Chamber and committees

I have two brief questions. I do not have the full report in front of me; I just have a précis of your section 22 report. At the beginning of your evidence, you mentioned that the archive house project had been abandoned but that expenditure continued to be made on it. Have you found out the reasons why that was the case?

It is worth saying at the start that I am a big supporter of the BBC, which might come as a surprise to some people. I am also a supporter of the licence fee. However, whether it is through the charter process or in other ways, we do see interference from Government. Of course, broadcasting remains reserved. Tim Davie fairly recently told us that he had four or five visits every week, with people from each of the two main parties beating a path to his door to complain about something or other. Scotland does not really feature in that. There is sometimes a feeling that the BBC is impervious to demands from Scotland for more balanced reporting.

I should say that one of our previous witnesses said that they had heard—I forget what evidence they quoted—that there seems to be a move among younger people to go back to things such as the BBC, teachers or parents. Rightly or wrongly, younger people see those as more stable and reliable, because of the whirlpool and diversity of the media that they can consume. There is a chance for the BBC to build on that through the licence fee.

I want to come back to the point about current affairs. I apologise to committee members, because I have mentioned this before, but the BBC in Scotland seems to have a pathological objection to covering reserved issues that impact on Scotland. For example, you have done I do not know how many investigative programmes on the ferries situation. That is fair enough, as it is legitimate news, but I do not think that the BBC in Scotland has done anything on the aircraft carriers, which were massively over budget and over time. Those were built in Scotland and had a major impact on the Scottish taxpayer. However, there seems to be a news blackout that comes with things like that.

Similarly, in the past, I have challenged both Martin Geissler and, going back in time, Gordon Brewer as to why there was not much more scrutiny of what we are told are the two Governments in Scotland. Both told me that they could not get UK representatives to come on their shows, which is not a reason not to cover those issues. There is an issue of balance, and it seems to be part of a deferential approach that the BBC in Scotland has to the UK. It would be interesting to hear comments on that.

Also, to live in a counterfactual universe for a minute, how, if at all, would the BBC in Scotland be different had broadcasting been devolved back in 1999?

I have to say that I am less than convinced by the answer—I would not even say that it was an answer—that was given for why the BBC Scotland feels that it was not important to cover the aircraft carriers situation. The carriers were built in Scotland and the cost overruns were huge. I would have that thought that the fact that they did not actually work very well would also have been an issue. I suppose that we will have to differ, because I think that the BBC would be very different if broadcasting had been devolved.

It might be the case—I very much hope that it is—that we have another referendum on independence, depending on the outcome of elections and so on. If that is the case, how confident would you be that we would not see a rerun of what we saw in 2014, which was the importation of journalists en masse—not only by the BBC—including some Scottish journalists who for a long time had not been based in Scotland, to take over the coverage? Are you in a better place to resist that now? Would you want to resist it?

It just seems that you have a very rich opportunity to cover some of the stuff that is native and unique to Scotland, such as the invention of televisions and telephones, through factual programming.

I will leave it at that, convener, as I know that time is pressing.

That was my final question, but I have a quick comment on that.

We have different views on the extent to which your office ranges across public activities, but I would certainly welcome the routine examination of where public bodies can do an awful lot more through their entrepreneurial activities, especially when, like Historic Environment Scotland, they have remarkable and unique resources. I would be interested to see what that report says.

I think that I am right in saying that the Cabinet Secretary for Constitution, External Affairs and Culture has previously said words to the effect that he has taken the reins off Historic Environment Scotland to allow it to do that. Any suggestions about what kind of structure would be best able to facilitate that would be useful.

Our experiences of the referendum were probably quite different. I spent the last 10 hours of that campaign in the BBC studios and was interviewed a number of times by BBC journalists from outwith Scotland.

Leaving that aside, I will move to my last question. There was an excellent programme on BBC Four this week about John Logie Baird, which I learned a great deal from. One question that struck me was why that would come from BBC Four. Given the impact, both on the BBC and on society, of John Logie Baird’s invention—one of his inventions still to come is 3D TV—and the work of Alexander Graham Bell, why is BBC Scotland not at the forefront of talking about how those two inventors have changed the face of society? Why does it have to be BBC Four that would cover that? Would it not have been a perfect opportunity for BBC Scotland to have covered something like that?

To go back to my point, did you find out what the continuing expenditure was after the project had been cancelled?

I have previously expressed this view in the Public Audit Committee, but the extent to which the Auditor General’s role has changed since it was first conceived surprises me. The range of things that you now comment on is much greater than it used to be. This morning, I think that I heard you on the TV talking about how the police should best marshal its resources to fight crime.

Given that, I ask you to go a wee bit beyond what you would normally comment on. You said at the start that Historic Environment Scotland is pooling about £70 million of money from external sources. It is certainly my view—I think that it is also, to some extent, the committee’s view—that the body could do an awful lot more with that. It has failed to properly exploit and capitalise on its resources, by which I mean its buildings and genealogical resources.

Did you come across anything in your report that pointed to such underresourcing and what the body could do about it, or do governance issues impact on its ability to properly exploit its resources? I wonder whether you have any views on that.

My first point is about the BBC charter. Rightly or wrongly, we all feel a bit more invested in the BBC because of its longevity and how it is funded. You said that political interference would be a bad thing. I am thinking about what people might perceive as political interference, for example, in relation to the charter renewals over a number of years. The licence fee has undoubtedly been the subject of such interference. The unanimous view of this panel of witnesses and, I think, all previous panels, is that we all want to see a strong BBC and a licence fee. Having said that, I agree that, for young people in particular, the licence fee will be accepted if it is deemed to be of value and relevant to them, which is an important consideration.

On the issue of news, it is interesting that, although all the politicians here have had their issues with the BBC, very few have had an issue with STV. I could be wrong, but it seems that STV does not attract the same kind of political attention. If we look at what is proposed at STV North, maybe that has not helped.

The issue with the political aspect is that it is more about what the BBC in Scotland does not cover than what it does. It seems to have an aversion to covering reserved issues that impact on Scotland as opposed to devolved issues. For example—it is probably best to give an example—we have had documentaries ad nauseam about the situation with the two ferries in Scotland, but two aircraft carriers were built in Scotland and that attracted virtually no attention from the BBC in Scotland. They were more than three times over budget and went massively over their timescale, but there was no coverage of that. The cost of that dwarfed the cost of the ferries. I have been raising this issue with individuals going as far back as Gordon Brewer, but the response seems to be that the BBC cannot get UK ministers to come on to programmes to answer questions.

I am interested in what Paul McManus said about Finland and disinformation. I said to some previous witnesses that most politicians here will do talks to modern studies pupils at school, and they are very often asked, “How do I know what to trust in what I see?” However, I think that it is more about what they do not get to see and to know about, and that is pervasive.

We had Mark Davie at our—is that his name?

Emily, do you want to come back in on that?