Climate minister tells MPs that the BBC does the public a disservice by treating sceptics as equal with climate scientists

A Tory minister has lashed out at the BBC over its coverage of climate change, claiming it gives too much prominence to sceptics.

Greg Barker suggested "the sceptic press" often used research that had not been peer-reviewed to bolster its position and accused the "Sunday newspapers" of presenting comment as science.

But the climate minister honed in on the way the publicly funded BBC still focused on the "sterile" debate over whether it existed when most scientists are firmly in one camp.

He told the Science and Technology committee: "In the case of the BBC they have a very clear statutory responsibility. It's in the original charter to inform. I think we need the BBC to look very hard, particularly at whether or not they are getting the balance right.

"I don't think they are."

He added: "I think there is too much focus on trying to stimulate an increasingly sterile debate on the science, given the overwhelming body of opinion that there is now in favour of the science, and perhaps if they are wanting to have an active debate they should be talking about the policy responses to that science, rather than the science itself.

"I'm not trying to ban all dissenting voices but we are doing the public a disservice by treating them as equal, which is not the case."

Mr Barker said: "I think that appetite for fairness or a counter-opinion gives a disproportionate idea to the public that the sceptic view is perhaps more legitimate, or more widely held is perhaps a better way of putting it, than it actually is."

He said there was "no departmental view" on whether reforms to press regulation should play a role in ensuring incorrect coverage was challenged but said it was "extremely frustrating" to see reports he believed were misleading.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change now intends to go on the offensive by tackling any factual inaccuracies within the news cycle they come out, particularly by using Twitter, he told the committee.

Mr Barker admitted he sometimes struggled to understand the complex briefings on climate change given to him by departmental scientists.

He said: "No disrespect to any of my scientific colleagues. They are not always the best communicators of simple messages that can actually resonate with the public.

"I sometimes struggle to understand exactly, certainly in a concise way, in the briefings some of the very complex issues that scientific colleagues will try and get over so for the general public who are maybe just getting glancing parts of these messages from TV or the radio and newspapers it can be doubly difficult."