§ 10. Miss Anne Begg (Aberdeen, South)If he will make a statement on his Department's support for the BBC World Service. [125213]
§ The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Keith Vaz)The BBC World Service has the full support of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Objectives for the World Service are agreed between the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the World Service, and progress is regularly reviewed. Funding for the World Service is via a grant in aid from the FCO. There are close and frequent contacts between my Department and the World Service at all levels—and I am assured that one can hear the World Service even in St. Helena.
§ Miss BeggI am sure that my hon. Friend is aware that the World Service now has its own internet service, BBC Online. That site is proving very popular, and since January last year its use has tripled to 24 million page impressions a month. Will he assure me that funding will be available so that that valuable service can continue to grow, and continue to be the most popular audio news service on the internet in the world?
§ Mr. VazI assure my hon. Friend that the World Service has many influential friends in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. I know that the Ministers responsible have had frequent meetings with Mr. Byford and his staff. Of course we shall do all that we can to support their work. As my hon. Friend knows, when the matter was last considered in 1998, the World Service received an additional £44.2 million for its £177 million 150 budget. She also knows that 151 million people a week listen to the World Service, and more are getting involved in it because of internet access. I assure her that we are very sympathetic to what she has said.
§ Mrs. Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham)With friends like the Foreign Office, who needs enemies? I might say:
how short-sighted it is to cut the funding of one of the greatest assets of Britain, which should be one of the best investments that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office could make in foreign relations.—[Official Report, 10 January 1996; Vol. 269, c. 203.]Those are not my words, but the words of the current Foreign Secretary when he complained about World Service funding in January 1996. Will the Minister therefore explain why, under the Labour Government, funding for the World Service has been cut so that it is worth less in real terms than the funding in 1996 when the Foreign Secretary criticised the Conservative Government? Is not that abysmal situation for our World Service yet another example of the Government saying one thing and doing another?
§ Mr. VazI am sorry that the hon. Lady prepared her question before she heard my answer. I am sure that she listened carefully to what I said, but in case she did not, I repeat that in 1998 there was an increase of £44.2 million in the World Service budget for the following three financial years—[Interruption.] If the hon. Lady stops talking and listens for one moment, she will realise that that was an increase, not a decrease. We fully support the World Service and will consider sympathetically all the requests that it makes—[Interruption.]
§ Madam SpeakerOrder. The hon. Lady might listen to the answer.
§ Mr. VazI think that the hon. Lady is preparing her question for the next Foreign Office Question Time, but she is doing it a bit early. If she listened to Ministers' answers, it would help her enormously.