Bilateral Free Trade Agreements

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

I greatly thank my noble friend for his comment. At no point have the Government not taken human rights very seriously, but we see trade deals as specifically focused on trade. This is exactly what we want to increase the inward investment and exports that my good friends the noble Lords opposite are so keen on.

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, following on from the last question, could the Minister explain why the Government were happy to agree to a human rights clause in all the FTAs to which we were party as an EU member but now seem determined to ditch human rights from the bilateral negotiations?

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

I take that question with great sensitivity. It is very important to separate the two concepts. In these FTAs, we have a great focus on labour rights, which are more relevant to the concept of product arbitrage. That is more relevant in looking at the FTAs and the good work we can do to align our values with the sorts of countries that the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, wanted us to do more trade with, rather than those that do not necessarily share our values and are not aligned with our security direction.

Central America: Trade and Investment

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, on securing this debate. It is a welcome and rare opportunity to debate a region of the world that is so often overlooked when it comes to foreign policy, trade, investment and security.

I recently returned from an IPU delegation to Mexico so I will focus my contribution on that country. Of course, I am aware that Mexico defines itself just as much as north as central America, although the term “Mesoamerica” encompasses Mexico as well as the central American countries. In addition, drug cartel activity and people trafficking from central America through Mexico en route to the US have implications for legitimate trade and investment. As His Majesty’s Government are currently engaged in negotiations on a free trade agreement with Mexico, a topic also covered in the helpful Library briefing for today’s debate, I hope noble Lords will agree that Mexico is relevant to this short debate. I have a number of questions for the Minister but, if he was not expecting to answer questions on Mexico today, I would be grateful if he might write to me in due course and place a copy in the Library.

First, I know that the second round of the UK-Mexico trade talks have been held but do the Government still expect them to be concluded by mid-2024, as originally announced? I ask this because I am aware that the Mexican ministry of economy has recently fired all its senior officials involved in the negotiations. Does that mean starting over again? What, if anything, does the Minister expect to be different with a completely new set of negotiators?

Secondly, and for me this is by far the most important point, I want to ask about the relationship between trade and investment and human rights. I ask the Minister to set out clearly the Government’s rationale for removing all consideration of a human rights clause from this free trade agreement, and indeed all such new agreements? The original FTA to which the UK was party as an EU member included a human rights clause, as did the continuity agreement. I for one was hoping that our bilateral agreement would go further and better than the merely declaratory clause that we had through the EU, and instead we would want to demonstrate our much-vaunted global leadership in this field and underpin the clause with a mechanism for monitoring and accountability. Sadly, on the contrary, it seems that no human rights clause will form part of the UK-Mexico FTA but that a separate, parallel human rights “dialogue” will take place. The trouble is that although we have already had two rounds of trade talks, the human rights dialogue has not even started and, as far as I know, no start date is in sight. Will the Minister please tell the House why not?

I am familiar with the standard line that establishing a free trade agreement then puts us in a better position to raise human rights concerns with new partners, but this seems a very weak chicken-and-egg sort of argument, and it clearly did not apply in any case when we were happy to include a human rights clause in our previous deals. A more robust and defensible stance would be that being up front on human rights would be a stronger incentive for trade and investment. At the very least, I would welcome a date for the start of a genuine human rights dialogue with Mexico, but I also hope that the Minister will agree to take this issue back and reconsider incorporating a human rights clause in the negotiations.

Should anyone be in any doubt, human rights in Mexico is a critical problem that needs an awful lot more than mere dialogue; it needs urgent action with strong international leverage behind it. Our embassy team in Mexico does sterling work, continuously raising human rights issues and individual cases and contributing to training and other technical assistance. Over 106,000 people are currently known to have disappeared in Mexico—“disappeared” is largely a euphemism for kidnapped and/or murdered. These are mainly journalists, human rights defenders and environmental and indigenous campaigners. Perpetrators enjoy almost complete impunity. In addition, there are hundreds of thousands of forcibly displaced people, some of them having been forcibly removed by companies seeking access to natural resources.

This brings me to my next question: does the Minister have any information on whether any British companies are or have been involved in such displacement activity? What specific measures or programmes does the DIT have in place to ensure that UK companies doing, or hoping to do, business in Mexico comply with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, sometimes known as the Ruggie principles? On a related point, what happened to the Pacific Alliance, of which Mexico is a member and with which our Government have said in the past that they were committed to deepening our involvement? For example, do the UK Government still support what they used to call high value campaigns—HVCs—to support British companies in exporting and investing across the sectors where UK industry could add most value?

