BBC World Service

Denis MacShane Excerpts

Wednesday 26th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Foreign Secretary if he will make a statement on BBC World Service cuts.

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)]

The House will agree that the BBC World Service performs an invaluable role, reflecting British democratic values overseas and supporting British influence in the world, and that the services it provides are a beacon to many in some of the poorest and most insecure countries in the world. We announced in October that from 2014 responsibility for the BBC World Service will be transferred to the BBC itself and funded from the licence fee, a move that has been welcomed by the World Service and the BBC Trust as providing new opportunities for the World Service to develop in the future. In the meantime, the World Service, like any other taxpayer-funded body, must ensure that it is working on the right priorities and as efficiently as possible. I announced in October that its expenditure limits would be reduced by 16% in real terms over the next three years.

As I set out in a written statement earlier today, we are providing £13 million per annum to help with the deficit in BBC pension funds and £10 million per annum for new services in markets that we and the World Service have identified as priorities. Those include TV programming in Urdu, in sub-Saharan Africa and in Hindi to be provided to local partners. We have also guaranteed the capital for the move of the World Service to its new offices in W1. That is proper provision for the future of the World Service and will make up for inherited deficits.

The other services provided by the World Service cannot stand still, and those that have become less well used because of the rise of local broadcasters or falling shortwave audiences sometimes have to close. It is the World Service’s responsibility to be as efficient as possible while maintaining as many services as possible, something the previous Government recognised when in 2006 they closed 10 separate language services of the World Service. The World Service initially suggested to the Foreign Office the closure of up to 13 language services, but I refused to give permission for that. I have agreed to the closure of five language services, accounting for 3.5 million listeners out of the total audience of 180 million. Withdrawal from shortwave and other services will have a bigger effect, but they will rightly allow for concentration on online and mobile services for the future.

The BBC World Service has a viable and promising future, but it is not immune from public spending constraints or the reassessment of its priorities. While any closures might be regretted, they would not be necessary at all were it not for the inherited BBC pension deficit and the vast public deficit inherited from the previous Government.

[Mr MacShane]

May I remind the right hon. Gentleman that he is Her Majesty’s principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, not a pensions actuary at KPMG? In every year of the previous Labour Government, the grant in aid to the foreign service went up, but under him it has gone down. He is doing in part what no dictator has ever achieved: silencing the voice of the BBC, the voice of Britain, the voice of democracy, and the voice of balanced journalism at a time when it is needed more than ever.

I have an interest to declare. It was the World Service that broadcast my arrest and imprisonment 30 years ago in communist Poland, thus helping to secure my fairly swift release. This week there is turmoil in the Balkans, where people were killed and injured in Tirana last Friday and where Serbia and Macedonia remain without a European future. There is turmoil in Russia, where no one trusts the Putin-controlled media. There is turmoil in Africa, from Egypt and Tunisia down to Ivory Coast and Zimbabwe. What are the Government doing? They are axing the voice of the BBC—the voice of Britain and our values—in Albanian, Serbian and Macedonian. They are cutting services to Angola, Mozambique, Russia and China. They are taking the BBC off the air as other non or semi-democracies replace BBC truth with their propaganda.

The Foreign Secretary secured a flat cash settlement for his own Foreign and Commonwealth Office diplomats, but he has made the World Service the main victim of his cuts with a 20% real-terms reduction. That will cost the jobs of hundreds of journalists who come from every corner of the world to offer their linguistic and political expertise to our nation.

Finally, does the Foreign Secretary accept that just 0.5% of the UK’s total spend on international work goes to the World Service? I urge him to look across the range of UK overseas spending, including some sacred cows, and reverse the World Service cuts before irreparable damage is done to our country. If he cannot do that, he should let us have a Foreign Secretary who will allow Britain to maintain its voice in the world.

[Mr Hague]

When the right hon. Gentleman talks about Poland, one would never imagine that the World Service’s Polish service was closed by the Government of whom he was a member. When he talks about the Balkans, one would never imagine that the Bulgarian, Croatian and Slovene services were also closed by the Government of whom he was a member. It was apparently fine under the previous Government sometimes to have to change priorities, but it is not fine now.

The right hon. Gentleman asks about the Russian services. In Russia, online audiences have increased by 120% in the past 12 months, while radio audiences have declined by 85% since 2001. That is why it is absolutely right for the World Service to move more of its services to online and mobile services; that is the way the world is going, even though he might not have noticed it.

Of course the World Service has to move with the future, and of course occasionally some services have to close. The right hon. Gentleman recognised that when he was a Minister. It is a pity he does not recognise it now.