UK minister 'totally opposes' plan for Scottish Six news

Published on Thursday 12 June 2008 22:04

UK CULTURE Secretary Andy Burnham made it clear yesterday that he was totally against the idea of the so-called "Scottish Six" news bulletin.

Mr Burnham told The Scotsman that the ultimate decision for BBC Scotland to opt out of the Six o'Clock News rested with the BBC, but he said any attempt to break up the corporation into Scottish or English parts would be bad for viewers and listeners throughout the United Kingdom.

The minister, in Glasgow for meetings with senior Scottish broadcasters, said he would do all he could to make sure the BBC increased its Scottish programming, but insisted this was best done within a UK context.

Mr Burnham's visit to Scotland came in the wake of a major report by the BBC Trust which accused the corporation's political coverage of being biased towards London.

The review said the BBC was "falling short of its own high standards" and "failing to meet its core purpose of informing democracy", and it found that more than a third of viewers thought that BBC news reports were often not relevant to where they lived.

Alex Salmond, the First Minister, has set up a commission to look into the possibility of broadcasting being devolved to the Scottish Parliament, after claiming that only 3 per cent of network budgets were spent on Scottish programming.

Mr Burnham said that, while he wanted to see more programming from Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the English regions, he did not want the BBC to go any further and split into distinct national entities, which isolated parts serving different parts of the UK.

On the issue of increased Scottish programming, Mr Burnham said: "I will be pushing the BBC on this. There is a commitment to significantly increasing the amount of programming commissioned from Scotland, and we will be holding the BBC to that commitment via the BBC Trust."

Mr Burnham stressed that the decision on the creation of a Scottish Six – a news hour based in Scotland for Scotland, rather than half an hour from London and half an hour from Scotland – was up to the BBC.

The Culture Secretary said: "I come from a very non-London background; I can have some sympathy with the frustrations people may have had over time."

And he added: "The last thing I want to see is the break-up of the BBC to make a political structure. That would be bad for Scotland and also bad for the UK and bad for viewers everywhere.

"The BBC works as a collective whole. It works in that it provides high-quality news, current-affairs programming and drama to everyone and, on the whole, it does a pretty good job at reflecting life and in covering news in all parts of the UK.

"Can it do better? Yes it can, and it must raise its game."