Why Prince William's estate is giving some tenants a rental discount
The estate said it would now prioritise becoming a landlord with social impact following recent damaging disclosures in a TV documentary.
The Prince of Wales received £22.9 million from the Duchy of Cornwall last year for the official running of his household and the private needs of his family.
Earlier this year, Channel 4's Dispatches revealed that the estate charged rent to small charities, as well as, government departments including the Ministries of Defence and Justice.
Under the new rental agreement, rent for grassroots community groups will be waived and local charity groups who directly rent space from the Duchy will receive a 50% discount.
But the Royal Navy will still be charged to moor its ships on Duchy waterways and rent will also still be collected from Dartmoor Prison for being on its land.
The estate's chief executive Will Bax said the new policy focused on direct tenants.
'We have created a new policy relating to rents charged to community groups and local charities, where they are active within our communities," he said.
Sources revealed the Duchy of Cornwall had been through a 'clear point of reflection' and Prince William wanted it to better operate through a social impact lens.
But Kensington Palace has refused to say how much income tax Prince William paid on his earnings, stressing he had a right to privacy.
The previous Prince of Wales - now King Charles - used to share the amount of income tax he had paid on his earnings.
But when William became the 25th Duke of Cornwall that changed.
Prince William's spokesperson said the heir to the throne paid the 'highest rate of tax' – but did not disclose the amount.
What is the Duchy of Cornwall - and what does it mean for Prince William?
Royal estates defend claims 'millions' earnt from NHS and state school contracts
The Duchy of Cornwall was set up in 1348 to provide a source of income for the next in line to the throne which was independent of the Sovereign.
It currently owns 50,000 hectares of land mostly in the southwest but also in various other parts of the country.
The estate is planning a major new town development similar to the ones Prince Charles started at Poundbury in Dorset and Nansledan in Cornwall.
The new site in Faversham in Kent was 'inspired by the learnings' from the previous two developments, according to Will Bax, and will build 2500 homes, a new school, health centre and sports facilities.
The Royal accounts also showed Prince William's 24 hour trip to Estonia earlier this year cost £55,846 in travel costs alone.
These costs were met by the Sovereign Grant, the money which pays for other royals operating in the household of Buckingham Palace.
The flights came from that pot of money because the visit to British troops stationed there was on behalf of the Foreign Office.
Kensington Palace revealed there were 68 people employed in William's household, which also looked after the Princess of Wales and Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, but that workers from diverse backgrounds fell slightly short of their target of 14%.
The current figure is 13.2%.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New Statesman
25 minutes ago
- New Statesman
From the archive: Reality: a charter for avoidance
Photo by Maurice Hibberd/Evening Standard/) In 1979 Mervyn King, later governor of the Bank of England from 2003 to 2013, argued that the British state was too dilapidated to deal with a modern economy. Labour had been complaisant, but the Tories resisted reform. 'In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.' It is hard to reconcile Benjamin Franklin's words with the experience of taxation in post-war Britain. Tax rates switch with bewildering frequency, and rarely do more than a few months go by without some kind of tinkering being done upon the system itself. Margaret Thatcher is basing her campaign upon the firm promise – one of the few she has made – that the immediate effect of her victory would be another – downward – shift in the rate of income tax. Indeed, Tory policy for the past few years has concentrated unflinchingly upon disseminating the myth that Britain is a heavily-overtaxed country. But at the same time the Tories have set themselves against any energetic attack on the real evils of our tax system: which are its astonishing complexity and incoherence, its lack of efficacy when dealing with company revenues, and its bias in favour of established, hereditary wealth. Not that it can be said that Labour has made, or credibly promised, any of the reforms that are urgently required. Whichever party policy is examined, uncertainty – even arbitrariness – seems likely to be the future of taxation in Britain. The system that we have is the product of innumerable ad hoc changes, few if any of which were based on any coherent view of the underlying structure they were supposed to improve. The state into which our system has drifted shows that further minor modifications to the status quo will not bring us any nearer to the objective of a reasonably efficient, fair and stable tax system. Yet no government which is concerned with the most efficient way of financing public spending, and which cares about how the tax burden is distributed, can afford to be without a coherent tax policy. Anyone analysing the system for the first time must view it in amazement – with its separate taxes on different kinds of income, each tax having its own rules and methods of administration. In addition to income tax, there are distinct and separately administered surcharges on employment income (in the form of national