Irene Campbell

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley) for securing this debate and for his excellent speech. Many of the points I was going to make have been raised, so I will keep this brief. It is great to have this debate and reflect on the importance of the BBC World Service and its value overseas as well as in the UK. The BBC is one of the most trusted brand names across the mass audience. I used to work in the Foreign Office—I will say many years ago—which gave me a real appreciation of the value of the BBC World Service. As we have just heard, the World Service is mostly funded by the licence fee, but the remainder is funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Funding the continuation of this service is vital. BBC News, mostly through the World Service, reaches an audience of more than 400 million every week across the world in 43 different languages. It is not surprising that the BBC is the most widely recognised British cultural export and brand. Recently the BBC started broadcasting on medium wave in Russia, which is a crucial opportunity for Russian people to receive impartial news from outside the country, given Russia’s clampdown on media freedom, both in country and worldwide. By funding the World Service, we continue to have strong cultural soft power across the globe through promoting democracy and neutrality in broadcasting. It is important that we protect the BBC World Service in this current climate of vast disinformation and polarisation in the media. I look forward to the Minister’s response.