Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 4:08 pm on 12 November 2025.
Lord Polak
Conservative
4:08,
12 November 2025
My Lords, we need to have some reality. Why are we having this Statement at all? The Prescott report revealed that the BBC flagship programme, “Panorama”, had faked a video of President Trump, and that Mr Davie and Ms Turness knew about it for six months and did nothing.
The Prescott report also exposed systematic anti-Israel bias, antisemitism at BBC Arabic and impartiality problems on the wider coverage of the Israel-Hamas war. Dr Shah, Mr Davie and Ms Turness knew this for six months, yet BBC executives were sent out to say publicly and privately that there was no systematic problem and to tell the Jewish community that there was no issue. This cover-up is the whole problem; they have been caught out. Does the Minister agree that, to regain the reputation of fairness, transparency and truth, the BBC needs to act fairly, be transparent and tell the truth?
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.
