Item 5 on our agenda is consideration of the draft memorandum of understanding on the BBC and its future engagement with the Scottish Parliament. The clerks have circulated a paper, and we received a letter yesterday from the Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Europe and External Affairs. I presume that everybody has had an opportunity to read the papers and the letter from Fiona Hyslop, so I invite comments from committee members.
The purpose of the item is to allow the committee to consider the draft memorandum of understanding and agree any comments that it wants to pass to the Devolution (Further Powers) Committee, which will thereafter report to the Parliament to inform a subsequent chamber debate. It is the lead committee on the item.
What are members’ views on the draft memorandum of understanding?
My comment concerns the fact that the draft memorandum
“is concerned … with … how the BBC engages and consults with the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Government … and not with the subject matter of any of the BBC’s programming or activities”.
That is correct.
I am looking at the matter from the point of view of editorial and operational independence. There is a commitment from the BBC to send its annual report and accounts to the Scottish Government and a commitment from the Government to lay them before the Parliament. I do not have any problem with the accounts being laid before the Parliament but, if the annual report is not quite to the Scottish Government’s and the Parliament’s liking, is it possible that it might stray into “programming or activities”—that is, editorial or operational independence?
If we are being sent an annual report, what is it reporting on and what are we scrutinising? If we were not happy with how much had been spent on religious broadcasting, educational broadcasting or political broadcasting or how it had been done, is it likely—I hope that it is not—that the Parliament could say that it did not like the way that the BBC was doing this, that or the other? I am just not sure about the report.
The memorandum of understanding says that the report will cover areas such as
“finance, administration and work of the BBC”.
I am okay with finance and administration, but I am not sure about it covering the work of the BBC.
The Smith agreement says that the arrangement should be the same for the Scottish Parliament and Government as it is for the United Kingdom Parliament. It is just about the BBC laying its report. There is a clear view about the separation of the BBC’s role and the protection of its independence, particularly its editorial independence.
I appreciate that and I bow to your superior knowledge, as you are a member of the Devolution (Further Powers) Committee.
Paragraph 2 of the draft memorandum, which is headed “Annual report and accounts”, says that the annual report has to comply
“with any directions given (after consulting the BBC) by the Secretary of State or the Foreign Secretary as to the information to be given in the report about the finance, administration and work of the BBC”.
I presume that BBC Scotland will consult the Parliament and the Government to decide what will be included in the report. Is there potential for that to stray into the BBC’s work and operations? That is all that I am asking.
I can only give you my understanding—
It is nice to hear evidence from the convener.
My understanding is that what you suggest is not the case. That passage relates only to the input of the report and not the BBC’s editorial independence and decision-making processes. It might be a fine defining line, but the arrangement is not supposed to be about the organisation’s editorial independence.
I was asking just to make that clear. Thank you for the clarity. It is an important issue at this time because of the charter coming under review and because of the further devolution.
Indeed, but that is for the charter, which deals with that area. It is not for either Government.
I appreciate that but, because of the further devolution, it is important to clarify such issues.
The clerk’s paper and the letter from the cabinet secretary were helpful. The draft MOU seems a fairly reasonable reflection of what emanated from the Smith commission, but the lead committee will take its own view on that.
I was not quite clear why Fiona Hyslop says in her letter:
“Whilst the present draft presents some detail on how consultation on the terms of reference for the Charter will be agreed, it does not currently provide for a role in determining the content of the Charter”.
The process of consultation seems to be reasonably clear. Some such processes do not necessarily work out in practice as they were intended to, but I did not see the problem that Fiona Hyslop identified in her letter. Obviously, the lead committee will have gone into the matter in rather more depth.
Not yet. It will do so.
It will be going into it in more depth and will be able to cross-reference it with the work that it has already done on the Smith agreement. However, as it stands, the MOU looked to me to be a reasonable reflection of what emanated from the commission.
I have some sympathy with the letter from the cabinet secretary. I am at an advantage, being on both committees. The Devolution (Further Powers) Committee’s work has been based on the principle of trying to ensure that everything in the Smith agreement that is followed up through memorandums of understanding or legislation meets what was in the agreement, if I can put it that way. In its report, that committee was unanimous about trying to ensure that. We all have different views about whether to go beyond the Smith agreement, but the idea is to give the Parliament the opportunity to examine what is proposed and whether it implements the original Smith recommendations.
For me, that is the core point of the cabinet secretary’s letter, which says that
“the current draft MoU does not yet fully deliver the role which the Smith Commission outlined”
and refers to a particular point about the governance of the BBC being the same as it is for the UK Parliament—the MOU says that the Scottish Parliament should play the same role. There is a question mark about that if nothing else.
It might be nothing more than a question of clarity but, when we write to the Devolution (Further Powers) Committee, we should at least point out the correspondence that we have had from the cabinet secretary, although she has copied in that committee’s convener.
In principle, we should also ensure that this committee takes the view—a unanimous one, I hope—that whatever is agreed should, in the phrase that the Devolution (Further Powers) Committee used,
“deliver the spirit and substance of the Smith Commission recommendations.”
Do we agree to write to that committee on that basis?
Members indicated agreement.
We agreed under item 1 that we would move into private for item 6 so we now move into private.
12:31 Meeting continued in private until 12:48.Previous
Education (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1