Finally, can the Minister update the House on what language and cultural support his department provides to UK companies looking to build export growth in central America and Mexico? How many DIT officials and negotiators are competent in Spanish, or are taking Spanish courses at the FCDO language centre?

Cultural and Education Exchanges

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, this year’s language trends survey, just published by the British Council, shows that the pandemic has exacerbated the decline in international opportunities for primary and secondary schools in England. This includes trips abroad, partnering with a school abroad and involvement in cross-cultural projects.

Some 64% of primaries and 38% of state secondaries reported no international activities at all, compared with only 11% of independent schools. These experiences give pupils an opportunity to use the languages they are learning, which helps motivation and access to a different culture. Nearly two-thirds of language students at university say they were inspired by an exchange trip at school.

In addition, the journal Schools Week has reported that “One little-noticed casualty” of Brexit

“is Britain’s lost access to the EU’s ‘list of travellers’ scheme, which lets non-EU migrant pupils travel on school trips without usual visa rules.”

Some pupils now risk exclusion from school trips, with disadvantaged pupils the most affected. Can the Minister comment and raise this with the Home Office?

Problems at school affect languages at university. UCAS figures show a staggering decline in MFL applicants, and one of the main reasons is the end of UK participation in the Erasmus+ programme, which took students to well over 100 countries—not just Europe. Language skills and cross-cultural experience gained during the year abroad are qualities that employers value. Graduates who have spent a year abroad are 23% less likely to be unemployed than those who have not.

The replacement Turing scheme is full of uncertainty. Echoing some of the questions asked by other noble Lords, I ask the Minister to say whether there are any plans to make Turing reciprocal, as Erasmus+ was, and if not, why not; whether there are any plans to continue its funding for more than just one year; and whether its scope will be as broad and inclusive as Erasmus.

Trips and exchanges enhance language learning and benefit the students themselves and their employability and mobility, but also the UK more widely as we seek to redefine our post-Brexit place and influence on the international stage.

Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL]

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 15th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, it is a huge pleasure to follow such an outstanding maiden speech by my noble friend Lady Black of Strome. I am sure that all noble Lords will, like me, be in awe of her distinguished career and achievements. As a forensic anthropologist she has pioneered techniques of human identification both in the UK and worldwide which have helped bring people to justice. In the UK, her work on the sexual abuse of children marked a step change in the ability of the criminal justice system to identify paedophilia, and internationally, her work in Kosovo after the atrocities there, in Thailand after the tsunami and in Iraq have brought her work worldwide renown.

Glancing through her illustrious career, I have to say that I was pleased to discover one small thing we had in common: we both took Saturday jobs at the age of 12. I was a humble shelf stacker but, as we have heard, my noble friend had the foresight to get a job in a butcher’s shop, where she clearly learned things that would be useful in her later career in forensic anatomy. I know that my noble friend will bring her insight, knowledge and experience to this House and that we will all benefit from hearing from her. She is most welcome in your Lordships’ House and I congratulate her once more on her excellent maiden speech.

On the Bill, I declare my interests as co-chair of the APPG on Modern Languages and vice-president of the Chartered Institute of Linguists, and I hope that the Government and employers will take advantage of the opportunities this Bill offers to act on what they know about the importance of language skills—namely, that the UK’s deficit in foreign language skills damages the economy and inhibits recruitment and employability across all sectors and at all levels. Languages are not just an academic discipline but a vital technical skill that can boost export growth and social mobility. Foreign language skills are in particularly high demand in finance, IT, transport, fashion and hospitality.

There are marked regional disparities in the UK’s skills base. Regional weaknesses in the take-up of foreign languages correlate with regions of poor productivity and low skill levels. In the north-east in 2016, for example, only 43% of pupils sat a GCSE in a language, compared with 65% in inner London, and this gap has been widening year on year. Employers say that they are unhappy with the foreign language skills of school leavers and graduates in the UK and are increasingly forced to recruit from overseas to meet their needs. If the Government are serious about social mobility and levelling up, a boost to language skills would be a jolly good place to start.

