Prescott said he “took at good faith” the BBC’s attempts to resolve issues at its Arabic service but added: “My view is just switching out an editor or two is not enough. When you’ve got such a shocking catalogue of errors, there must be more.”
He also criticised what he characterised as the corporation’s habit of offering superficial fixes: “The BBC’s idea of dealing with something was to change the editors, tweak the guidelines.”
“Every single thing we found seemed to be a systemic issue,” he went on. “I would have hoped they would get on top of these problems and start sorting them out in a systemic way.”
Prescott added that he never expected his memo to trigger resignations at the board level, and insisted he was not the source of the leak of the dossier to the Telegraph. “It was a private memo,” he said, “it was meant to be a call to action.”
He hoped the matter would be handled “very quietly" but, seven days after he sent the report to Ofcom and the BBC board, it appeared in the newspapers.
“I was hoping this memo would do good and lead to a better BBC,” he added, though the Telegraph’s involvement “became a barrier to people elsewhere on the political spectrum taking this seriously,” noting that the paper appeals to a certain ideological section of society.
Much of the more than three-hour committee session, with eleven crossbench MPs, focused on the leak and BBC governance rather than the specific breaches of guidelines outlined by Prescott.
Asked by Labour MP Bayo Alaba whether his memo had been “weaponised” by critics of the BBC, Prescott replied that regardless of any such use, the issues detailed had occurred and the BBC “fell short on thoroughness” in dealing with breaches.
He claimed that the corporation’s leadership lacked consensus in responding to a separate internal report authored by David Grossman, similarly identifying instances of apparent bias: “There was no unanimity on how to respond… but no one challenged [Grossman] on the facts.”
Questioned about his own political leanings, Prescott called himself a “centrist dad”. He said the BBC “needs to do a better job when it is caught” not being fair and impartial. He agreed with MPs that the BBC can be “defensive” but rejected claims it is “institutionally arrogant” or “institutionally biased”. His hope, he said, was that the corporation would “end up stronger because of this”.
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Meanwhile, Caroline Daniel, another former BBC external adviser and Financial Times journalist, said it was “significant” that the BBC had a committee tasked with debating impartiality issues.
She said Prescott’s account was “personal rather than a comprehensive review of everything that was covered in the committee”.
“There are a few organisations where you actually have that level of auditing internally on a regular basis,” she said.
A second panel of three BBC board members, including its chair, Samir Shah, faced MPs after Daniel and Prescott.
Caroline Thomson – the BBC’s senior independent director and former chief operating officer – told the committee that “a lot of action was taken” to reform BBC Arabic, “but no one communicated the action so the EGC didn’t know and the board didn’t know”.
She said she was conducting an internal “root and branch review,” at Shah’s request.
Sir Robbie Gibb, the BBC’s non-executive director for England and former director of communications for Theresa May, was also questioned extensively about allegations of political bias.
Liberal Democrat MP Cameron Thomas asked how Gibb, appointed to the board in 2021 by then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson, could “leave his bias at the door,” and challenged him over his prior ownership of the JC.
Gibb replied that his stint at the JC between 2020 and 2024 had “no bearing” on his BBC role and was “fully flagged” to the BBC the time of his appointment.
Gibb – who has been the subject of much media attention – explained that he had stepped in as temporary owner of the JC after joining a bid to rescue “the world’s oldest Jewish newspaper” at a time when it was at risk of closure. Gibb said he had not been paid and had done so as “a favour” to the man who had underwritten the bid, an elderly Jewish philanthropist who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons. Gibb told the committee that the technical complexity of the the transfer of ownership meant that he had stayed in post longer than intended but had stepped down as soon as it was practical to do so.
The JC is now owned by its directors Jonathan Kandel and Lord Austin.
“For unfortunate reasons, I ended up owning it for longer than I anticipated,” he said, noting that he was “conscious of the perception of my bias,” but insisted he wants to hear a “full range of opinions” and does not want the BBC to be “partisan.”
Labour MP Rupa Huq asked whether the BBC would “ever consider left-wing type perspectives”. She suggests the issues raised by Prescott were “culture war” issues, and noted that former director general Tim Davie “always used to say we get complaints on both sides”.
She also asked whether a Centre for Media Monitoring report had been reviewed by the corporation.
Gibb said he was sympathetic to Huq’s line of questioning and that a “thematic review” into Middle East coverage would examine the “language used for Palestinian casualties,” but added that some research assisted by AI was “not very well respected and regarded”.
Shah opened his remarks with an apology to licence fee payers, the public, and BBC journalists, and said the board would be reformed.
Huq urged him to consider appointing BBC foreign correspondents to the board and said problems at BBC Arabic “were dealt with”.
Shah referred to “very strong, helpful, very constructive debate” over the BBC’s use of the word “terrorist”. The corporation avoids using the term directly for Hamas - a group designated as a terrorist organisation in the UK - except when quoting others.
“I like to have diversity of opinion… the worst thing is for us to have group think,” Shah said, adding that the BBC must reflect “the country” by ensuring “difference of views”. He said the corporation constantly assesses “levels of trust,” aiming to keep them as high among younger audiences as among older ones.
Shah was asked directly whether Gibb is “overly politically biased”. He replied: “No he is not… he is interested in impartiality and accuracy.”
