Complaint
A member of the panel described the date 2050, set out in the Climate Change Act as the deadline for achieving net zero, as having been “plucked…out of thin air”. A viewer complained the description was false (the date having been based on detailed technical advice from the Committee on Climate Change, the statutory advisors to Parliament) and should have been challenged by the presenter. The ECU considered the complaint in the light of the BBC’s editorial standards of accuracy.
Outcome
The BBC’s editorial standards do not require absolute accuracy in all circumstances, but call for “due” accuracy, meaning the level of accuracy appropriate to the context. In the context of a programme of topical debate such as Question Time, viewers will expect members of the panel to argue their positions but will not necessarily assume everything they say is strictly accurate, particularly if the speaker is not a recognised expert on a particular topic. In the ECU’s judgement the audience in general would have taken the panellist’s comment as a political judgement expressed in rhetorical terms, rather than a factual analysis of the process which resulted in the choice of 2050, there was no occasion for challenge by the presenter.
Not upheld