BBC World Service

Martin Horwood Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

The Liberal Democrats welcome the debate and strongly support the motion. The Select Committee Chairman set out very well the terms of the debate and the contrast between soft and hard power. Hard power in military terms is certainly often appropriate, as in the cases of Libya and Afghanistan, but it is an expression of British power overseas that is often fraught with military, political and financial difficulties. Even in the gentler realm of diplomacy, we are rightly reviewing our diplomatic presence around the world—and, it is to be hoped, expanding it in many cases in light of a changing world—while also having to pay attention to the financial context at home.

Soft power and expressions such as “the BBC World Service” are extraordinarily cost-effective. They reach billions of people and are enormously positive with very few complications, including many of the negative complications of other expressions of British interest around the world. The World Service in particular has attracted extraordinary plaudits from the likes of Kofi Annan and even Nelson Mandela. It has been refreshing in recent months to see placards on the streets of Muslim countries calling not for death to Britain or anything like that but thanking the BBC. They are talking about the BBC World Service, of course. In that context, it is extraordinary that we are facing the prospect of cuts to the Arabic service in particular. So, it is right that Ministers should be reconsidering the matter.

The current funding relationship is somewhat uncomfortable. The Select Committee is cautious about the eventual transfer of World Service funding to the BBC and rightly says that safeguards should be

“put in place to prevent any risk of long-term erosion of the World Service’s funding and of Parliament’s right to oversee its work.”

The intervention by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) was also well made. Provided that those safeguards can be put in place—the Select Committee suggested a formal concordat with the BBC Trust—there is one advantage to the transfer of funding, which is that it underlines the independence of the BBC World Service from political decisions about both funding and editorial content. That is an important reassurance for World Service listeners worldwide.

In the meantime, we have something of a problem in the period leading up to 2014. I welcome the Committee’s call for funding arrangements to be re-examined. We are happy to support it and I am glad that the Government are accepting the motion. I appreciate, however, that this is not as easy as it first looks. I understand, like others, that Ministers have thought about this very carefully and are aware of the issues involved. I am certainly very grateful for the time that Ministers and their advisers from both DFID and the FCO have spent answering my questions on this subject, as well as those of my right hon. and hon. Friends in this Chamber and in another place.

I particularly welcome the Secretary of State for International Development’s announcement about the prospect of a significant grant to the BBC World Service Trust. Many development issues can be addressed in World Service programming, from gender awareness, to global responsibilities for climate change, adaptation to it and how people can prepare for it, to health awareness, particularly about matters such as the HIV epidemic.

There are limitations, however. It is right that DFID’s funding should be restricted to matters that qualify as official development assistance and not all broadcasting can come within that remit. It would set a bad precedent if DFID was asked to fund areas that did not qualify as ODA under OECD rules and we would not want that precedent to be set. Nor would we want World Service programming to be skewed completely in the direction of development programming. The provision of information and a British perspective on world events is very important in many countries. The Hindi and Mandarin services spring to mind and the priority in those cases is not development but our economic, diplomatic, political and cultural presence, which is vital.

The BBC should have to examine its costs, its overheads and its back-up costs just like any other public spending. It is quite right that it should try to do that and if the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) is correct, there has clearly already been an iterative process between Ministers and the BBC on the exact nature and extent of these cuts and their impact on particular broadcast services. Even if that is true, following that iterative process we are still facing cuts in such vital services as Arabic, Hindi and Mandarin, so it is clear that we must reconsider the transitional arrangements between now and 2014. We should consider how we can protect those key services.

In the great scheme of things, the amounts of money involved are not huge. As has been pointed out by the Select Committee, they are a relatively small proportion of the increases in DFID’s budget. Even within wider Government and FCO spending, we are not talking about large amounts of money. As I said at the outset, the cost-effectiveness of the programming and influence of the World Service and the respect that it earns this country are of almost incalculable value. I urge Ministers enthusiastically to accept the motion and do whatever they can to protect this jewel in the crown of British broadcasting.