insurance contributions), on investment income (in the form of investment-income surcharge) and on self-employment income (in the form of special national insurance contributions for the self-employed). The methods of calculating liability differ in each case. At the lower end of the income scale, interaction between the tax system and the maze of different means-tested benefits can give rise to tax rates of well over 100 per cent on each marginal addition to income – the notorious 'poverty trap'. A good example of the unhappy effects of the ad hoc approach occurred last year, in Chancellor Healey's treatment of capital gains tax. Inflation means that real capital gains can be much less than nominal capital gains, but our system taxes nominal gains: the reverse of what a well-designed income tax should do. One remedy proposed was 'tapering relief', under which the tax rate would be lower the longer the asset had been held: another was index-linking, to ensure that tax would fall solely on real gains. Mr Healey rightly rejected 'tapering'' as economically absurd and administratively complicated. And he rejected indexation, on the proper grounds that it would be wrong to index-link capital gains without doing so for other forms of capital income, such as building-society interest. But he rejected the logic of his own argument, which was that if inflation created a problem (clearly it did) then indexation should be introduced across-the-board, And if it did not, there was no case for giving special treatment to capital gains. What the Chancellor actually did (and it scarcely fits with the image of a Chancellor 'making the pips squeak') was merely reduce the rate of capital gains tax: so that the first £1,000 of gain is exempt altogether, and gains up to £5,000 in a year pay a maximum average of only 12 per cent. The marginal rate then jumps to 50 per cent, before falling to 30 per cent on gains above £9,500. This is a curious rate schedule, to say the least. Its design has nothing to do with the incidence of inflation: it appears to be merely a device for buying time until the government can think of something more sensible to do, or until inflation disappears, or until people stop worrying about it. Such pragmatism, lacking any base in underlying principles, leads to complexity, excessive cost, and the loopholes and anomalies on which the tax avoidance industry thrives. It is this allegedly practical, but actually impractical, approach which has produced an accumulation of legislation like a patchwork quilt coming apart at the seams. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Although neither the Conservative manifesto nor the Labour one faces up to the issue, there certainly are reforms which could be instituted – at the cost of upsetting the status quo. But before looking at such proposals, it is necessary to describe the real, as against the imagined effect of taxes in Britain. The redistributive elements in the system rely largely on high tax rates on earned income, although variations in earnings are no longer (if they ever were) the major source of inequality. The main sources of wealth are inheritances and capital gains – including those from building-up and selling a business – and effective tax rates on income from capital are lower than on employment income, because those taxes are easier to avoid. The attempt to impose very high tax rates on earned income gives rise to a proliferation of fringe benefits which are not only a less efficient method of rewarding managers, but serve to increase the visibility of differentials. Employees might find it easier to accept that senior staff should receive larger salaries than that they should get longer holidays, more lavish working conditions, private medical insurance, special dining rooms and use of company cars. According to the Diamond Commission 94 per cent of senior managers in 1975 had personal use of a company car, and a system under which executives are twice as likely to get a free car than receive bonus payments is one which emphasises status rather than performance. The argument against the highest rates of tax on earned income is not that they discourage hard work (they may, though the evidence is limited). But they encourage inefficient forms of reward, and they do not achieve much redistribution. Consequently, they raise little revenue: reducing the top rate of tax on earned income to 60 per cent would cost about £250 million in a full year, much less than cutting the basic rate by one point. At the other end of the scale some five million people, nearly ten per cent of the population, are supported by supplementary benefits – with many others failing to claim the benefits to which they are entitled. Although this is a far cry from Beveridge's idea of national assistance as a final line of help for a handful of families, it can perhaps be said that concentrating help on recipients of supplementary benefit is a cost-effective form of income maintenance. The trouble is that it does not maintain the incomes of the low-paid, because those in work are not eligible for supplementary benefit. If the low-paid try to increase their earnings – by working over-time, or by changing jobs – they are apt to be little better off: this is where the combination of income tax, national insurance contributions and the withdrawal of means-tested benefits can produce marginal tax rates over 100 per cent. Income tax, national insurance contribution and Family Income Supplement alone imply a marginal rate of between 80 and 90 per cent, and at the beginning of last year there were 100,000 families getting Family Income