Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether she has made an assessment of the potential impact of the cessation of BBC Sounds coverage outside of the UK on the (a) Welsh, and (b) Scottish Gaelic speaking diaspora.

The BBC is operationally and editorially independent of the Government, and decisions on how it discharges its obligations, such as its changes to its BBC Sounds service, are a matter for the BBC. The Government has therefore not assessed the potential impact of the BBC’s changes to its BBC Sounds service.