BBC World Service

The hon. Gentleman's question is a good deal more realistic than some that I have been asked in the past half an hour, because he recognises that whatever Government were in power, there would have to be reductions in the World Service. He can gather from what I outlined earlier that we have sought to limit the impact on the number of countries involved. That is why only five separate language services are being closed. We have taken all the factors he outlined into consideration, limited those closures and provided for the future development of the World Service, so that it continues to be the respected service of which he rightly speaks.