Supplement, and there is a myriad of other means-tested benefits like rent and rates rebates. It is immensely difficult to calculate the implicit marginal tax rates which are produced, and if families could work them out (which is unlikely) many would be very depressed. There are a good many wage-earners who would be better-off if they could arrange to be sick, or unemployed, for a part – but only a part – of the tax year. (This does not apply to the long-term sick and unemployed, who are unjustly given lower rates of assistance than those whose misfortune is temporary.) The strange situation has two causes: first, sickness and unemployment benefits paid in lieu of taxed earnings are not themselves taxed; second, child benefits for those in work are less generous than those for people out of work. It is hardly likely that many people are able to contrive short periods of unemployment so as to maximise net income. But the fact that such anomalies exist – with their true nature being poorly understood – makes it easy to whip up resentment against 'scroungers', as the tabloid press has not hesitated to do, thus making it harder to persuade the average wage-earner to meet the cost of adequate benefits for those in need. Sickness and unemployment benefits could be taxed – thus providing revenue to improve benefits for the longterm unemployed – provided there were administrative reforms. Chiefly, this would require the abolition of 'cumulative withholding' in the PAYE system, so that any one payment could be specifically taxed, with any necessary adjustments being made after the annual tax peter, which all taxpayers would have to make. And rapid changes in mortgage interest over the past two years have meant that cumulative withholding has been effectively scrapped for many owner-occupiers: it should be extended to other taxpayers as soon as computers can make it feasible. If anyone is not convinced of the simplifications this would bring. I suggest a look at the leaflet entitled Autumn 1977 – Income Tax Changes for 1977-78 which was sent out last year with the notices of coding for 1978-79. See if you can understand page two, which is all about mortgage interest relief – a prize for the best solution. Some reforms have been made: from this month, child tax allowances and family allowances are replaced by a single child benefit, amounting to £4 per week for each child, with an additional £2 for the first child in some one-parent families. Further reductions in the gap between child support given to the employed and the unemployed could be given by making an extra payment for the first child, which could be financed by abolishing the married-man's tax allowance. But investment income, and the treatment of savings, produce anomalies more striking than anything in the mythology of 'scrounging'. A top rate of 98 per cent may give an impression of penal taxation, but it is misleading. It is, of course, silly to tax anything at 98 per cent, and in reality the government does not try to. For instance, the Bank of England has designed special government stocks for high-rate taxpayers which cuts their effective tax rate to about 50-60 per cent. Capital gains are taxed lightly in comparison with investment income – particularly after last year's Budget – and this gives scope for tax advisers to dream-up wondrous schemes for converting income into capital. Failure to index the system does increase the tax burden, but the practical outcome is one in which the rate varies enormously, virtually haphazardly, from person to person and from year to year. Three forms of personal saving receive especially favoured treatment: investment in owner-occupied housing; contributions to pension funds; and life-insurance premiums. This is on the whole advantageous to middle-class families, and the three items make up the bulk of personal savings, so that the institutions which hold them dominate the capital market. Pension funds and life-insurance companies own between them nearly half of the equity capital of British companies, and their behaviour is critical to the government's ability to borrow the money that it needs. Discrimination between different types of saving involves different rules for each kind of asset, which produces the complexity on which the investment-columns of the newspapers thrive, and makes the basis of avoidance devices. The consequence of failure to apply consistent treatment to savings and investment income is that much decision-making is dominated by tax considerations, both at the personal and the industrial level – where the financing package associated with a decision is often more critical than the basis profitability of the investment being examined. What is the rationale for a system in which mergers may take place essentially for tax reasonsL in which tax advisers are more Important than engineer and export managers, and there is an incentive for valuable time to be spent on socially pointless activities. The favours given to life-insurance companies, pension funds and owner-occupiers, though taken politically for granted, are very hard to justify. They happen to suit the life-style of middle-class people with predictable career-patterns, who remain largely immobile both geographically and occupationally. The sort of person who comes to mind, in fact, closely resembles the people who construct and control the tax system. He is a civil servant, living in (say) Wimbledon: able to stay without interruption in the same owner-occupied house; travel to work by train (zero-rated for VAT): look forward to a secure and inflation-proofed pension; able to put any spare cash into a life-insurance