Speeches by Hinds.

“Do you think the corporation has what you might call a “bigger truth” problem—that there is a bigger truth that the vast majority of BBC output is good, and therefore it is less important when something is misleading? Or that, on this specific episode of “Panorama”, there was a bigger truth the programme was trying to …”

“To go back to the splicing, in his “sacred job” memo to us, Dr Shah mentions that since your memo, Mr Prescott, the corporation has had 500 complaints, which has prompted “further reflection.” As a result of that further reflection, the BBC now accepts that the splice gave the impression of “a direct call for violent a…”

“No, I did not. It was an extremely good splice job where you could not see the seam. That is the point.”

“Well, here you are in Parliament; this is an opportunity to express your views in any way you like. You are constrained by the current charter. Were you unconstrained, would you take a different view?”

“Well, it is going to be renewed quite soon, Dr Shah.”

“With a director general and a deputy director general, the hierarchy could not be clearer. Did you think about doing it a different way and having a chief executive who runs the organisation and an editor-in-chief, or whatever you call them, who is ultimately accountable for content, and they both report into the board…”

“Sir Robbie, what role do you think the BBC should play in the future? What role should it play in the next 10 years, which may be the same or different from in the past 10, 20 or 30 years?”

“Forgive me, but the question is: do you think it is a reasonable approach to this exercise that is about to be undertaken to start with the assumption that for each of those items, it may have been systemic and you have to demonstrate that it is not?”

“He is not here for me to put words in his mouth at present, but I think what he means is that, rather than saying, “It was a one-off. Something went wrong on that Tuesday in March, and somebody made an error”, there is something in the organisation, whether in the culture, the systems or the processes. I think that is …”

“Earlier this afternoon Mr Prescott said to us that you should treat all the issues he has raised as systemic unless and until they are demonstrated to be otherwise. Do you think that is a correct way to go about that analysis that you are talking about?”

“Let us return to the backward-looking thing and what is in the Prescott memo. The board is committed to revisit everything that is in that memo and to report back your conclusions on those items transparently. What does that mean in practice, and what is the transparency we should be looking out for?”

“It is very difficult to establish a direct line of causality—as it always is with these things—but do you feel that there is some connection between the consumption of this kind of media and some of those issues?”

“Sorry—that is pushing again. I am not arguing against pushing. Pushing absolutely has a role, but so does pulling, and in most consumer markets you have both. Shelf placement is important in a supermarket, but so is the brand advertising that makes you want to seek out that particular brand of soap powder. I guess my q…”

“On prominence, there are two different ways that you can find things: you can either have them shown to you or you can go looking for them. We have talked about prominence so far today in terms of being shown stuff. It occurs to me that when we were kids, on telly it was the case that BBC One and Two and ITV were prefe…”

“They are totally empowered to do it, aren’t they? It takes money—I grant you that.”

“Does Saturday night family entertainment exist and work in the same way that it used to?”

“My last question will be on bonding. Although we are here to talk about children’s television, I want to talk about general family television. You spoke about the importance of doing things together, and we also touched earlier on the growing trend over a number of years for children to have their own device to watch t…”

“Do we know numbers on whole-family viewing?”

“I’m worrying unnecessarily, Chair.”

“The internet is full of people who think they are in touch with a bigger truth and that it does not matter what happens to all sorts of littler truths along the way in getting that bigger truth across. In his letter to my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage), the Chair of the Select Committee, Sa…”