BBC Monitoring (Hansard, 23 March 2004)

§ Dr. Gavin Strang (Edinburgh, East and Musselburgh) (Lab)
I am grateful to have this opportunity to draw hon. Members' attention to an institution whose work is vital to our country in the light of the threats that we face today. In 1939, as the world stood on the brink of war, the BBC first established a service to monitor foreign broadcasts. A week before the outbreak of the second world war, 50 monitors moved into the Evesham headquarters. By 1942, BBC Monitoring had flourished—for obvious reasons—with 500 employees, and in 1943, the service moved into its present site in Caversham Park in Reading. With the end of the second world war and the lowering of the iron curtain, BBC Monitoring became a vital tool in observing the development and conclusion of the cold war. As I shall discuss later, in recent years, BBC Monitoring has again adapted to meet Britain's needs after the cold war and 11 September.
BBC Monitoring is a division of the BBC, part of the BBC World Service. It is funded separately, receiving about —22 million from its stakeholders and raising about —4 million in other revenue, including commercial income. BBC Monitoring's stakeholders are its four principal customers: the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Ministry of Defence, the Cabinet Office and its agencies and the BBC World Service. They provide funding and influence the priority given to the areas covered. It is worth describing the sheer scale of the operation conducted by BBC Monitoring. Covering about 150 countries and 100 languages, it tracks more than 3,000 sources in the international media. Selecting and translating material, the unit publishes an average of 1,000 reports daily, giving a comprehensive and well-judged portrayal of events worldwide. In addition to around 400 staff at Caversham Park, it has five bureaux abroad: in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, in Moscow, Kiev, Nairobi and Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan. It does not just translate and relay what has been broadcast, but analyses material to produce a viable picture of events. Reports published by BBC Monitoring cover all areas relevant to those interested in foreign affairs, including politics, security, human rights and organised crime. Clients can choose the type of reports that they wish to receive and how they receive them, including by internet or e-mail.
New sources are always appearing and BBC Monitoring is always looking for them. New technology brings new opportunities. It has introduced digital technology to develop multimedia projects, enabling customers to receive reports combining audio, video and the written word. Customers can also receive a live feed of a television station via the internet.
To provide a truly global service, BBC Monitoring works in partnership with the US Foreign Broadcast Information Service, or FBIS, a partnership that began in 1941. Britain does not have the capability alone to provide a detailed assessment of events in every corner of the earth, but there are many parts where we are exceptionally well placed to do so, often owing to our historic connections to those areas. In those parts of the world, we can provide a package second to none, and BBC Monitoring does the world a service. Working with the FBIS means a partnership with global reach: the two 243WH are perfectly complementary. The FBIS provides coverage that is vital to our Government—of the Chinese media, for example—and BBC Monitoring provides information that is vital to the US Government, such as coverage of Afghanistan.
The value of BBC Monitoring's work can be divided into two broad categories. First, it provides hard information about particular events worldwide. It was the partnership between BBC Monitoring and the FBIS that drew attention to the statement by an al-Qaedan group claiming responsibility for this month's atrocity in Madrid. The statement was spotted in a London-based Arabic newspaper. There are occasions when a particular broadcast is itself a significant event. Last year, hon. Members will remember Libya's announcement in December that it had programmes to develop weapons of mass destruction that it was prepared to dismantle. Before the Prime Minister gave his speech welcoming Libya's statement, BBC Monitoring was asked to check that that statement had actually been broadcast as agreed.
BBC Monitoring is also invaluable in providing its customers with information on the political climate in the area in question, including perceptions of Britain and our allies. In recent years, it has included in its work the monitoring of hate speech—broadcasts that incite violence. Countries whose media are being monitored for hate speech include the former Yugoslavia, the Ivory Coast and Israel-Palestine. Colleagues will, I am sure, agree that it is important to have a measure of the political temperature in those areas.
BBC Monitoring staff are not just skilled in languages; they have a broad and deep understanding of the countries in question and are therefore able to provide a good picture of the attitudes prevailing. This is an important point, which may sometimes be lost. In my view, it is not possible to overstate the importance of that expertise. Yes, BBC Monitoring is about sophisticated modern equipment, skilled engineers and expert linguists, but nothing is more important than the ability to put the information received into context, and that knowledge comes from the vast experience that BBC Monitoring staff have of the particular part of the world to which they are assigned.
BBC Monitoring is a tremendous national asset that is very important in today's world. We must nourish it. I know that the Government share that view. Indeed, the Foreign Office Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Mr. Rammell), told us last April that BBC Monitoring is the main open source provider of information for the Government and the BBC World Service. It provides a valuable service to its stakeholders and to others throughout Government. By tracking world events and reactions to them, including, importantly, perceptions of British foreign policy, it assists the Government in their decision-making processes."—[Official Report, Westminster Hall, 29 April 2003; Vol. 404, c. 30WH.] At this point it is probably worth reminding ourselves that BBC Monitoring provides a large amount of the material that makes the BBC World Service the best known and most respected broadcaster in the world.
