Speeches by Whittingdale.

“Yes.”

“Were you able to trace where these originated, down to specific buildings in Moscow, Beijing or Tehran and say, “This was a state sponsored activity”?”

“Could you just repeat something? You mentioned the alliance against the Chinese, which could be maintained under—”

“Were you able to trace where these originated, down to specific buildings in Moscow, Beijing or Tehran and say, “This was a state sponsored activity”?”

“It was a genuine document?”

“Can I press you a little on that? You have quoted Alex Younger saying it has not had an impact. But can you just say whether you believe there have been examples of hostile states attempting, even unsuccessfully, to influence elections and votes? You mentioned the Iranian Scottish referendum bots, but are you aware of …”

“One of the quickest ways of getting out the message that this is a fake video is, as you mentioned, talking to traditional, not social, media. Traditional media will have an inclination to want to believe things. They want to create headlines and splashes about revelations. To what extent are you able to talk to tradit…”

“Could you just repeat something? You mentioned the alliance against the Chinese, which could be maintained under—”

“Yes.”

“I have one final point. One of the criticisms in the NAO analysis was that the rationale behind decisions on individual services and where you have cut back TV and radio services is not entirely clear and that there should be far more documentation and explanation as to how those decisions were reached.”

“On that point, since I am also participating in the FAC inquiry into disinformation, I would be very keen to see any breakdown of how RT and CGTN have achieved very extraordinary levels of trust.”

“You have set out a number of changes to address problems. Do you accept that these problems were being flagged? I am going back to the Asserson report, as well as the report by Danny Cohen and Baroness Deech, and then Michael Prescott’s report internally. Certainly, Michael Prescott suggests that the complaints were no…”

“You talked about the courage of your journalists in a number of places where it is very difficult, and we absolutely recognise that, but one service has caused me and a lot of people concern, as you know—we have discussed it before—and that is BBC Arabic. As you say, trust is absolutely critical, yet two reports now, o…”

“When you finally get an outcome from the Foreign Office on next year’s funding—probably all of us sympathise that you have been unable to obtain that yet; I pressed the Minister two days ago and he said he was still not in that position—you would expect it to not just be a sum of money, but include clear indicators of …”

“So when you decide to close, not all three elements of the language service, but let’s say radio and TV, and maintain digital, as I understand it, under the terms of the grant you are not required to seek approval from the Foreign Office, but would you, in those circumstances, still go and say, “We think we know what w…”

“In your answer, you have repeatedly said that you look at media freedom and you look at where there is strategic need. Surely those are issues that should be determined by the Foreign Office?”

“When you decided which services you were going to close, how much was that in discussion with the Foreign Office about the strategic priorities of the UK?”

“Precisely. Following on from the Chair’s question, surely the value of a million listeners in the western Balkans is considerably greater than that of a million listeners in a European Union country, for instance.”

“Could I take a step back, Tim? You have repeatedly drawn attention to the fact that the BBC’s overall income has suffered a real-terms decline over the last five years or more. You have set out the necessity of achieving substantial savings. How did you decide the proportion of those savings that the World Service shou…”

“Given Russia’s stated refusal to accept any deployment of NATO troops on Ukrainian soil, is there a danger that the agreement will make Russia less likely to accept a settlement and that it will instead step up its military campaign? If that is the case, will the Secretary of State say whether there was any agreement a…”