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When the government published its proposals for BBC charter renewal last year, it suggested the revised charter should include “a new obligation on the BBC to drive economic growth, build skills and support the creative economy across the UK”.

Today peers are urging the government to drop this idea.

We believe there is a case for articulating the BBC’s vital support for the creative economy more explicitly in its public purposes. However, giving the broadcaster a broad new objective to drive economic growth across the UK has few obvious benefits and clear associated risks.

The government should use the BBC charter review white paper to set out a coherent and ambitious strategy for public service media over the next decade. It must also be realistic about what can be asked of the BBC as it grapples with significant financial pressures.

We can see no obvious benefit in a specific requirement for the BBC to drive economic growth across the UK. It already makes a massive contribution to the UK’s creative economy. Including an explicit economic growth public purpose in the new charter risks both mission drift and skewing commissioning towards more generic, more exportable content.