What the Conservatives Should Do With the Bbc

One of the easiest ways of winning a cheer at this week's Conservative party conference will be to attack the impartiality or extravagance of the BBC. The corporation has never been a conference favorite but over the last decade the Conservative view has not counted for very much. All that may change. According to the polls, the Tories are most likely to form the next government. If they do, they must make decisions on some of the most important issues in broadcasting policy for years.

First and foremost, the new ministers will have to decide whether they agree with James Murdoch that the BBC is no more than "state sponsored journalism"; that the scope of the corporation's activities and its future ambitions are "chilling"; and that the only real guarantee of broadcasting independence is profit.

Of course Murdoch is not the only figure in the commercial television world to hold those views. There are others who would like nothing better than to reduce the BBC and preferably confine it to programs that the commercial companies find unprofitable to make.

These are all arguments the Conservatives should reject. Take state sponsored journalism. Murdoch raises the specter of a broadcasting organisation directed by government along old East German lines. Bluntly, that is rubbish. One of the achievements of the BBC over the years is how it has resisted government interference and, above all, maintained impartiality in its reporting.

It explains why Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell fumed at the early coverage of the Iraq war. It explains why both Margaret Thatcher and John Major (to my certain knowledge) railed against the corporation.

Murdoch doubts whether impartiality in broadcast news is possible. The answer to that comes from one of the newspapers his company now owns. When I worked for the Times in the 1960s my editor was William Haley, a former director general of the BBC. As a reporter you knew what standards were expected of you: accuracy and fair reporting. In following those standards today BBC News does rather better than, shall we say, Fox News.

My advice then to the new ministers who are likely to take over is reject the Murdoch path of cutting back the BBC and concentrate instead on making it more effective.

• First, the BBC Trust should be abolished. It was a misconceived idea from the start and neither satisfies the public's demand for an independent complaints body nor brings any advantage to the corporation itself. Too often it is seen as one part of the BBC criticizing another part, to the confusion of all concerned. The obvious step is to ask Ofcom to handle the public's complaints.

• Second, a BBC chairman and board should be appointed. They should sort out the legitimate concerns about excessive salaries and payments to performers. A chairman would also have the authority to reply to the criticism being heaped upon the corporation. Currently the only person who can call himself BBC chairman is the chairman of the Trust – but only as a honorary title.

• Third, it should be recognised that although the BBC is the most important public service broadcaster it is not the only one. There is no reason why some small part of the license fee should not be earmarked to prevent, for example, ITV's regional news programs going under and leaving the BBC with a local monopoly. That is all the more urgent given the parlous position of the regional press.

• Fourth, the license fee, and any new royal charter, should be properly debated and voted upon by parliament who have the best claim to represent the public. Currently these decisions are little more than secret deals between the government and the BBC.

• Fifth, the external activities of the BBC should be reviewed. Evidence should be examined about crowding out small competitors, but equally we should see whether an organisation like BBC Worldwide has a bigger role in assisting British media companies to sell overseas.

There are other important issues. For the present, however, the BBC is the crucial issue and acid test for the Conservatives. A new government should take pride in one of the best known media brands in the world and help to improve it further.

Lord Fowler is a former chairman of the Conservative party and chairman of the Lords communication select committee.