Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent estimate he has made of the aggregate extra costs to government (a) departments and (b) agencies from purchasing (i) commercial services and (ii) monitoring relevant foreign broadcasts themselves in consequence of proposed cuts in BBC Monitoring; and if he will make a statement.

The reduction in the budget to BBC Monitoring will not affect the provision of Core Services – including the monitoring of relevant foreign broadcasts – that BBCM is committed to provide under the revised Monitoring Agreement that will run from 2017 to 2028. The government may procure Additional Services, under the scope of the BBC Monitoring Agreement, which are additional to the Core Services. Procurement of commercial open source services by departments or agencies would, similarly, be to complement, not replace, BBCM Core outputs.