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Lord Hall, BBC Director General, European scrutiny system

BBC Director-General appears before the Committee

11 March 2015

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After repeated refusals extending over a year, Lord Hall,
Director-General of the BBC accepted demand of  European Scrutiny Committee to appear before it.

Witnesses

Wednesday 11 March 2015, Committee Room 8, Palace of Westminster

At 2.30pm

  • Lord Hall, Director-General, BBC
  • James Harding, Director of News and Current Affairs, BBC

Correspondence

At its meeting this week the European Scrutiny Committee decided to publish its correspondence with Lord Hall, Director-General of the BBC, and successive Chairmen of the BBC Trust, about the Committee’s requests for them to appear in person before the Committee. This decision was taken in order to fully explain the situation and to place the matter in the public domain.

Furthermore, this exchange of correspondence also demonstrates the original refusal of the previous Chairman of the BBC Trust, Lord Patten and also of Rona Fairhead, as Chairman of the BBC Trust, to attend. Lord Hall has only recently confirmed that he will appear on 11 March, having previously declined to do so on repeated occasions. Rona Fairhead, Chairman of the BBC Trust, appeared before the Committee on Wednesday 14 January.

Background

Lord Hall was originally invited in January 2014 to give oral evidence as part of the Committee’s follow-up work to its Report on Reforming the European Scrutiny System in the House of Commons, which included consideration of the media visibility of scrutiny and which was based on evidence taken from senior BBC managers. 

Chairman of the Committee, Sir William 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?"

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