BBC World Service Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Chris Bryant
Main Page: Chris Bryant (Labour - Rhondda and Ogmore)Department Debates - View all Chris Bryant's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Hague
My hon. Friend’s question raises a wider discussion about the western Balkans. We give a great deal of diplomatic and ministerial attention to that region. We have been highly active in ensuring that dialogue rather than confrontation has taken place between Serbia and Kosovo over recent months, and we are now doing a great deal of work on the future of Bosnia. That is done by British diplomats, supported by the work of British non-governmental organisations, and British Ministers, working cohesively.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I am absolutely certain that the World Service cannot be preserved in aspic, and that if Labour had been in power, there would have been cuts in its budget. However, every single foreign politician whom I have met in my time in this House told me that one of Britain’s greatest assets is the BBC World Service. For many of them, it was the symbol of freedom. My big anxiety is that cuts in the World Service are so much heavier than cuts in other parts of the Foreign Office that they will leave a very depleted organisation, and that uniting the World Service with the rest of the BBC will hit rather than improve its impartiality. Will the Foreign Secretary therefore reconsider?
Mr Hague
The hon. Gentleman’s question is a good deal more realistic than some that I have been asked in the past half an hour, because he recognises that whatever Government were in power, there would have to be reductions in the World Service. He can gather from what I outlined earlier that we have sought to limit the impact on the number of countries involved. That is why only five separate language services are being closed. We have taken all the factors he outlined into consideration, limited those closures and provided for the future development of the World Service, so that it continues to be the respected service of which he rightly speaks.