policy which will mature at the right moment to pay school fees, and thus secure a foothold in the system for a future generation. I have absolutely no wish to discriminate against civil servants living in Wimbledon, but neither can I think of a good reason for discriminating in their favour. Given the deficiencies of our economic performance – central so much campaign rhetoric – it is odd that we should offer incentives to people in the City so that they can think up dis-incentives which work against those who move around after employment (thus wishing to rent, rather than buy a home); who disagree with staid employers (thus placing low value on pension rights) and wish to exploit new business ideas, but cannot do so because any savings they may have are locked-up in life insurance. Here we come to the argument, which will be much rehearsed in the next few weeks, which says that only a big reduction in the tax burden can eliminate the worst distortions, and 'free the spirit of enterprise from the straitjacket of excessive taxation', etc. Although a cut in rates would reduce the magnitude of the problem – depending upon what sacrifice is made in essential services – there are two large difficulties in the argument. First, as the tables show, Britain simply is not highly taxed in comparison with many of those countries which are exhibited as examples of economic success. Despite the problems of comparison, the broad picture is clear. We bear less tax than Scandinavia, rather more than America and Japan, and about the same as the West European neighbours which out perform us. Secondly, many of the problems I have described derive from the weakness of the tax base, rather than the rates which are applied. We are taxing the wrong things, and failing to tax the right things. Only a virtual elimination of direct taxation would deal with this – and the point is important in terms of the present political argument, which often proposes a shift to indirect taxation. A small shift to indirect taxation would make no impact on the inadequacies of the present tax base: to make a large shift would be to abandon any pretence of progressive taxation. I believe the only way to deal with the problem is to have a uniform treatment of income from capital, through a progressive personal expenditure tax of the kind proposed by Nicholas Kaldor in 1955, and again by the Meade Committee last year. This has not been welcomed, or even much discussed by those British politicians who are most vehement about the evils of taxation: and what they perhaps care for as little as anything is the Meade finding that the whole system could be much simpler in operation than that we have at present. It would be based purely on cash flow, eliminating the distinction between income and capital on which most of the present-day opportunities for avoidance depend. An expenditure tax would be levied directly on individuals, and by choice of rate could be made as progressive as the government of the day desired. Taxable expenditure would be receipts of cash from all sources (whether tips, or sales of shares) minus cash deposited in 'registered assets' which would include practically all kinds of saving except current accounts. PAYE would continue to be deducted at source, and the majority of taxpayers would notice little administrative change. It might be argued that such a tax favours the rich, because only the rich can afford to save. But this forgets that the rich also dis-save, and that the system we have makes little impact on spending out of capital gains and inherited wealth. Indeed, capital taxes are largely ineffective at the moment: the high exemption level means that most of the wealth transferred between generations pays a very low average rate. Even since the introduction of Capital Transfer Tax (CTT) it remains easy for a couple who are well advised to pass on more than £100,000 tax-free. For this reason, gifts and bequests made to other people should be treated as part of taxable spending: resulting in an increase of the average fax on capital transfers, without the need for self-defeating marginal rates at the top. A good example of the weakness of CTT, and of the extent to which political debate on taxation is divorced from reality, occurs in the treatment of small businesses. There is a wide range of concessions, but most of them assist the founder of the business only at the end of his or her career. The problem with small business is not that it is crushed under transfer taxes, but rather that policy fails to find ways of encouraging new firms to arise and old ones to die in peace. There is little evidence that the dynasties motive is important to innovators (it is thought important by those who have inherited themselves) and some evidence that firms perform less well when the inheritors take them over. 