After repeatedly refused to appear before the European Scrutiny Committee, Lord Hall, Director-General of the BBC, has finally given oral evidence on the Committee’s follow-up work to its Report on Reforming the European Scrutiny System in the House of Commons.
Chairman of the Committee, Bill Cash, said “Despite his repeated and unacceptable refusals, Lord Hall’s belated acceptance of the Committee’s requirement to appear before the Committee endorses the necessity of transparency in the public interest and acceptance that Parliament has the right to expect witnesses to attend a committee hearing when required to do so, particularly when they are in receipt of billions of pounds of public money. The issues in question go to the heart of the Charter obligations of the BBC and the issue of their treatment of European matters, which are of the greatest public importance and are in the national interest. With all the programmes currently being put out by the BBC on parliamentary democracy, free speech and accountability this week and last, will it properly cover this?”
ESC’s evidence session with Lord Hall, Director-General, BBC
During the evidence session, Bill Cash questioned the BBC’s impartiality when it came to reporting EU issues, he said:
“Don’t you think, to put it bluntly, that there are many people who think that the BBC is in fact not as impartial as it should be in the manner it deals with these voices and diffused views?
“When it comes to the simple question ‘who governs Britain’ and the whole relationship of ourselves and the EU, that these are things that can be explained simply but in the interests of the public as a whole… that you have an absolute duty to make certain that as editor-in-chief that, when programmes go out, there is a structure that the viewer and listener gets a properly balanced view.”
