Former BBC controller fears for World Service independence amid defence funding push

Using Britain’s defence budget to help fund the BBC World Service risks subordinating its journalism to the government’s national security aims, its former controller has warned. The Guardian revealed last week that senior BBC figures are pushing ministers to increase the service’s funding by using resources beyond the Foreign Office, which has traditionally contributed to its global broadcasting. With China and Russia paying billions on overseas media to increase their influence, BBC executives are arguing that the World Service now plays a critical role in countering misinformation and solidifying support for western values. However, Liliane Landor, the controller of World Service until last year, raised concerns about touting the outlet’s role in furthering the government’s defence aims. “I find myself wholly unable to support the BBC’s decision to pursue this avenue,” she told the Beeb Watch podcast. “Journalism cannot be linked or subordinated to defence – and, dare I say, even soft power can be problematic, despite my past advocacy of it. “We journalists know that journalism is about pursuing the truth, maintaining independence of thought, and holding power to account, however uncomfortable the results may be.” Mary Hockaday, who served as the World Service’s controller until 2021, said that wherever its government funding came from, “the principles of independence, editorial independence, are absolutely sacrosanct”. “Defence is a tricky word,” she told the podcast. “Security is a word where I think there is a legitimacy to a conversation. As far as I understand it, there is a conversation which is pointing out that activity by the BBC World Service, which is specifically focused on disinformation, has a relationship to security. “Of course you have to have some pragmatism about where sources of funding might come from. These conversations are worth having. But it’s really important – if they go anywhere – that the safeguards are there, that the commitments and the mechanisms for that independence are there.” The Guardian revealed in May that the government had asked the BBC to draw up budget plans up to £70m lower than what the service believes it needs, partly as a result of Keir Starmer’s decision to cut the aid budget. Jonathan Munro, the director of the World Service, told an event at the Labour conference last week that he was looking to “spread the burden” of its funding across Whitehall. The government pays for about a third of the World Service’s £400m funding, which comes from the Foreign Office budget. The push to increase the World Service’s budget comes amid increasing international tension. Tim Davie, the BBC general secretary, sees an opportunity to more than double its reach to a billion people. The strategy follows the Trump administration’s decision to effectively defund Voice of America, the US’s overseas broadcaster that has traditionally served a similar purpose countering Chinese and Russian media drives. In the ongoing US government shutdown, the remaining operations of Voice of America were suspended. Its output had continued during previous US government shutdowns because continuing news coverage into countries such as Russia, China and Iran was seen as part of national security efforts.