Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of planned levels of funding for the BBC World Service on women and minority groups in countries with limited press freedom.

Grant-in-Aid funding for the next three years for the BBC World Service will be decided through the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office allocations process. We will not speculate in the interim on the impact of those allocations.