'Small is beautiful' makes as mindless an axiom as 'big is beautiful', which ruled the sixties. Yet already, under Labour, the 1977 and '78 Budgets have produced inexplicable concessions for small business which the Tories will find it difficult to out-do. In one year these were so enormous that the size of a business liable to CTT increased eight-fold. This change was not announced by Mr Healey, and part of it could only be detected through the omission of certain words in the Finance Bill. The truth is that the decline of small business did not occur overnight, and it cannot be corrected through such huge concessions to the owners of established concerns. Indeed, an expenditure tax is more likely to do something for small-scale industrial innovation: by facilitating personal saving, and by reversing the trend towards 'institutionalisation' of the capital market. A stock item of political debate is the idea that British industry staggers under a vast tax burden. If the personal tax system is rather a shambles, the corporate tax system is chaos enclosed in mythology, with most industrial companies paying little, if any, tax. John Kay and I found that of 20 leading UK industrial concerns, 13 paid no mainstream corporation tax in 1977, and in total only £117 million of tax was paid compared with total reported profits in 1976 of £4,276 million. The 'temporary' stock relief of November 1974 has survived almost five years, with no sign of a permanent solution. Because nothing has been announced, companies are uncertain about their tax liability, and so we have a tax which raises scarcely any revenue but yet generates economic distortions. There appears to be a complete absence of ideas about what to do. In 1974, the corporate sector was threatened with financial bankruptcy because of inflation's effect on stocks: now it is intellectual bankruptcy. The most convincing alternative would be a 'cash flow corporation tax', which would be levied on the difference between receipts from sales and outlays made for current and capital inputs. Stock relief could be abolished, inflation accounting would be for tax purposes, and distinction between different types of finance would occupy less attention. I believe that such a tax, coupled with a progressive personal expenditure tax, would redress many injustices. It would represent the first serious attempt in this country to tax spending out of inherited wealth, and to lessen the transmission of privilege from one generation to the next. The effects on the economy would, I think, be restorative. Of course, there may be other solutions which can be put forward. But if any politician suggests that major reform is less than imperative, or that what is required is to 'lighten the burden', by some ad hoc juggling with the rates, he or she is avoiding one of the central problems of present political economy. [See also: Just raise tax] Related
The Independent
37 minutes ago
- The Independent
The BBC claims impartiality over Gaza but there is a conflict of interest at its heart
The BBC struggles to get anything right about Gaza. Last week, it decided not to broadcast a searing documentary about Palestinian doctors under attack, citing vague concerns about ' a perception of partiality '. This week, it's the coverage of Glastonbury and why no one was alert enough to press the mute button on a rap-punk duo called Bob Vylan. Though it has garnered less outrage the former smacks of either editorial naivety or institutional cowardice.. But, fortunately, the top brass at Channel 4 appear to have more backbone and the film, Gaza: Doctors Under Attack, will be shown tonight. People can judge for themselves. It seems to me to be exactly the sort of documentary which the BBC should broadcast. The film graphically shows the horrors of working in Gaza hospitals these past 21 months in an unflinching and quietly devastating light. It documents a litany of death, violence, cruelty, suffering and inhumanity. There are allegations of the targeting, abduction, torture and effective murder of doctors and nurses, along with denials by the Israeli army [the IDF] that they have been involved in any such things. No Western media organisation has been allowed free access to Gaza, which makes it doubly complicated to tell the whole truth about what has been happening in a war in which 1.9 million Palestinians have been displaced, at least 56,156 Palestinians have been killed and 132,239 have been injured. And, yes, these are Gaza Ministry of Health figures, and the Ministry of Health is controlled by Hamas. But that's all we have. There is quite a collective of organisations and individuals who monitor the media round the clock for any whisper of anti-Israeli 'bias'. And we can confidently expect the Gaza medics film to be attacked within hours of broadcast. I would expect there to be criticism of the social media feed of the highly-experienced freelance reporter, Ramita Navai, who has described Israel as a 'rogue state that's committing war crimes and ethnic cleansing and mass-murdering Palestinians'. I would not be surprised if a diligent researcher finds that one or more of the medics who appear in the programme has a second cousin once removed in Hamas. Or personnel who even belonged to Hamas. My own judgement is that, if they do emerge, such claims should not discredit or undermine the overall impact or importance of the documentary. This film was, I'm told, cleared by the compliance squad at the BBC. The corporation has not advanced any credible reason why it was subsequently suppressed beyond its statement around 'a perception of partiality'. If the documentary leads to heated debate about the issues, and whether they have been fairly represented, that's well and good. That is partly the role of public service broadcasting. But these are not the only mistakes the BBC has made over Gaza. A previous, unrelated, BBC documentary was withdrawn when it was revealed that a boy narrator was related to a middle-ranking Hamas official. BBC chair Samir Shah told MPs it was a 'dagger to the heart' of the BBC's claims to trust. The BBC Board promptly announced an inquiry. That was on 27 February, and we're now in July. It's evidently what Sherlock Holmes would call a three-pipe problem. Holmes would have quickly divined why it was such a ticklish matter: because it could end up calling into question the judgment of the ultimate editor-in-chief of the BBC, the director