Dear BBC,

I am writing to raise a matter of concern regarding the manner in which particular areas of political policy are often reported on the BBC and in the media in general. I am greatly worried that, during coverage of the next general election, these policy areas will be described and presented by the BBC in an incomplete and inaccurate way, which – it must regrettably be observed – is a not infrequent occurrence on a day-to-day basis. If this were to happen, the Corporation would be failing egregiously in its duty as the UK’s leading public-service broadcaster with an obligation to inform the public about matters of interest to it.

The areas of legislation and policy to which I am referring are those that have been devolved in varying degrees to separately elected parliamentary bodies and administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. One consequence of devolution is that when the same matters are discussed, and laws relating to them are enacted, in the UK Parliament, they very often relate to England only – or to England plus one or more of the other UK nations, depending on the subject matter of the legislation; but always to England.

In the context of the general election, this means that many of the major areas of party policy that will be discussed and presented to the electorate will concern England only. These include: education; health; local government and communities; policing, crime and justice (which includes Wales, too); regional and local transport policy; planning; housing; culture and sport; the environment and farming; etc. The main UK-wide political parties generally try to obfuscate the fact that, as far as the Westminster Parliament is concerned, its competence in these areas is limited to England. They do so, in the main, either by misleadingly referring to the country to which their policies on these topics are addressed as ‘Britain’ (implying the whole of Britain, which is simply not true), or by vaguely invoking ‘this country’ – thereby letting people believe they mean Britain when in fact they’re referring to England, but avoiding having to say so.

Why the political parties don’t want to admit openly that, of necessity, their proposed legislative programmes in these matters relate mainly to England alone is a matter of debate. One obvious reason is that, by making it explicit that so many of the key election issues affect only England, this would call into question the whole legitimacy of an election process that allows people in the other countries of the UK to vote on them. It would potentially be hugely embarrassing and confusing for the parties to have to admit that they were canvassing the support of people in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland on issues that affect only the people of England.

But that is no reason to allow them to get away with it. The parties are basically practising a deceit on the British public – well, actually, two deceits: 1) pretending to English people that their policies on England-only matters also affect the other nations of the UK, so that they won’t object to people in those countries voting on them; 2) allowing politically uninformed people in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to think that the representatives they will be sending to Westminster can influence decisions on these matters that will affect them, whereas they can’t: those matters are now dealt with by the separately elected devolved administrations.

It is surely the duty of the BBC to cut through all this duplicity to report the parties’ policy proposals accurately and impartially. If parties’ manifesto pledges relate to England only, the BBC should report them as such even if the parties themselves try to avoid referring to England. In order to do this really well, perhaps the BBC should consider making clear divides, within programmes and news bulletins discussing the election campaign, between UK-wide issues and England- (or England and Wales-) specific ones. This should not be too complicated: it would be simply a case of, say, devoting the first 15 minutes of a half-hour programme clearly and explicitly to UK-wide matters (and perhaps throwing in those that relate to England plus Wales); and then dedicating the last 15 minutes to England-specific subjects. Presenters should clearly flag up the ‘geographical extent’ (as the government puts it) of the policies that are going to be discussed at the beginning and end of each section, and at the beginning and end of each policy area that has been debated. When coming to the England-only topics, the script could draw viewers’ / listeners’ attention to the fact that the rest of the programme relates directly to England alone; and it would even perhaps be appropriate to apologise to people elsewhere in the UK: ‘we apologise to viewers not in England that the discussions throughout the rest of the programme relate to policy proposals for England only’.

It should not be too difficult for the BBC to differentiate between UK-wide and England-only policy areas: the responsibilities of the devolved administrations and, correspondingly, the England-only competencies of UK-government departments are well documented. Some of these departments deal with England-only matters in some areas but UK-wide ones in others, e.g. the Department of Culture, Media and Sport: culture and sport, England; media UK. But then the BBC would just have to make sure that any debates dealing with policy on the arts or sport are clearly demarcated as England-specific, and those concerning media policy are dealt with under the UK rubric. If in doubt, I feel sure that someone from the Campaign for an English Parliament, or an academic expert on devolution, or even I myself would be prepared to act as a consultant to help the BBC separate out the English issues from the UK ones.

I cannot stress too highly how critically important it is to get this right. In the absence of a separate English parliament to deal with legislation affecting England only, a UK general election is the only opportunity the English public are given to express their views – however imperfectly under the present electoral system – on the parties’ policies for them. As a public-service broadcaster, it is the BBC’s duty to help the public to understand and scrutinise how parties’ proposals may affect them, and how they will not. And an essential component of this public-service function must surely be to inform the English people that some proposals affect them only, and to inform UK citizens living outside England that those same proposals do not in fact concern them. In this way, voters in England can use their votes as an expression of their wishes and priorities for their own country – England – alongside their preferences in matters affecting the whole of the UK. And voters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland can be helped not to waste their vote on policies that are irrelevant to them.

Yours respectfully,

David Rickard