BBC World Service

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Wednesday 26th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fowler]

I shall ask my noble friend a few short questions. Is there any comparable international broadcasting service which has a higher reputation than the BBC World Service? Is that influence not of immense benefit to this country? Will he therefore understand that there will be serious concern about this announcement on all sides of the House? May I ask him something else which may not have such general support? If we are intent on saving money, why are we cutting only journalists and services yet preserving the costly bureaucracy of the BBC Trust? Even now it is in the process of recruiting a new chairman when even the previous Labour Government wanted to see it go. In that way we could save millions of pounds for broadcasting.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I shall start on my noble friend’s second point. We have to leave the design and pattern of the cuts to the administration of the BBC World Service within the confines, of course, of the requirement that my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary has to approve any cuts in language services. He has approved three. I think he was asked to cut 13 in the first place. I have no quibble with my noble friend regarding the value of the service in the promotion of our cultural diplomacy and soft power in the world. It is immensely valuable and its budget remains substantial. None of us welcomes this application of austerity but it is necessary because that is the position we inherited and we have to work within. Within those parameters the BBC World Service remains, in our minds, an immensely valuable instrument. It is a central part of the promotion of our values and I do not for one moment dispute a single word of what my noble friend said.