David Davies: If we all pay for BBC, then it must reflect our views and be unbiased

But I do think that unless the BBC is able to deal with the bias that many people have complained about, it is going to be harder and harder for it to justify the licence fee.

Peter Sissons made the point in his book that there is a cultural bias within the BBC because it is a metropolitan organisation that seems to be peopled by employees who have a certain world view.

It is always difficult to put people into categories, but in my opinion, one could fairly say – I have been in and out of BBC studios on a more-than-weekly basis for about 17 years now – that that world view is somewhat left of centre.

I have been in many BBC studios and canteens and I have yet to see anyone sitting there reading a copy of the Daily Express or the Daily Mail, loudly complaining about immigration, Brussels or suggesting that claims about climate change are somewhat overegged, yet that is a perfectly normal situation in many other places. Anyone trying it in the BBC studios would probably find that their promotion ceiling was hit fairly quickly.

The reality, of course, is that although the BBC goes out of its way to try to be impartial, it is very difficult for it to be when all – or most – of its employees share a particular set of opinions. We see that in several ways: for example, pressure groups are dealt with in different ways by the BBC.

One could google its website right away to see what I am talking about. Organisations such as the Institute of Economic Affairs will always come with a health warning on a BBC webpage that it is a centre-right think-tank or a centre-right organisation.

The situation is similar for the Adam Smith Institute or the Centre for Social Justice, which is always described as a think-tank set up by Iain Duncan Smith.

Meanwhile, other think-tanks that are asked to comment or supply speakers are not given health warnings in the same way.

Organisations such as the Institute for Public Policy Research, which is a left-of-centre pressure group, is very rarely described as one. York’s Joseph Rowntree Foundation is a left-of-centre pressure group that supports higher taxes and higher spending.

That is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, but it has a left-of-centre view in everything that it suggests.

It is never, ever described as that; it is always described 
as an anti-poverty charity or think-tank, or in some kind of 
a positive way.

When it comes to climate change, we see the same thing happening.

Groups such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth are simply described as that and their spokespeople are given licence to say whatever they want, whereas that is not the 
case for an organisation that 
may question some of the so-called consensus about climate change.

The Global Warming Policy Foundation, for example, will always be described as an organisation set up by Nigel Lawson that questions the scientific consensus around climate change.

We see that bias creeping in when speakers are interrupted.

For example, in November 2013, the Today programme presenter Evan Davis interviewed two speakers on the European Union, one of whom was the Yorkshireman Paul Sykes, who obviously took the view that the EU was not a good thing. He was interrupted 11 times a minute.

The other speaker, Karel De Gucht, who I think was an EU trade commissioner, was interrupted just twice a minute. We see that bias in the number of speakers and the kind of views that they espouse.

Again, in January 2013 when Newsnight ran a special on the European Union, the overwhelming majority of speakers – I think 18 out of 19 – were pro-EU, with only one alternative voice.

It matters that the BBC has this inbuilt bias. BBC executives need to do something to address that bias.

I want to see the BBC continue. I enjoy listening to most parts 
of the BBC most of the time, 
but if the BBC is to justify 
what is effectively a tax on 
every single man, woman and child in this country, it has to 
start reflecting the diversity of views out there, being careful to note that the majority of people in this country have shown that they are opposed to the European Union, that almost certainly a majority of 
people in this country believe that immigration needs 
to come down and that a surprisingly large number 
of people think that the 
current hysteria over climate change has been somewhat 
over-egged.

David T C Davies is a Conservative MP who spoke in a Parliamentary debate on BBC bias. This is an edited version.