister was responsible for the B.B.C. The answer was that the question did not come within the Postmaster-General's competence. On March 14th, 1951, Brigadier Peto, after he and others had failed to get satis- factory answers about reception in North Devon, asked the Postmaster-General bluntly if it was not time he "ceased to cover himself with the cloak of the B.B.C. and took responsi- bility for his office." Colonel Day's exasperated cry of May 17th, 1927, sounds regularly throughout the record as he ask, the Postmaster-General what subjects he is prepared to take responsibility for in the House.
It is clear from the record that the root cause of this frus- tration is the completely mistaken idea that the B.B.C. is exactly like every other " socialised " industry whose general policy comes within some Minister's purview, but not its routine operations. The B.B.C., however, is unique in that its policy and day-to-day operations are one and the same thing. Consider the striking incident of February 2nd, 1934. During an armaments debate Brigadier Spears, arguing that the B.B.C. seemed set on shaping public opinion in foreign affairs, was illustrating his theme from certain B.B.C. talks, when the Speaker objected, but Sir Stafford Cripps and Mr. Aneurin Bevan intervened in support of Brigadier Spears. This was an outstanding example of inter-party unanimity on a fundamental issue of broadcasting. That accountability to Parliament is non-existent emerges clearly from the record, as, also, does the reason therefor. It is the lack (noted by Mr. Speaker above) of a Minister responsible for the B.B.C. Other reasons are the dissipation of responsibility inside the Government owing to the B.B.C.s political-warfare broadcasting and the world- wide scope of its activities, impossible for any outsider to comprehend.
All this results in the baffling constitutional problem of the B.B.C. As long ago as July, 1928, Sir E. Hilton Young thought we were drifting into a position "which is not workable under our constitution—in which we have a Corporation responsible to no one." Mr. Lloyd George made a similar point in March, 1929, when he thought " the stage had been reached when . . . the Postmaster-General must intervene. There are decisions that the (B.B.C.) board . . . cannot take." The demand for specific constitutional control over the B.B.C. is another major recurrent theme, but even the Ullswater Committee's recom- mendation in paragraph 53 of its report is ignored. The answer to Mr. Acland in March, 1939, calls for serious notice. He asked the Prime Minister if he would consult party leaders "and other prominent members of the House" to give them opportunities/similar to his own for broadcasting on foreign affairs. Dissatisfied with the answer, he raised the point on the adjournment. Its importance is obvious from what has appeared above, yet the Postmaster-General replied "These matters are not in the hands of the Prime Minister or in my hands. They are in the hands of the Governors of the B.B.C."
But the most extraordinary examples of the B.B.C.s autarky come from the war years, when the record makes it perfectly clear that authority, even in matters bearing directly on the conduct of the war, was shared between the Minister of Information and the B.B.C. The abounding examples of this are summed up in the clash between Mr. Herbert Morrison and Mr. Brendan Bracken in the debate on socialised industries on March 3rd, 1948. Mr. Bracken affirmed explicitly that as Minister of Information he had had no power "to order the B.B.C. Governors about." Mr. Morrison replied: "It is utterly intolerable, in a great war when the nation was fighting for its life, that the B.B.C. should have been able to do what it liked." Mr. Bracken, however, stuck to his point in a manner which revealed definite resentment.
Here we must leave the record, but even this slight summary of thirty years of Parliamentary debate and questions innumer- able shows that the B.B.C., as it has developed, presents an urgent political and constitutional problem. But it also shows, beyond any rebuttal by casuistry or interest, that on all the main points of the problem both interests and opinions of members of all parties are identical. Yet, apparently, they are prepared to quarrel about such a quiddity as sponsored pro- grammes.
This "is a subject worthy of consideration by those who believe in democratic institutions." Thus Mr. Attlee, speaking of broadcasting in 1931.
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