CONCERN OVER BBC CUTS TO SERVICE THAT SCANS AIRWAVES

FORMER Welsh Tory leader Rod Richards has voiced concerns over the BBC’s decision to cut costs from its monitoring service.

BBC Monitoring – used by British intelligence to fight terrorism for 77 years – was funded by government until 2013.

Since then it has been paid for by the licence fee.

But there have been repeated rounds of cuts to the unit. The last was for 100 redundancies in May, in an attempt to save £4m.

Mr Richards, a former Royal Marine who also worked for intelligence service MI6, said: “We would have people who would root through and draw our attention to what foreign powers like Russia were doing to see if it was of any use to us.

“Sometimes you would get something new like a government announcement.”

Staff at BBC Monitoring translate broadcasts and stories from foreign publications that might otherwise go under the radar.

It famously provided the translation of an obscure radio broadcast by Nikita Khrushchev, which ended the Cuban missile crisis, when it was rushed to the White House.

The service also broke the news to Britain of JFK’s death.

Often, classified government information would find its way into foreign news sources and be picked up by the service.

“I found the material helpful. It was good to have it and there were occasions when someone would announce something or do something or say something on a radio programme abroad that we could use,” Mr Richards, who worked as an agent in Northern Ireland, said.

“I’m sure various government departments would have a view on that – the MOD would have a view, the Department of Trade would have a view, the Foreign Office would have a view.”

Cuts began to hit the service as far back as 2005, when 50 jobs were axed.

In 2010 managers were told £3.2m was to be slashed from the unit’s £25m budget over two years.

“With us being post-Brexit these new government departments would have a great interest in this,” Mr Richards said.

“They would have that material to find out what is going on in the world.

“I would not have thought they would be pleased about the cuts.”

The Foreign Office were “logically placed to pay for it”.

“It should come from the Foreign Office,” he said.

He recalled BBC Monitoring being helpful in spying on Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, the fourstar general who was Pakistan’s dictator from 1978 until 1988.

“We watched him very closely through the media in Pakistan for anything to suggest how they were getting on,” Mr Richards said.

“I would like to know what the justification is for cutting it back and who they have consulted.”

BBC World Service director Francesca Unsworth said: “Like all media organisations, BBC Monitoring has to keep pace with the new landscape of digital and social media.

“And, like the rest of the BBC, BBC Monitoring needs to make savings.”

The May announcement was “designed to make BBC Monitoring fit for the future and better for its clients.”

It would focus “on digital and social media as well as traditional media” to ensure the BBC could “respond to change more easily”.

It is understood the BBC is working with the Government to reach a new agreement that meets their needs.