We need the business community to step up and be very clear when it comes to its input in shaping the new local skills improvement plans to insist that language skills are needed and must be included. Research suggests that the UK economy is losing out on well over £50 billion a year in lost contracts because of a lack of language skills in the workforce. Viridian Solar, an SME based in Cambridgeshire that makes solar roofs, told me:

“Foreign language skills are important”


for “global export growth.”

Another Cambridge company, i-Teams, helps the next generation of science-based entrepreneurs develop business skills and has so far helped 90 start-ups. Its founder told me that

“language skills are a key advantage”

and said that innovators

“need to be able to communicate both through language and across cultures. It cannot be assumed that all the people with whom they must work … can speak English.”

And Alchemie, a large company specialising in sustainable technology for dyeing fabrics, has found:

“Language and cultural knowledge is very important to Alchemie in its expansion into China. A basic knowledge of Chinese for business purposes would be really useful for staff members. Further training or coaching in that is really important.”


New research released only last month by Aston Business School confirmed that language skills are a key driver for SME export success, revealing that firms making use of language capabilities are 30% more successful in exporting than those that do not. Export sales, growth and profits are all significantly increased by hiring people with language skills and cultural intelligence, language training for existing staff and investing in professional translation services.

Employers’ organisations and sector groups are also on board. The CBI’s chief UK policy director has said that better foreign language skills are

“critical to increasing the UK’s global competitiveness and to ensuring young people have the high level of cultural awareness that supports a successful career.”

The tourism sector trade association UKinbound asked its members what barriers they faced when recruiting a British national and 60% responded

“insufficient skills for the role”,

including foreign language skills. Some 23% of respondents to a British Chambers of Commerce survey said that German and Mandarin will be important to their business in the next five years, and 20% said French and Spanish. The BCC says the extent of our languages deficit is sobering, with the biggest language barriers in the fastest-growing markets. It wants to see commercial export skills at the heart of business education in both further and higher education, with fully integrated foreign language skills as part of that, as well as in schools and workplace training.

Finally, the Bill refers to FE colleges, but local skills improvement plans should also seek to build links with university-based training opportunities, and university language centres rather than modern language faculties are the best place to make connections with community colleges. So will the Minister ensure that no regional language skills gaps remain as a result of the new improvement plans and say what, if any, oversight or indeed override the DfE will have to correct any such gaps? Are the Government prepared to provide leadership and encouragement to local business communities to follow through on all the surveys, research and sector examples I have quoted today, perhaps by using the power the Bill will give the Government to issue guidance to support the development of the plans in order to ensure a place for language skills? Will the Minister also spell out how the DfE will be working with BEIS on this, given that department’s international remit and extensive networks, and experience of language skills? I very much look forward to her reply to this and my other questions.

Initial Teacher Training Market Review

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Wednesday 14th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the noble Lord’s comments about the Written Answer, which is also informed by the right honourable Nick Gibb, the Minister whose portfolio area this is. In relation to quality, we want to ensure that every person who goes to initial teacher training has that joined-up experience gained from the academic path and being in the classroom. We want to build on the good quality and have asked that the review look at the sufficiency of teacher supply, which is an issue in some parts of the country.

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, over four years ago, at the Government’s request 15 universities developed a modern languages pathway to qualified teacher status, alongside the languages degree. In the light of the current shortage in this subject, are these programmes part of the market review, and is their future, along with school-centred MFL training, to be safeguarded and continued?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, this review covers the full breadth of the initial teacher training market, so that we can build on the quality that we have. The institutions that the noble Baroness refers to will be able to make their views clear during the public consultation on any recommendations from the review, and there will be stakeholder engagement during the spring. I will take back the noble Baroness’s comments about those institutions and write to her on whether they are part of that process.

International Women’s Day

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Thursday 11th March 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Coussins (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I will focus on the international dimension of International Women’s Day and talk about the work of the UK development agency Voluntary Service Overseas—VSO—and its work with women and girls in the context of the Covid pandemic. I declare my interest as a former volunteer for VSO’s Parliamentary Volunteering programme, for which I completed a placement in Peru, working with women’s organisations on domestic and sexual violence.

VSO has been working throughout the pandemic to reach marginalised women and girls, ensuring that they are not doubly disadvantaged by the effects of the pandemic and that they are at the centre of Covid response and recovery work. The pandemic has seen an increase in gender-based violence around the world. VSO’s networks of community volunteers have been able to mobilise quickly to raise awareness of the rights of women and girls not to experience such violence, using social media platforms, which also help victims seek access to justice and support. This has led to increased rates of reporting, as well as helping to build their resilience so that they can contribute more broadly to post-Covid recovery.

