§ 2.35 p.m.
§ [The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government what approximate proportion of the £10,500,000 estimated expenditure (1955–1956) on the maintenance of all overseas information services to the Commonwealth and to foreign territories is being spent upon broadcasts or other vehicles for enlightenment directed specifically by Her Majesty's Government to foreign nationals who are known to be recipients from other sources of highly damaging and continuous misrepresentations of British policy and aims.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE MARQUESS OF READING)My Lords, the inhabitants of many foreign territories may be said to be exposed in some degree to misrepresentations of the kind referred to in the noble Lord's question. These chiefly emanate at present from certain regions.
As the noble Lord is aware, the £10.5 million estimated expenditure on overseas information services is mainly divided between expenditure in foreign territories of £2¼ million, in Commonwealth territories 186 of £500,000, in Colonial territories of £250,000, on the work of the British Council of £2.6 million and on the B.B.C. of £4.8 million. Apart from these figures, no analysis of the total cost of the overseas information services which would show how much was spent in the various areas and for the various purposes is possible, since the production of material for use by the information services is centralised in the United Kingdom. Moreover, a great deal of the effort is devoted not to rebutting misrepresentations after they have been made but to taking the initiative in informing people overseas of the aims and achievements of this country.
The only guide I could give would be to take the proportion of the total cost of staff overseas spent in certain areas like the Middle East and South-East Asia; but this would be misleading because the scale of costs and the methods used vary substantially from country to country. Her Majesty's Government are fully aware of the pernicious effect of these misrepresentations and within the limit of what is financially possible, they are doing their best to counter it.
LORD REAMy Lords, I thank the noble Marquess for his long and helpful explanation and particularly for the assurance contained in his last sentence.
§ LORD TREFGARNEMy Lords, as the noble Marquess himself knows so well, what is really important is not what is broadcast but what is heard; and will he convey to the B.B.C. the suggestion that they inform themselves more fully about the high proportion of many of these broadcasts which, for various reasons to which I need not refer, are quite inaudible to the audience to whom they are addressed?
THE MARQUESS OF READINGMy Lords, I would think that if that inaudibility is deliberately provoked, the B.B.C. are fully alive to the situation.
§ LORD TREFGARNEMy Lords, I have in mind not mere jamming but other reception factors of which the B.B.C. may not be so fully informed.
§ LORD BARNBYMy Lords, arising out of his reply, may I ask the noble Marquess whether, since he lumped under one heading the expenditure from all sources, it is to be understood that the total expenditure which is under the 187 British Council, as he has just described, is directed wholly by the officer in the Foreign Office who, in a recent reply, he indicated directed all foreign public promotion activities? And would he also care to say whether further consideration is likely to be given to so large an expenditure rightfully occupying a whole-time officer?
THE MARQUESS OF READINGMy Lords, I am bound to say, with all respect to the noble Lord, that I am not very clear on the substance of that question; and in so far as he quoted, or alleged that he was quoting, an earlier reply of mine, I am afraid that, there again, did not recognise the reply. I can only say that the British Council works in very close association with the Foreign Office, of course, but it is an independent body and, as the noble Lord knows, pursues its activities in many countries of the world. Unfortunately, there again, the question of finance has to be taken into account in limiting its activities to a greater extent than we should like to do if we had inexhaustible resources.
§ LORD BARNBYI thank the noble Marquess for his reply and I make my apology to him for not making my question clear. Perhaps I can confine it to one sentence: Is it to be understood that the direction of the expenditure by the British Council is directly under the responsibility of the Foreign Office?
THE MARQUESS OF READINGMy Lords, that supplementary does not really arise from the main Question, but I think the question of where the emphasis is to be laid in the work of the British Council must to a considerable extent be a Foreign Office responsibility; and that is so. The British Council also carries on its activities as a separate organisation.