Summary
The Foreign Affairs Committee believes that cuts to the British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC) highly valued global radio network should be discarded, as detailed in the report 'The Implications of Cuts to the BBC World Service’ (HC 849).
The BBC World Service promotes British values across the globe and its journalists have played an important part in contributing to the BBC's coverage of recent dramatic events in North Africa. Former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan described the service as “perhaps Britain’s greatest gift to the world”.
The service has suffered a disproportionate 16% reduction in its future Grant-in-Aid under the spending review settlement, by comparison with that of the 'core FCO' (Foreign and Commonwealth Office).
High-level discussions between the Government and the BBC about a transfer of funding responsibility started only nine days before the formal announcement of the change.
The Committee report states that the decision to reduce World Service spending by 16% during the 2010 spending review period should be reversed, and resources made available for it to continue its operations at roughly the 2010-11 level of staffing and output.
If the Service's funding is reduced in spite of this recommendation, the Committee urges for damage limitation with an unreduced BBC Hindi and BBC China Mandarin shortwave service, and enhanced resources to BBC Arabic as required by the recent and continuing political developments in the region.
Some of the activity of the World Service contributes to the wider aims of the Department for International Development (DFID), and a transfer of just 0.35% of DFID's resource budget over the next three years would compensate for the proposed 16% reduction in World Service funding. There is no reason why such a transfer should not be made if the political will to carry it out is present.
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