Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 2 March 1988.
I recognise the strong feelings that my hon. Friend has on the matter. I agree that the BBC external services and its radio section have a fine record, which we applaud, and which we have recognised by increasing the funding available for the external radio service by a considerable amount over the past seven years. However, that is not justification in itself for making additional public funds available for a world television service.