BBC World Service Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Ben Bradshaw
Main Page: Ben Bradshaw (Labour - Exeter)Department Debates - View all Ben Bradshaw's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Hague
Absolutely. That is, of course, a major area of the World Service’s broadcasting. None of the language service closures that are envisaged or agreed to will affect the middle east. Those closures are of services in Albanian, Macedonian, Serbian, Portuguese for Africa and English for the Caribbean. The work of the BBC World Service in the middle east will continue at its current strength.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
These cuts are a direct result of the Foreign Secretary’s decision to allow the funding of the World Service to pass from his Department to the licence fee payer. Many of us warned that that would happen at the time. The countries where language services have been closed that he listed in response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) were all European democracies within the European Union; that is not the case with the language services the Foreign Secretary is closing. Why should the BBC spend any more money on language services that the licence fee payer has no interest in and, in many cases, cannot listen to?
Mr Hague
In case there is any confusion, there is no connection between these reductions and the transfer of the BBC World Service to licence fee funding, which will take place in four years’ time. For the next three years, the BBC World Service will continue to be funded directly out of public expenditure. Just to make it clear for the right hon. Gentleman, the reductions are therefore not the direct consequence of that decision. The services that closed under the previous Government were not just European democracies in the European Union; they also closed the Kazakh and Thai services. The closures were much more widespread. As I said, the previous Government recognised that closures sometimes had to take place. Labour Members must recognise that unless they oppose all reductions in Government expenditure, sometimes these things have to happen.