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Electronic Communications

Well, that would be a very generous donation to everybody. That would make no difference to most people's cost of living. It is a futile gesture—and one that the Conservatives will want to repeat next year. We cannot suddenly impose such a cut in the third year of a six-year settlement. It was far from a generous settlement—it led to redundancies at the BBC when it was reached—but the BBC is working on the basis of it. The organisation needs stability. It is implementing a decision to make efficiency savings of 2 per cent. a year, and is doing quite well in that respect; the process is producing more redundancies than I would like. The BBC needs stability to plan and organise its resources for the long term, and the six-year settlement gives it that stability. The Opposition suddenly want to take back that settlement. They want to interfere and stop it. That is crazy; it is just illogical. One would not run a sensible business in that fashion. The measure would mean the immediate loss of £75 million to the BBC. By 2012-13, the cumulative loss would be £325 million. Where, according to the Opposition, should those economies come from? Should they come from children's programmes, or from cutting BBC 3 or BBC 4? Should they come from cutting out local radio altogether? That would save £100 million; that is just £25 million more than the cut that would need to be made in the first year under the proposal. Should we close down Radios 1, 2 and 3? Is that what the Opposition are saying? Where will the economies come from to produce the cut? There is no case for it, and there is every argument against it. The Opposition's proposals are just a piece of opportunistic vandalism, which, as I say, shows the sad decline in the Tory party. They are a foretaste of what is undoubtedly to come, as the Tories re-screen their magnum opus, "Carry on Cutting"—cut, slash and burn.