Does the Minister feel that the BBC may have become distracted in concerning itself with the future of its music radio stations by the fact that it has been paying inflation-busting pay increases to the great majority of its employees?
My Lords, I have not seen the payroll so I am not able to comment. I know it is of concern to many people that they should get value for money. It occurs to me that value for money is a good way of looking at this. Nevertheless, the BBC is looking at this as it looks at all radio stations—on a five-year programme. As I mentioned earlier, it is now reviewing other programmes and we will see what it comes up with, but it is the BBC’s affair. The BBC Trust makes the decisions once it has the ideas from the BBC executive.