---

Electronic Communications

I absolutely do. My hon. Friend is making exactly the same point as I am about the importance of plurality of provision in the media and the need for multiple sources. I want to deal with a couple of things that the Government may say in opposing the motion. First, they may say that the BBC is already making cuts. It is true that it is halfway through a £1.9 billion efficiency programme, some of which involves redundancies, but they are not cuts because no money is being returned to licence fee payers—it is being reallocated to other services. The Government may say that we are attacking the principle of six-yearly settlements, so let me scotch that. We support the idea of multi-year settlements because it is important to protect the editorial independence of the BBC. The BBC must be impartial. It should not be subject to the political weather, but it should respond to the economic climate, and that is what this debate is about.