It would be far too dangerous for me to speculate on that without more factual information at my disposal. My hon. Friend is being slightly mischievous. I could not possibly agree with him and call into question how people are invited to BBC interviews. However, it is interesting that the one argument that the campaign to stay in the EU seems to have—that leaving the EU would be bad for business and jobs would be lost—has become a constant refrain in all BBC interviews.
The BBC seems devastatingly disappointed when a lot of businesses take the opposite view. It was fascinating to hear the wonderful interview with Nissan last week. The whole House will welcome the great news that Nissan has a very big investment programme for the United Kingdom’s biggest car plant, which will carry it through the next five years and beyond with a new model. When the BBC tried to threaten that investment by asking, “Wouldn’t you cancel it if the British people voted to come out of the EU?”, Nissan said, “No, of course we wouldn’t.” It is about the excellence of the workforce, the excellence of the product and access to an extremely good market here. It is in no way conditional upon how people exercise their democratic rights in Britain.
It is that spirit—the spirit of Nissan—that I hope the BBC will wish to adopt when contemplating such interviews in future. I hope that it will understand that most business interviews over the next few months should not be about the politics of the EU; they should be about whether the company is doing well—creating
jobs, making profits and investing them wisely. If the business is misbehaving, then by all means the interview should be about the allegations.