Email to Mr David Laws MP from Mr Michael
Fox
Dear Mr Laws,
Thank you for forwarding the two letters you
received following my original letter concerning the cuts at the
World Service, and I apologise for the delay in replying.
Here are my observations.
Lord Triesman says in his third paragraph that
he's been assured that the changes will not affect the quality
of the output. I can reiterate what I said originally—that
the cuts as currently proposed in the newsroom will affect the
quality of the output, because the senior news editor and their
deputy will be overburdened. However the National Union of Journalists
is involved in negotiations with managers at the moment, and I'm
hoping this may change somewhat, although I am not optimistic.
The wider point remains the same. The more I
read and think about this, the more I return to the basic question—if
the World Service wants to offer a completely new service such
as Arabic television, one that it rightly feels is vital, it is
surely only appropriate to ask for new money to do this, whether
to cover the whole or part of the entire cost. The World Service
has never been awash with cash, and the principle of cutting in
order to expand elsewhere is the wrong approach. In wider terms,
even in relation to modest Foreign Office spending, we are not
talking about large sums of money. I think MPs should ask the
World Service to reconsider its plans, and I hope the Select Committee
will do so.
Yours sincerely,
Michael Fox
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