World Service will receive funding boost to fight rise of disinformation

The BBC World Service will receive more funding under a deal that ministers hope will help counter the rise of global disinformation.

- Michael Savage Kiran Stacey

Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, is said to have agreed to an extra £11m a year for the next three years in government grants.

The decision ends uncertainty over the settlement, which was up in the air just weeks before the current funding round was due to end.

The deal represents an 8% increase on the previous year's allocation. However, BBC insiders said that by the end of the three-year settlement the increase would barely keep pace with inflation, meaning funding will in effect be flat. Other figures in the BBC welcomed the deal, believing it was the best that could have been achieved with the Foreign Office itself facing financial pressures.

The BBC is still pushing for the government to take on all of the costs of the World Service under talks about the future of the corporation's royal charter.