EDM 793: Funding for the BBC World Service

That this House celebrates the value of BBC World Service journalism as a vital source of accurate and impartial information to audiences across the globe; believes that this role has never been more important, especially given the extent of misinformation and disinformation across social media; notes the critical importance of emergency information services provided to those in crisis, including recently in Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine; welcomes the additional £32.6 million in funding for 2025/26 announced last year, but regrets that the decision of the previous government to transfer responsibility for the funding of BBC World Service from the government to the licence fee payer in 2014 has undermined the financial security and possibility of strategic investment into World Service; further regrets the recent announcement of a net loss of 130 jobs across BBC World Service owing to budget pressures and shares the fears of the National Union of Journalists that further cuts will inevitably lead to the erosion in capacity for trusted high-quality journalism; and therefore concurs with the proposal of three select committee Chairs who have written to Ministers suggesting that in order to stem decline in the World Service provision, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Department of Culture, Media and Sport should jointly make the case to HM Treasury in the forthcoming Spending Review to use this opportunity to rebalance the relative contributions from the licence fee and FCDO, so that the World Service income becomes less reliant on the licence fee.