Trade Bill

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 8th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, I have two points. The first concerns the human rights clause in trade agreements. Our continuity agreements have kept the human rights clause from the FTAs we have been part of through the EU. However, when they are developed into full FTAs, will the Government go further than the EU’s vague and non-binding clause and add rigorous monitoring and annual review process with NGO input and penalties for unacceptable practices? There is precedent: the FTA between Canada and Colombia included an annual review because of Colombia’s poor human rights record. The UK should make this non-negotiable. Will the Minister agree to give this serious consideration?

My second point concerns the importance of language skills in negotiating agreements and supporting businesses to grow their export markets. I declare interests as co-chair of the APPG on Modern Languages and vice-president of the Chartered Institute of Linguists. The Government assume that English alone will suffice in trade negotiations, with back-up from professional interpreters where necessary. However, for 40-plus years, EU officials have negotiated our trade agreements and UK nationals have been dramatically underrepresented among them, largely because so few had the required language skills to compete for posts. Negotiations with Egypt, Mexico, Vietnam or Turkey, for example, would be hugely improved if DIT officials had some facility with relevant languages. What, if any, assessment of current and future language needs has been made?

This Bill also creates the mechanism to help businesses in their export drive. Does the Minister agree that language and communication skills should be at the heart of the data collection and bespoke exporting promotion activities triggered by the Bill? Lack of language skills, local knowledge and cultural understanding are barriers to export growth. The CBI says that languages are critical for the UK’s global competitiveness, but the economy is losing over £50 billion a year in lost contracts because of the languages deficit. If you cannot read the initial tender documents, you cannot bid for the contract, and they are by no means always written in English.

UK businesses are largely in an anglophone bubble, with 83% of SMEs operating only in English, and the biggest language deficits are for the fastest-growing markets. By contrast, SMEs that invest in language skills can increase the ratio of exports to sales by 37%. To be sustainable, UK businesses must be encouraged and incentivised to invest in language skills and not just adopt a quick-fix approach through Google Translate or using native speakers as and when needed.

Therefore, will the Government set an example with multilingual trade negotiators and use this Bill to get businesses out of their anglophone bubble and into a multilingual 21st century where speaking only English is as much a disadvantage as speaking no English?

Trade Agreements

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel]

My Lords, I am a huge champion of transparency and open dialogue in these matters. I believe that we will come to better decisions with such transparency and I welcome the work that the IAC is doing to bring these matters, in due course, before the House.

[Baroness Coussins (CB) [V]]

My Lords, can the Minister ensure that, once we are no longer part of the EU FTA with Peru, Colombia and Ecuador, our continuity agreement and any subsequent bilateral or regional FTAs will include not only a human rights clause, as at present, but the teeth of a review mechanism and sanctions; and that specific reference is made to the rights of indigenous communities before any British-run companies—particularly from the extractive industries —take action which affects the livelihoods and environments of these communities?

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel]

My Lords, the noble Baroness makes an important point. The UK is a world leader in human rights policy. We were the first country to produce a national action plan for the implementation of UN guiding principles on business and human rights, and we are clear that more trade does not have to come at the expense of our rights and responsibilities.

Self-employment Income Support Scheme

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Tuesday 5th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

DWP officials are in discussion with those in other government departments about the detail of these varied schemes and grants. However, we expect to treat these SEISS payments as employed earnings, and to take them into account when they are received; therefore we do not expect to adjust previous awards.

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, will the Government consider setting up a dedicated interim hardship fund to provide immediate cash support to people who could be waiting until June for their payments from the income support scheme and are not eligible to claim universal credit? I declare my interest as president of the Money Advice Trust, the charity that runs Business Debtline. It has heard from many self-employed people in this situation who are struggling to make ends meet; some are not eligible for the income support scheme at all.

[Lord Callanan]

The Government are focusing on support measures that can be implemented as quickly as possible. Using existing frameworks for those who need additional support is, in our view, the quickest and most effective way to do this during the Covid-19 outbreak. The DWP is continuing to work with the Treasury and other government departments to monitor the evolving economic and labour market situation to identify the most effective way to help people in need as quickly as possible.

Industrial Strategy

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Monday 8th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, a major petrochemical company recently backed away from investing £4 million a year in jobs in Scotland because it was worried that it would not be able to recruit staff with the necessary foreign language skills. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. Research suggests that the UK economy is losing out on well over £50 billion a year in contracts because of a lack of language skills in the workforce. If you cannot read the initial tender documents, you cannot bid for the contract, and they are by no means always written in English. A British Council report published in November said that the top five languages needed by the UK for prosperity and influence post Brexit are Spanish, Mandarin, French, Arabic and German.

Before I go on, I should declare my interests as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Modern Languages and as vice-president of the Chartered Institute of Linguists.

