BBC World Service

Debate between Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury and Lord Howell of Guildford

Tuesday 17th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I have a feeling that the slightly cop-out answer is that that really is a matter for the programmers and directors of the BBC World Service and not for me at 3 am in the morning. Nevertheless, although the World Service and many other aspects of government and government agencies have had to trim their sails in line with the general austerity measures, for reasons which we all know about, in general great strides are being made in expanding the communication network in these areas and in reorganising BBC programmes in a way that, I hope, will not disturb my noble friend quite so challengingly.

[Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury]

My Lords, I suspect that many noble Lords saw the photograph of a young man protesting in Deraa, Syria, holding up a placard on which was written “Thank you BBC”. I think that that says it all. Can the Minister persuade his friends at DfID that the World Service is regarded by the recipients of our aid as priceless and ask them to look up exactly what that means?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I think that my honourable friends and colleagues in DfID are well aware of that. It is a very important element in the deployment of soft power by this nation and it makes an important contribution to the overall soft-power communication message. No one doubts that for a moment. The budget is still substantial. It has had to take a cut proportionate with the huge cut that the Foreign Office had to take at the time of the exchange rate farrago. That had a huge impact on the Foreign Office. All the agencies concerned have had to take a proportionate share of that, but no more than proportionate compared with 2008.