general, Tim Davie. The Telegraph has reported that Deborah Turness, the BBC's chief executive of news and current affairs, watched the documentary before it was broadcast, but failed to question it. Heads must roll? But this is where the curious governance arrangements of the BBC kick in. And where we are forced to confront other 'perceptions of partiality.' The BBC has a board of directors, but most of them have no experience in journalism or broadcasting. The crucial BBC committee is the five-strong editorial guidelines and standards committee. Shah leads it and it includes both Davie and Turness. So if these particular heads are to roll, some turkeys are going to have to vote for Christmas. The only other person with editorial experience on this committee has, until recently, been Sir Robbie Gibb [the fifth member was former Tate boss Nicholas Serota and, since 3 April, Dame Caroline Thompson]. Forgive the recap, but you may remember Sir Robbie as the former No 10 spin doctor imposed on the BBC by Boris Johnson's government and then re-appointed last year by Rishi Sunak. He has described himself as a 'proper Thatcherite Conservative'. His career has zigzagged between right-wing politics and journalism. There is not even a perception of impartiality about his political beliefs. But when it comes to his judgments on the Middle East it is even more complicated. You may recall the curious episode which resulted in Sir Robbie becoming the apparent sole owner of The Jewish Chronicle (The JC). In April 2020 he led a consortium to rescue the title from bankruptcy – while refusing to reveal who actually put the money up. He appointed Jake Wallis Simons as editor. And it was Wallis Simons who ran a vigorous campaign for a parliamentary inquiry into the BBC's coverage of Jews and Israel. He was not a fan. The Gibbs/JWS era at the JC was not a happy one, with the press regulator twice forced to consider an investigation into standards; with five leading columnists quitting and with a fellow member of his own original consortium saying that the editor was 'behaving like a political activist, not a journalist…. it does a disservice to the Jewish community because it consolidates this idea that the Jewish community abroad is in some way sort of complicit by their silence with the excesses of the IDF.' Gibb resigned as a director just before the editorial calamity which saw The JC publish a fabricated story. Israel newspapers suggested they had been placed in the European media to support Benjamin's Netanyahu's negotiating position over Gaza. There is an ongoing inquiry into the matter: the Israeli security service, Shin Bet arrested Eli Feldstein, a spokesperson for Netanyahu, who had previously worked for the far-right security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. The long-standing JC columnist, Jonathan Freedland, said, 'The latest scandal brings great disgrace on the paper – publishing fabricated stories and showing only the thinnest form of contrition – but it is only the latest. Too often, The JC reads like a partisan, ideological instrument, its judgments political rather than journalistic.' Wallis Simons parted company with The JC soon afterwards. So, yes, Sir Robbie Gibb – who presided over much of this – has been, until recently, the only external figure with journalistic experience to sit on the crucial BBC editorial committee. The minutes for two meetings this year show the committee has discussed BBC coverage of the Middle East. In January the committee discussed the timing, scope and methodology for a review of the BBC's coverage. In March they discussed it as an 'emerging editorial risk.' For an organisation obsessed with 'perceptions of partiality', it seems odd, on the face of it, to have had the very partial Sir Robbie Gibb in such a role. That perception has certainly alarmed more than 400 media figures who have urged the BBC board to remove Gibb. They include no fewer than 111 BBC journalists. So I contacted the BBC to ask if he had, in fact, recused himself from any discussions about the BBC's coverage of the Israel-Gaza conflict. The answer came back: No, he hadn't. I asked a further question: did Sir Robbie have any conversations about the Doctors Under Attack documentary, including with the director general or chair? The response was somewhat cryptic: 'I can confirm that [Sir Robbie] had no formal role in any of the discussions or decisions about whether the BBC should run the film – I'm afraid I have no way of knowing whether BBC board members have had discussions about various live issues affecting the BBC but as I've said before, the decisions about the film were taken by BBC News.' It is reasonable to assume, I think, that Sir Robbie may have had informal discussions. All this makes one wonder about the judgement of the newish chair, Samir Shah. He came into the job knowing about Gibb's journalistic track record, along with his obsessive desire to keep secret who is bankrolling The JC. A strong chair, interested in trust and impartiality, would surely have asked him to step out of the room when the BBC's coverage of the Middle East came up. But, no. So this is where we seem to be. The BBC junked a film because of 'perceptions of partiality'. But the key decisions – including the futures of Davie and Turness – are strongly influenced by Sir Robbie Gibb, who has shown no evidence of impartiality when it comes to the Middle East. It sounds like a two-tier system to me. Meanwhile, our attention is absorbed by the far less salient question of whether some hapless producer failed to press the mute button for Bob Vylan. I think it's called deadcatting.
