Speeches by Lowe.

“I do not have much more time, as I can feel the Chair itching on my left, but I think editorial product and distribution are different issues—you have to split the two.”

“I think I can safely say that, since the Long Parliament, the British have been very suspicious of monopolies. You would be the first monopoly in history to dismantle itself willingly and deliver value for money, so I find it very difficult. I am very concerned that the taxpayer, as usual, is on the wrong end of this d…”

“I am sure we can have a further debate on this, but I am not sure that UK plc is in particularly good health. We are looking at the economy here being destroyed.”

“Let us have a debate about that at a different time. Are you spreading the word on something that is failing within?”

“We are not Victorian Britain.”

“I don’t think we are picking holes, Tim. I think what we are saying is, “Let’s get at the truth.” That is where we want to be.”

“I will end there, Chair.”

“Have you ever modelled the possibility of the World Service becoming a subscription service? That could ultimately give you a very good view of who is prepared to pay for it, even if it were a very minimal charge.”

“I mean globally, because you were talking about India and other countries that are getting quite rich.”

“I am asking you whether you have thought about it or discussed it.”

“There is a question that follows on from that, Tim. It does not sound as if you have fully taken on board what the NAO said.”

“On that basis, nobody would bother with a budget.”

“Just because you are in a difficult world, that does not mean that you do not try to forecast.”

“I am not sure that it is necessarily the prime concern, Tim. The key is that you can deliver the savings, but the question that I think the NAO is asking, and it is a valid question, is what the downstream effects of those cuts are. It does not appear that you necessarily have the management tools to be able to make th…”

“Too much paperwork can be confusing, can’t it?”

“But you have to accept that some of this is quite critical.”

“Thank you for that. I have a question on the complexity of your finance system. I am finding it difficult to understand why it is so complex. I would like to know why. After all, your actual business model is not that complicated. You send out 72 million letters a year to collect the licence fee from those people who h…”

“That is not money that you have to go and earn; it is money that comes in. I accept that they have not agreed it yet—it is remiss of me not to have done that—but I am struggling to understand why your finance system is so complicated. A complicated and opaque finance system means that it is very difficult to make good …”

“We see in the Report: “However, these business cases did not meet NAO‑identified good practice. They lacked options analysis, had poorly developed risk assessments and in some places contained inaccuracies… The Service’s monitoring of its savings progress was hampered by the complexity of its finance system. It therefo…”

“Complex systems mean opaque data.”