In a world in which our security is threatened by international terrorism, monitoring has taken on a greater importance, and BBC Monitoring clearly has an 244WH important role to play. There has understandably been a considerable focus on secret intelligence over recent months, but people are perhaps less aware that a lot of the information used in counter-terrorism is in the public domain. That information is conveyed to counter-terrorism staff by BBC Monitoring. It is important to realise that among the customers of BBC Monitoring are the Defence Intelligence Staff, the assessments staff, the intelligence agencies and the National Criminal Intelligence Service.
The cold war is miles behind us, and the threat that we face today is totally different. We have some experience, sadly, of terrorism at home, and that has no doubt been useful, but the threat facing Britain today—international terrorism—is far more dispersed than any previous threat to our security. BBC Monitoring, with its reach and skills, is of tremendous value to Britain and our allies in the face of that threat.
I should like to say a few words about the importance of global coverage. The global reach of the BBC Monitoring-FBIS partnership is crucial to its customers; there is widespread agreement among those working in foreign policy that the partnership's global coverage is critical. During the cold war, to put it bluntly, we knew where our opponent was, but in the current climate we simply do not know where we must look next to meet the challenges of tomorrow. Clearly, then, we should maintain global surveillance.
In addition, international terrorism is one of a number of global themes of which we need an accurate and comprehensive picture. Just as with other global themes, such as organised crime, we need global coverage to get a clear picture of international terrorism. From my remarks, my hon. Friend the Minister will not be surprised that I take the view that it is imperative that BBC Monitoring is adequately funded. Hon. Members may be surprised to learn, however, that BBC Monitoring funding from its stakeholders has actually declined in the past decade.
The worst of the damage was done in 1996, when more than 50 jobs and £1.2 million were axed. Since 1997, stakeholder funding has increased slightly in real terms, most significantly in the financial year 2001–02, but that slight increase has not repaired the gap in funding, and stakeholder funding to BBC Monitoring is 7 per cent. less in real terms today than it was in 1993–94. In parallel with that reduction in funding, BBC Monitoring has increased its work load many times over in terms of both input and output.
The number of broadcast stations and publications that are monitored has grown rapidly. In countries that are crucial to our Government's agenda such as Afghanistan, the media are flourishing, and many new outlets require the attention of BBC Monitoring, whose output has also increased massively. Rather than a single paper product, it now produces thousands of bespoke products, delivered to people in real time and wherever they need it, to our military in Basra or to Foreign office staff in Baghdad, for example. That has meant a huge retraining of staff and restructuring of operations. At the same time, many of the efficiencies currently being encouraged in our Departments have already been carried out by BBC Monitoring.
BBC Monitoring and the FBIS form an excellent partnership in providing global coverage. No one would argue that BBC Monitoring should be funded to the 245WH extent that it alone could provide detailed coverage of all the media in every part of the world—that is the strength of the partnership with the FBIS. However, as I said earlier, for various reasons there are parts of the world in which we are exceptionally well placed to do the job. It has been made clear to me that if BBC Monitoring were not there to do the job—if, for example, it was allowed to decline—the FBIS could not simply pick up the pieces and take on the work itself. The importance of BBC Monitoring to Britain in the world today means that it is crucial that the Government stakeholders make available the money that it requires to develop the excellent and important service that it provides. Indeed, I would argue that the case for investing in BBC Monitoring is stronger today than it has ever been.
I welcome the Government's provision of additional resources for our intelligence and security services. However, a lot of the information that the agencies use is open source material from BBC Monitoring. Such open source information provides a context into which secret intelligence data can be placed. The Government will fail to maximise the benefits that they should get from secret intelligence if our main provider of open source information is not adequately resourced. In the current climate, given the growing importance of being informed about what is going on worldwide, we should surely be providing more, not less, support to BBC Monitoring.
BBC Monitoring is a tremendous resource. It has an august past and a vital role in our future security. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will take this opportunity to put on record the tremendous service provided by BBC Monitoring and undertake to do what he can to ensure that it receives the resources that it needs to perform its crucial role in the years to come.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Nicholas Winterton)
I advise the House that the right hon. Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot) has obtained the permission of the right hon. Member for Edinburgh, East and Musselburgh (Dr. Strang), the Minister and the Chair to participate briefly.

§ Mr. James Arbuthnot (North-East Hampshire) (Con)
I obtained permission, but only late in the day, and for that I apologise.
I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Edinburgh, East and Musselburgh (Dr. Strang) for allowing me to contribute briefly to his debate. I agree with everything that he has said and echo in particular his point about the value that the BBC gains and gives to this country from its partnership with the FBIS in the United States. That value is phenomenal, and we are all in debt to the BBC for the service that it gives partly as a result of that partnership.
Only this morning, I checked the BBC Monitoring service to compare the coverage in Israeli Hebrew newspapers with that in Palestinian newspapers of yesterday's death of Ahmed Yassin. The comparison that I was able to make was unlike anything that I could have found anywhere else, and it was interesting to see that even the Hebrew newspapers made comments such as: 246WH With his death he has bequeathed to us another death. It is important to be able to find out that the Hebrew newspapers are saying that. The BBC Monitoring service is extremely valuable to this country, and I hope that the Minister will consider carefully what the right hon. Gentleman said.

