792
CONFIDENT LAL
cuts might be the first tranche of wider-ranging cuts in services,
which would be deemed necessary in the light of future cash limits
and inflation. Mr Ridley said that Mr Muggeridge had no right to
allege that further cuts were in the offing.
9.
Mr Gregson expressed anxiety about the future of the capital
programme. The experience of the past few years had shown that
large projects were the ones which produced the greatest technical
and political difficulties. Experience had also shown that the BBC
Therefore,
never actually spent all of its PESC capital provision.
at the end of the period, the BBC would have sacrificed more thạn
the table suggested. Mr Ridley acknowledged the point, but the
table had been agreed with the BBC, and the only way forward was
for the Government to authorise the whole programme.
The money
could be spenttmore quickly or less quickly than the table
indicated. If there was slippage, on one project, the BBC should
bring forward others. There could, however, be no overspill from
capital to current expenditure. The present decisions were likely
see the BBC through for a decade, subject to any minor changes
in the prescription during the period. There were always likely to
be small changes in the prescription, but he did not expect that
there would be any more major ones. It should be a comfort to the
BBC that the capital programme was secure.
to
10. Mr Gregson said that, in his professional opinion, the BBC was
now down to bedrock as an international broadcaster. Cuts in
services produced a serious loss of expertise, for example in Africa
now by the loss of the Somali service. Mr Muggeridge commented, that,
while it was for the Government to lay down priorities, the BBC had
a right to advise on what constituted a viable broadcasting service.
There would be widespread
Government's present plans.
repercussions to the announcement on the
4
Mr Ridley thought that this was an
CONFIDENTIAL
/exaggeration
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