Telegraph
40 minutes ago
- Telegraph
The BBC's ‘ultimate humiliation' on Gaza
Tonight, Channel 4 will broadcast a hard-hitting documentary about Gaza. The hour-long film, Gaza: Doctors Under Attack, examines allegations that the Israeli military has breached international law by deliberately targeting hospitals during the conflict that started on October 7, 2023. It features interviews with medics working in the besieged territory and is billed as a 'forensic investigation'. None of which sounds particularly unusual: Channel 4 has always aired long-form factual programming about difficult subjects and has won a clutch of awards for its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war. This documentary is almost unique, however, as it was originally commissioned by and made for the BBC, whose bosses then dropped it amid the fallout of another Gaza film that was narrated by the 13-year-old son of a Hamas official. Months of delays and recrimination ensued, with the independent producers behind Doctors Under Attack sparking a public war of words with the BBC. The situation is practically unheard of, and threatens to heap further embarrassment on BBC bosses after their botched handling of events at Glastonbury last weekend, as well as further dividing an already-fractured newsroom about how to cover the Middle East. Doctors Under Attack was meant to be broadcast at the start of the year, according to insiders, but was superseded by Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone. The latter was broadcast in February but was pulled from the BBC iPlayer shortly afterwards, after it emerged that its 13-year-old narrator, Abdullah al-Yazouri, was the son of the deputy minister of agriculture. The Telegraph has previously reported that Deborah Turness, the chief executive of BBC News, saw the film before it aired but did not raise concerns about it. BBC chairman Samir Shah said the film's failings were a 'dagger to the heart' of the Corporation's claims to be trustworthy and impartial. Peter Johnston, the BBC's director of editorial complaints, was tasked with establishing what went wrong and making recommendations for future programmes. Despite the promise that Johnston, who is paid £200,000 each year, would 'rapidly address the complaints that have been made', his report has yet to see the light of day more than four months on. The feet-dragging caused frustration for those working at Basement Films, the independent production company behind the Doctors Under Attack documentary. Sources say that BBC bosses maintained for weeks that they had not delayed broadcast of the film because of the scandal sparked by its predecessor, which was made by a different production company, then changed tack and said it could not be aired while Johnston's report was outstanding. They feel that Corporation executives 'lied repeatedly' about the delays in releasing Doctors Under Attack and that the atmosphere had become 'absolutely toxic'. The delays led to the doctors who had been interviewed threatening to withdraw their consent for their footage to be used, as they could not understand why it had not been shown. During this period of limbo, more medics were killed in strikes on Gaza hospitals. Those involved with the film also say that the BBC found no editorial issues with Doctors Under Attack and were confident that it would comply with broadcasting regulations, but that bosses were now paranoid about any coverage of Gaza. BBC insiders counter this and say that the film had not been subject to its pre-broadcast sign-off processes. 'Any film broadcast will not be a BBC film.' Basement Films founder Ben de Pear, who is a former editor of Channel 4 News, lashed out publicly during a panel discussion at an industry conference on June 19. 'All the decisions about our film were not taken by journalists, they were taken by Tim Davie. He is just a PR person,' he said on stage. 'Tim Davie is taking editorial decisions which, frankly, he is not capable of making.' Davie has not got a background in journalism or programme-making and is nicknamed by some in Broadcasting House 'Lord Pepsi' for his background in cola adverts. De Pear went on to say that the BBC is 'failing as an institution' and 'needs new management'. 'The BBC has utterly failed,' he added. 