BBC director general Tony Hall marked the 50th anniversary of BBC local radio by reversing planned cuts of £10m to the service’s annual budget.

But it remains unclear where planned cuts of £80m to the BBC budget will come from. These cutbacks were outlined by Hall in 2016 when he said total cost cuts of £800m a year would be needed at the BBC by 2022 to cope a freeze on the corporation’s £3.7bn a year licence fee income.

The £80m of cuts to the BBC News budget are roughly equivalent to axing the News Channel and Radio 5 Live.