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Lord Polak (Con)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 12 November 2025

Debate

BBC Leadership

Contribution

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?

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