UK culture secretary seeks to strengthen BBC governance

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Rishi Sunak’s government will seek to strengthen governance arrangements of the BBC that oversee impartiality and complaints, the culture secretary has said, as criticism of the corporation’s coverage of the Israel-Hamas war continues.

Lucy Frazer told the Financial Times that she wanted to bolster internal regulatory structures at Britain’s national broadcaster as part of a review of its performance which will be published in coming weeks, at the halfway point of its current charter.

The midterm review will examine editorial standards and impartiality, and the effectiveness of the BBC’s governance mechanisms, as well as the way the corporation handles complaints about coverage.

Frazer said the review would help “people feel that their complaints are heard and adequately dealt with”.

“We’re looking at the structures that currently exist. It’s about strengthening those procedures,” said Frazer. “The key thing is making sure that the BBC has the structures in place to make sure it remains an impartial organisation.”

The BBC also needed to go further to address concerns over its coverage of Israel’s war with Hamas, she added. Since the conflict started, she has been a vocal critic of the broadcaster’s editorial position on describing Hamas as a “militant organisation”, rather than a terrorist group as set out in UK law.

At a meeting of the 1922 committee of backbench Tory MPs last week, BBC director-general Tim Davie insisted the corporation was covering the war impartially. It has altered its position over the past three weeks, with the word militant no longer used as the default to describe Hamas.

But Frazer said that this did not go far enough. The BBC “takes public money through the licence fee, and it takes taxpayer money”, she said. “I’ve been very public that I think that we should be calling [Hamas] terrorists — what they legally and factually are. The BBC has taken some steps, but . . . they could go further still.”

Frazer said the Israel-Hamas war had highlighted the importance of a strong and impartial media. “Journalism matters more than ever to get the truth [through] accurate reporting about a war that’s happening in another region, which could have devastating consequences in so many different ways,” she said. 

This week the minister will launch a revamped national action plan for the safety of journalists, with new measures to protect reporters and editors from harm and a new online tool to report abuse. 

Police officers will be offered further public order training to try to prevent unlawful arrests of journalists during news events, such as during the Just Stop Oil protests on the M25 last year. A working group is being created for publishers and broadcasters to share best practices for safeguarding editorial staff.

Frazer is also considering the level of the BBC licence fee, which funds the corporation and will increase with inflation from April next year. People familiar with the matter said that her department had been considering using a lower measure of inflation, in view of the cost of living crisis.

Frazer said that the “licence fee is due to rise”, adding: “We’re looking very closely at that at the moment . . . conscious, of course, that people are still struggling.”

Frazer is pushing for the UK’s media bill to be in the King’s Speech next month. The legislation aims to secure the prominent position of the UK’s public service broadcasters such as the BBC on smart TVs, as well as bringing streaming services such as Netflix under new rules from media watchdog Ofcom.

She is also arguing for stricter rules to protect the UK’s creative industries from rivals based on artificial intelligence. Music and publishing executives fear their companies’ output is being scanned and ripped off by tech groups.

The Intellectual Property Office, a government body, is drawing up a code of practice for tech companies about the use of AI, she said.

Frazer declined to comment on the sale of the Telegraph, which began earlier this month. She will probably need to issue a public interest intervention notice to scrutinise the suitability of whoever buys the national newspaper, which could fetch more than £500mn, according to analysts.

The BBC said: “We have been engaged constructively with the government throughout the midterm review process, which is explicitly focused on governance and regulation as set out in the BBC Charter, and we await publication of the findings.”