Labour's Harriet Harman has warned the government not to "do a Dangerous Dogs Act on the BBC" by giving the public spending watchdog free rein to scrutinise the corporation, which could compromise its independence.
The Labour deputy leader and shadow culture secretary cautioned against seeking "quick-fix" solutions to the scandal surrounding severance pay, which critics claim points to a failure of BBC governance.
Harman said there was already quite a tortuous balance in the agreement between the National Audit Office (NAO) and the BBC over how much access the watchdog gets to its finances.
She was responding on Thursday to the call by the culture secretary, Maria Miller, for the NAO to be given greater access to the BBC's finances, allowing it to look at "any area of concern without hindrance or delay".
"[Miller] is suggesting a lessening of the BBC's ability to set the terms of reference for what the NAO does … and let the NAO set the agenda," said Harman, speaking at the Royal Television Society Cambridge convention the day after Miller set out the government's position on reforming the corporation's governance at the event.
She added: "It is important to think through the principles of this. I'm on the sceptical side but it depends how it was done and whether there are proper safeguards. I don't think we should do a Dangerous Dogs Act on the BBC, rush to do something everyone agrees is good but doesn't really work.
"This is a difficult time for the BBC, and change does need to happen. When it comes to governance we mustn't reach for a quick-fix answer on this issue, accountability at the BBC is a thorny and complex issue."
On Wednesday night in Cambridge Miller said that the BBC Trust would stay in place until charter renewal in 2017, but said steps were needed to address its failings including plans to allow the NAO greater scrutiny of the corporation.
The BBC director general, Lord Hall, said on Thursday that he had no detail on how the NAO proposal would work, but that his concern is to "protect the creativity and independence of journalism" at the corporation.
Harman said: "A concern about the NAO is that it's accountable to a committee of MPs, and people don't want any sense of political interference in the BBC."
She added that the runup to charter renewal would provide the environment to put the BBC under the microscope, and not to be "bounced into any kneejerk reactions" by the "ever-present and powerful political and commercial opponents" of the corporation.
"The debate around [the charter renewal and licence fee process] affords us the opportunity to take stock of whether the BBC has been able, itself, to make a progress on sorting out its pay and governance or whether more needs to be done."
She also added her voice to the welter of criticism over the bickering performance of the BBC's top brass – current and former – in front of the Commons public accounts committee on Monday. "It was a depressing and degrading spectacle," she said.
Harman also said that the TV industry is failing to reflect diverse Britain, either on screen or off screen, with a "glaring example" being the absence of older women on TV.
"For presenters under 50 there's a pretty even breakdown of men and women," she said. "But something seems to happen to women when they reach their 50th birthday, it's like the viewer needs to be protected from the sight of them."
She added the old fashioned TV format of an "older man teamed up with a glamorous younger woman" was still far too prevalent.
"It's fine for Jeremy Paxman to go grey and grow a beard but not for a woman," Harman said. "The problem is not that [women] are not there, but that they pushed out the door as they get older."
She also said that TV needs to reflect a more ethnic and socioeconomically diverse range of modern Britain.
"Not just those who live in London and the south-east, or from a well off or well connected background," she said.
She added that whenever she goes to TV interviews she is often met by a young intern who is "so often the son or daughter of someone who works there. And never someone from my constituency of Peckham".