It is a regrettable flaw in a strategy which has such exciting and ambitious objectives that no mention is made of language skills as one of the key ingredients for enabling the UK to innovate, trade, prosper and lead in a global economy. Important and vital though English is, it is a mistake to believe that English is enough. The standard excuse for Britain’s neglect of foreign languages is that English is the world’s lingua franca. What this really means is that English is the world’s preferred second language, not its first. In fact, only 6% of the world’s population are native English speakers, and in the 21st century speaking only English is as much of a disadvantage as speaking no English.

It is also a mistake to depend on artificial intelligence for language translation, and it is worrying that the only direct mention of language skills to be found in the White Paper is in the context of AI and technology. Of course AI can be useful here but it is no substitute for the interpersonal skills, sensitive translations and localisation of sales, marketing and communications provided by people, not algorithms.

We have robust evidence to illustrate the importance of languages for business and growth. One study of SME exporters showed that companies that invest in language skills are able to increase the ratio of exports to sales by 37%. By contrast, evidence also shows that UK businesses are largely in an Anglophone bubble, with 83% of SMEs operating only in English, even though half of them say that language skills would help expand business and build export growth. The British Chambers of Commerce says that the biggest language deficits are in the fastest-growing markets and that over three-quarters of the companies it surveyed had missed or lost business because of this.

The White Paper flags up a review of export strategy to report in spring this year. I ask the Minister to ensure that language skills form part of this review and that the Government’s GREAT website will give fuller advice on language skills and export growth. Could the Minister say also whether the network of nine UK trade commissioners to be established will have language skills as part of their remit? Relevant expertise is available, but it needs to be integrated and not just remembered as an afterthought. Under the former UKTI, one-to-one advice on language and cultural issues was provided—in 2015-16 to over 1,000 companies in one region alone. This service has now ceased in favour of regional contracts with the Department for International Trade, and it is not at all clear whether local businesses will still be able to access guidance on overcoming language and cultural barriers to trade.

The White Paper recognises regional disparities in the UK’s skills base. There are stark regional weaknesses in participation and attainment in foreign languages, which correlate with regions of poor productivity and low skill levels. For example, in the north-east in 2016, only 43% of pupils sat a GCSE in a language, compared to 65% in inner London, and this gap has been widening year on year. We also need Her Majesty’s Government to build languages into their plans for technical education. The national retraining scheme for targeting skills shortages is welcome, but can the Minister say whether modern foreign languages will be considered as a skill shortage in the next phase of the scheme? Over 70% of UK employers say that they are not happy with the foreign language skills of our school leavers or graduates, and are forced increasingly to recruit from overseas to meet their needs. Looking ahead to a post-Brexit world in which the UK aspires to be a leader in global free trade, it is rather shameful that only 9% of British 15 year-olds are competent in a first foreign language beyond a very basic level; that compares to 42% of teenagers across 14 other European countries.

The language industry is a sector not mentioned in the strategy, but in my view it would be an ideal candidate for the kind of sector deal envisaged in the Government’s thinking. The language industry encompasses interpreters, translators, teachers, researchers, people who write textbooks, apps, CDs and websites, people who do subtitling and dubbing for films and TV, and all manner of other experts. This sector is estimated to be worth over €20 billion across the EU and has a very high growth rate. As an English-speaking nation, we are surely uniquely well-placed to take strategic advantage of this expected further growth, not only in Europe but worldwide. I am aware of a proposal for a sector deal for the tourism industry, which acknowledges that language skills are vital for increasing the value of inbound tourism and hospitality. Specifically, it says that,

“language skills are an essential business requirement and a significant element of providing good customer service”.

We are not going to satisfy the needs of business or consumers if we do not act urgently to reverse the crisis in language education in the UK. Thanks to the EBacc, the number of GCSE entries is now stable, but A-level is in free fall. Since 2000, over 50 universities have scrapped some or all of their modern language degree courses. Uncertainty over the future of the Erasmus programme has seen applications dip even further, and so we are not producing enough languages graduates to meet even the teacher shortage, never mind the needs of the wider economy.

Report after report from significant bodies such as the British Council and the British Academy, as well as the all-party group, has called repeatedly for a cross-government national languages strategy, because this is not a crisis solely for the Department for Education. Will the Minister undertake to initiate discussions across all relevant departments, at ministerial level, to start shaping such a strategy? Without the glue of language skills, the different elements of the industrial strategy will not hang together.

I have been talking mainly about export growth, but prospective inward investors do not want a monolingual environment either. Over one-quarter of senior executives from top European companies rated access to multiple language skills as “absolutely essential” when considering where to locate their business. This has been a significant driver in London’s economic success.

I hope that the information I have provided this evening might trigger some revisions of this industrial strategy. Language skills are a key enabler of success. The language sector itself is an exemplar of innovation and leadership. By integrating these, the vision and objectives of the industrial strategy will be much more achievable.