Future Diplomatic Network

Lord Cryer Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

As my hon. Friend knows, we already afford great importance to the links with India. In July last year the Prime Minister led our largest ever ministerial and trade delegation to India, and we are continuing to build up those links. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his welcome for the additional staff in India. I hope that that addition will allow us to open new consulates general at various locations, although we have to discuss that matter with the Indian Government to ensure that they are happy with the locations.

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

May I press the Foreign Secretary further on the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes)? The arguments that the Foreign Secretary has presented for the expansion and maintenance of the diplomatic network seem pretty sound, but do not many of the same arguments apply to the BBC World Service, especially in the light of the events in the various Arab nations? Will he look at that matter again?

[Mr Hague]

The argument is that all parts of the public sector have to make the best possible use of reduced resources. I hope that the way in which we are now running the Foreign Office budget is a good example of that, and that it can be used as an example to other organisations, including the World Service. None of us enjoys making reductions anywhere, but it would clearly be impossible to do all the other things that we are committed to doing if we had maintained the World Service’s budget at exactly the level that it was before. We are putting the World Service on a long-term sustainable footing by moving it so that its funding comes from the BBC licence fee and enabling it to work together with the development of BBC World television. For the medium to long-term future, the World Service is on a much sounder, more sustainable footing.