NICOLA Sturgeon has hit back at a Scottish Labour call for the UK broadcasting regulator to investigate whether her Covid briefings breach impartiality rules.
Labour peer George Foulkes said Ofcom should insist on BBC Scotland changing the TV coverage to remove the First Minister in the run-up to the 2021 Holyrood elections.
But at her briefing today, the First Minister hit back at Foulkes saying she would continue with the briefings and that he never wanted her to hold them.
"I will do the briefings," she said.
"I think I have a really important responsibility as First Minister to communicate public health information to the public. Whether they are broadcast live is not a matter for me that is a matter for broadcasters."
She added: "George Foulkes has never wanted these briefings to happen which I think is regrettable because it suggests that political considerations are more important than the vital imperative of communicating directly to the public in a public health emergency, but that's for him to answer for not for me."
The Herald reported that the Labour peer claimed BBC Scotland wouldn’t do so without being forced “because they feel intimidated by the overbearing attitude of the Scottish Government”.
He claimed public health officials should present the briefings because "the rules on political impartiality continue to be flouted".
The move is the latest effort by Scottish Labour to reduce the amount of airtime the First Minister and her Government are getting through the Covid pandemic.
In August, the party demanded an urgent meeting with the head of BBC Scotland over what it claimed were “increasingly political” briefings on the outbreak.
In September the BBC was forced into a climb down, reversing their decision to stop broadcasting, as a matter of course, the Scottish Government’s daily Covid updates.
Although bosses at Pacific Quay said they were opting out to ensure a “consistent approach to coverage of the various government briefings across the UK nations”, there was speculation they’d succumbed to pressure from Labour and the Tories.
Sturgeon has said her removal from TV briefings could undermine public health messaging but that has not stopped Labour and the Tories from trying to remove her.
In a letter sent to Ofcom on Saturday, Lord Foulkes revealed he had already expressed his concerns in a meeting new BBC Director-General Tim Davie last month.
He said he told Davie the First Minister was speaking directly to the people of Scotland “ostensibly” as a Covid update, but including “topics of a political nature, sometimes critical of the UK Government, with no proper right of reply to the other parties”.
Lord Foulkes told Ofcom: “As you will appreciate, I am not a supporter of the current UK Government, but I am a supporter of adherence to the rules of political impartiality at both a UK and Scottish level.”
He said Davie then arranged for him and Edinburgh MP Ian Murray to meet the new BBC Scotland director Steve Carson.
He went on: “We expressed our concerns that the rules on political impartiality continue to be flouted.
“It was clear that BBC Scotland broadcast the briefings whenever asked to by the Scottish Government. They could not give us any instance when they had refused to do so.”
Lord Foulkes said BBC Scotland refused to cover the event as if it were a news conference, and so confine it to news bulletins.
“They would not pursue this, I believe because they feel intimidated by the overbearing attitude of the Scottish Government.”
“Can I therefore ask Ofcom to now investigate this with a view to insisting this with a view to insisting that BBC Scotland alter the format of the coverage of the epidemic to conform with the rules,” he said.
“If there is a need for a political statement it should be done in the Scottish Parliament, where the Opposition parties have the opportunity to ask questions and comment.
“I cannot stress enough how widespread the concern is on this and how urgent action is needed.”
A spokesperson from the Scottish Government said: “The regular live media briefings by the First Minister are used to disseminate the latest public health guidance on coronavirus, as well as important information about services and support for people and the economy. They also provide an opportunity for scrutiny from the media with 10 to 20 members of the media participating every day.”
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