Speeches by Smith.

“With those charities you referred to that have aims which you do not share, how do you personally ensure your neutrality in your job?”

“How do you do that? If a charity gets involved in a controversial debate—I am thinking particularly of charities that have been criticised for getting involved in either “woke” agendas or “anti-woke” agendas—how does the Commission respond to that without getting drawn into it and accused of bias?”

“Michael, Dr Shah said that your memo is “a partial description of the evidence that EGSC received”. Is it fair to describe your memo as partial?”

“To be clear, the Grossman reports were the only ones that were asked for by the committee on this particular topic—there were no others?”

“Caroline, you said that the memo does not provide a comprehensive review of the Grossman report. Do you think it gives an accurate sense of the Grossman report?”

“Were you surprised?”

“Well, I think there could be an accusation that you did not represent the Grossman report fairly in your memo, and that you picked up all the points that he made that were criticisms of the BBC, without stating the context, which was, generally speaking, that he was positive about the coverage, and had put forward thes…”

“Is that the fault of individuals? You talked about it being systemic, but it sounds like you are putting the blame on individuals for not following through.”

“To what extent is that the fault of the committee? You talked about systemic problems; where do they lie?”

“Am I right to read into what Caroline said that in the thematic reviews the committee is looking not just at things that have gone wrong, but proactively at future challenges?”

“Before we get into the issues arising from the memo, can we talk about the role of the editorial guidelines and standards committee? You are here, obviously, as external advisers to it. Can you talk about its purpose, and how each of you were recruited and appointed to it?”

“The Grossman report says that the coverage of the election issues was “generally excellent”.”

“The Grossman report says that the coverage of the election issues was “generally excellent”.”

“Appointed by politicians.”

“Caroline, you said that the memo does not provide a comprehensive review of the Grossman report. Do you think it gives an accurate sense of the Grossman report?”

“To be clear, the Grossman reports were the only ones that were asked for by the committee on this particular topic—there were no others?”

“Michael, Dr Shah said that your memo is “a partial description of the evidence that EGSC received”. Is it fair to describe your memo as partial?”

“Do you think it was impartial?”

“Would you agree that they have acknowledged that that was an issue? I am looking at a quote that says that it is “the one significant exception to our usually excellent record of reporting polling”. That particular problem with that particular poll was acknowledged.”

“How do they demonstrate that they have fixed those systemic problems?”