'The best journalists in the world are working inside the BBC and they are being stymied and silenced.' A BBC spokesperson said in response that it 'totally reject[ed] this characterisation of our coverage'. On the same day that de Pear let his frustration spill into the open, Ramita Navai, the film's presenter, appeared as a guest on Radio 4's Today programme on the previous day and discussed the ongoing conflict in Gaza. 'The world has been watching as Israel has become a rogue state that is committing war crimes and ethnic cleansing and mass-murdering Palestinians,' she told presenter Amol Rajan. The following day, June 20, the BBC formally dropped the film, saying that 'broadcasting this material risked creating a perception of partiality' and, despite negotiations with Basement about using some footage in its news bulletins, they had 'reached the end of the road'. BBC insiders claimed that it was no coincidence that the final decision to drop Doctors Under Attack came after the outbursts from Navai and De Pear. Channel 4 saw the opportunity to swoop. 'Having the chance to pick up an important bit of accountability journalism seemed worth a look,' as one insider puts it. It has been subjected to 'rigorous' fact-checking and it is understood that the broadcaster has not asked for any 'substantive edits' to be made. Those at Channel 4 find the BBC's unwillingness to air Doctors Under Attack puzzling, especially as news executives did not appear to have any issues with its content. 'We've got to keep making decisions on journalistic grounds,' says a source. 'The moment you start making decisions that are not purely journalistic, it's problematic.' Another source says: 'We cannot not report on what is happening in Gaza at such a pivotal time.' Channel 4 bosses are braced for questions about Navai's personal statements about Israel after the film has been broadcast, but are confident that it complies with the impartiality requirements that regulators enforce. 'I'm sure there will be questions raised about Ramita, and my response to any of those is, 'Watch the film',' says a source. 'If you can find anything in that film is partial or inaccurate, that's a fair criticism. But trying to discredit the people associated with it is a diversionary approach.' It is understood that the BBC has paid Basement Films for its work on the commissioned documentary, while Channel 4 has paid to air it; nobody involved in making or broadcasting Doctors Under Fire would confirm how much it cost, however. 'No-one is making any money out of it,' according to one Channel 4 source. Meanwhile, morale in the BBC newsroom is reportedly at a low ebb. More than 100 BBC staffers have (anonymously) signed a letter to Corporation bosses in which they claim that it has become a mouthpiece for the Israeli government and express 'concerns over opaque editorial decisions and censorship… on the reporting of Israel/Palestine'. The fact that the BBC dropped a film that will now be broadcast on Channel 4 was the spark for the letter being publicly released. 'This appears to be a political decision and is not reflective of the journalism in the film,' it reads. 'This illustrates precisely what many of us have experienced first hand: an organisation that is crippled by the fear of being perceived as critical of the Israeli government.' The letter continues: 'All too often it has felt that the BBC has been performing PR for the Israeli government and military. This should be a cause of great shame and concern for everyone at the BBC.' Dorothy Byrne, a former head of news and current affairs at Channel 4, says that the broadcast of Doctors Under Attack on the commercial station would be 'the ultimate humiliation' for the BBC. 'I assume that the first film has made them lose their bottle and confidence,' she says. 'The BBC is now in the ridiculous situation over Gaza that it has broadcast a film that it shouldn't have broadcast in that form... and not broadcasting a film that it should have because another public service broadcaster, bound by the same regulations, has made the decision to broadcast it,' Byrne tells me. 'How do they always get themselves in a mess? They are like the Laurel and Hardy of broadcasting: something always seems to go wrong,' Byrne says of the BBC. 'And yet you've got brilliant people like Jeremy Bowen and Lyse Doucet. I really feel for the brilliant journalists who work for the BBC, who must feel embarrassed and humiliated when these things happen.'
