Culture secretary John Whittingdale has been forced to defend the government’s plans to change the way the BBC is governed after a fellow Tory MP said they had prompted a “lot of concern”.
Whittingdale also revealed that the government was keen to reach a decision on the possible privatisation of Channel 4 “quite soon”, most likely before the summer recess.
SNP MP John Nicholson was one of several members of the Commons culture, media and sport select committee to raise concerns about the future independence of the BBC after last month’s white paper unveiled a radical overhaul of its governance.
“All of us on the committee are worried about the board’s independence,” said the former television presenter, before going on to accuse the minister of political interference in the appointment of a new trustee for the National Portrait Gallery.
He called this process “immensely worrying for all of us concerned that you might do the same thing for the BBC”.
Jesse Norman, the Conservative chair of the committee, also suggested that there was a “lot of concern” over the impartiality of the new board arrangements.
Under the proposed changes to its royal charter, the BBC Trust will be replaced by a unitary board, with the BBC responsible for appointing at least half of the members and the government no more than six.
Whittingdale denied that the government would seek to exert undue process and blamed “procedural failures” for his decision to order a rerun of the official selection process for a new trustee at the National Portrait Gallery.
All five of the candidates he endorsed – who included three Tory donors and one former Conservative minister – were rejected by an independent appointments panel. The minister said that the panel should have been told of his preference, although there was no requirement that they agree.
Nicholson said it suggested a desire to exert influence. “In a blind sift I don’t want to know who your choices are.”
Whittingdale further defended the BBC’s independence by saying: “The board’s not there to get involved in editorial decision-making.”
Quizzed about the future of Channel 4, Whittingdale yet again referred to the challenging market for the publicly owned but commercially funded channel, but said that all options were under still consideration.
“I am not ruling anything in or out at this stage,” he said. Among a “number of options” was partial privatisation and the “status quo”.
Whittingdale also said “quite a number of people” had expressed an interest in the broadcaster after reading that its future was under consideration.
Channel 4 chief executive David Abraham and chairman Charles Gurassa will appear before the same committee tomorrow.
Asked whether the controversial cost provisions against newspapers would be implemented, Whittingdale said there was no compliant press regulator.
In comments which could be seen to dismiss Impress, the only body to apply for recognition, he said the size of the publishers which had signed up to the fledgling regulator had “caused me pause”. They were “very very small” he said of titles which include radical publisher New Internationalist and crowdfunded Scottish investigative journalism site the Ferret.