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Chris Mullin)
My right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East and Musselburgh (Dr. Strang) has raised an important issue. He recently visited the BBC Monitoring service at Caversham, as I did last September. In a previous incarnation as a humble sub-editor at the BBC World Service in the 1970s, I made use of its output, so I have been well aware of it for many years.
As my right hon. Friend said, BBC Monitoring supplies news, information and comment from the world's media. It covers a wide range of topics, including politics, elections, international security, terrorism, human rights, technology, the environment and economic affairs. It is the main open source provider of information for Her Majesty's Government and the BBC World Service.
BBC Monitoring was founded in 1939 on the eve of the second world war. By 1942, it had grown from having 50 staff to about 500. In those days, it played a vital role in relaying information from France to UK Government headquarters. After the war, it turned its attention to developments in the iron curtain countries and the unfolding cold war. There is no doubt that the service has played a valuable role in the recent past. Today, as my right hon. Friend mentioned, it operates from bureaux in Moscow, Kiev, Tashkent, Baku and Nairobi, in addition, of course, to Caversham Park, near Reading. In co-operation with its American counterpart, it can provide global coverage of events.
BBC Monitoring has adapted to changing geographical priorities and huge changes in the information environment flowing from recent technological developments. It now has access to video footage and websites and distributes material electronically—facilitating a more rapid response—in greater quantities. Users who fund the service can customise the information that they receive through a password-protected intranet.
BBC Monitoring used to be funded through grant in aid from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, to which the Ministry of Defence contributed 20 per cent. A review of the funding regime was carried out in 1994, with the aim of making it more customer-focused. The review recommended a move from grant in aid to a stakeholder regime to be shared among primary Government users and the BBC World Service. The new regime came into effect in 1997, with costs divided as follows. The FCO paid 40 per cent., as did the MOD. The Cabinet Office got away with 1 per cent. and the BBC World Service paid 19 per cent.
Those shares were adjusted in 2001 better to reflect use of the service and were set at the current levels. The FCO and MOD shares were reduced to 33 per cent.; the Cabinet Office share was increased to 12 per cent.; and the BBC World Service share went up to 22 per cent. Total funding is at about £22 million per annum, with 247WH the FCO share amounting to approximately £7 million. There is also limited commercial income from other Government users, foreign Governments, and commercial organisations. Last year, a further independent review was undertaken to explore radical options for funding. It recommended no change in the current funding mechanism, although it suggested that a benchmarking exercise be undertaken to make the costing of products and services more meaningful.
I have described how BBC Monitoring has successfully adapted its activities in the light of changing circumstances during the years since it was founded. It now faces three main challenges: changes in the information environment, changes in strategic and geographical priorities, and the prevailing climate in favour of reduced public spending.
Never before has so much information been available to people at the touch of a button. Staff at the Foreign Office in London can read this morning's American newspapers; the right hon. Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot) can read this morning's Arab and Israeli press. Information comes at us from all directions—from television, radio, the print media, the internet, mobile phones and so on. If anything, the problem these days is information overload, not information shortage. That is very different from the dark days of 1939, when we struggled to keep track of what was going on just across the channel.
As we have seen, the geographical focus of our interests has shifted and strategic priorities have changed over time. The campaign against terrorism is now a top priority. BBC Monitoring plays a valuable role in providing information on developments in the middle east and elsewhere. It continues to play a key role in covering closed societies such as North Korea, and can make a particularly useful contribution to our understanding of developments in countries with little freedom of information and tight state control of the 248WH media. The question obviously arises: should it focus only on those priority targets, or should it continue to offer global coverage?
The financial climate sets an important backdrop for our thinking. The Chancellor, in his Budget speech, warned that the next public expenditure round would be tough for most Departments, and that certainly includes the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. That comes at a time when we are facing a number of pressures. For example, the campaign against terrorism has led to increased spending on the security of our overseas staff. We also have to find substantial additional resources—both human and financial—to enable us to establish a meaningful presence in Iraq.
My right hon. Friend called for additional funding to be made available to BBC Monitoring. I cannot speak for the other users of the service, but I know that it faces the same pressures on resources as the FCO, and I find it difficult to envisage any increase in funding for it. Frankly, we will have to think hard about whether we are able to maintain existing levels of spending. The pressure on public spending will force us to make hard choices. We will have to look rigorously at our spending programmes and what they contribute to the achievement of our objectives. The annual £7 million grant to BBC Monitoring is substantial in FCO terms, which we must take into account as we weigh up the options.
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for the points that he has made today and I assure him that they will be borne in mind as we consider the difficult issues in the months ahead. He will appreciate that no decisions have been taken about the future of BBC Monitoring. The issue is under consideration, but I hope that he will understand that I am unable to go into further detail today since no decisions have been made.