BBC World Service: Sustainability

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

Do I think it is fair? I guess that depends on what you think the licence fee is for. That is part of what the charter review process will tease out. I accept that what a licence fee payer may have wanted to pay for in the 1950s and 1960s may well be different now, because things have changed. The World Service is a tremendous asset to this country. There are many licence fee payers who enjoy the World Service here in the UK, as well as around the world. What we need to achieve, certainly from my perspective, is the longer-term stability and success of the World Service.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, what is the future for BBC Monitoring?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

BBC Monitoring provides an exceptionally important service. If noble Lords have not had the chance to look into what it does, I would highly recommend it, particularly for situations such as that in Ukraine, where it is probably the most reliable source of information on the Russian war dead. Its work on misinformation and disinformation is highly significant to our ability to bring everything we can in support of Ukraine.