But VSO faces an immediate, urgent problem, as its funding is now under threat from the aid cuts at the FCDO. Over the past four years, VSO has received a major volunteering for development grant to support work in global health, inclusive education and resilient livelihoods. The current phase ends on 31 March, so noble Lords will appreciate the urgency here. A renewed grant would allow VSO to continue and expand its work supporting girls’ education, sexual and reproductive health rights and building inclusive global health systems, but despite its A+ rating, confirmation from the FCDO on future funding has not yet been forthcoming. This does not seem aligned with the repeated statements we frequently hear from Ministers in the Chamber that girls’ education and combating gender-based violence are of the utmost priority in the FCDO.

VSO is a British institution, embodying the values of UK aid, and UK volunteers showcase the best of UK values. If the grant was not renewed it would mean in practice that the UK Government would, in effect, be closing down their support for international volunteering action, just at the time when volunteering has been shown to be an effective means of enabling highly contextualised local responses to complex global challenges, including the Covid-19 response and the delivery of the sustainable development goals. It would bring to a sudden and abrupt end a 60-year strategic partnership between VSO and the UK Government. Covid-19 response work in 18 countries would have to cease, closing up to 14 country programmes and making nearly 200 staff redundant.

Will the Minister undertake to look at the specific case of VSO’s grant? More broadly, will she set out how the Government intend to support the UK volunteering for development sector in its work to empower women and girls to be part of the Covid recovery and response around the world?

Modern Foreign Languages: Teachers

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Wednesday 10th March 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Coussins]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the supply chain of teachers of modern foreign languages.

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and declare an interest as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Modern Languages.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education and Department for International Trade (Baroness Berridge) (Con)]

My Lords, we continue to monitor closely the modern foreign language—MFL—teacher supply and offer bursaries worth up to £10,000 tax free to encourage talented trainees into MFL. In 2020-21, there were 1,687 postgraduate trainees in MFL, an increase of 300 on the previous year and accounting for 72% of the annual target that we set for recruiting postgraduate trainee teachers. In 2019-20, 93% of MFL trainees gained qualified teacher status and 74% of them started teaching in state schools.

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, against that backdrop of a 28% shortfall and a drop of more than one-third in students doing MFL degrees since 2011, I congratulate the Government on their change of heart in deciding last week to add all MFL teachers to the shortage occupations list. This year’s small increase of 300 is by all accounts going to be temporary, so will the Government now also quickly reverse the dramatic cut in MFL training bursaries from £26,000 to only £10,000, as mentioned by the Minister? MFL is the only shortage subject to suffer such a cut.

Education: Supply Teachers

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con) [V]]

My Lords, certain areas of the country have shortages of teachers, particularly in some subjects. If those shortages relate to maths, chemistry, physics or computing, substantial bursaries of £24,000 are available to meet that shortfall. We are aware of population movement due to the pandemic and I assure the noble Lord that we are working as quickly as we can to see where this has taken place to ensure adequate school places.

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, given the finding of the Migration Advisory Committee that modern foreign language teaching is a shortage occupation, will the Government commission research and data collection to show whether there is a disproportionate recourse to supply teachers for MFL, what level of difficulty is experienced by agencies in providing them and what impact this has on the take-up of teaching and learning languages?

[Baroness Berridge (Con) [V]]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is correct. A shortage has been identified in modern foreign languages, but we are seeking to address it by recruiting more permanent modern foreign language teachers. There are 1,687 new modern foreign language teachers in the new cohort. A bursary of £10,000 is available in shortage areas, as well as other arrangements. We have identified 25 local authority areas where modern foreign language teachers can reclaim student loan repayments as part of a way of encouraging them to work in those areas.

Schools: Online Teaching

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, since the pandemic began, 6,900 schools have access through the department’s EdTech programme to get either Microsoft Education or Google Classroom—but my noble friend is correct that we hope this type of online access to the best education on offer in this country will become part of the system going forward. Obviously, the more than £400 million that has been invested is a great platform to build on.

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, how many children of asylum seekers are unable to access online teaching? Will the Government encourage and fund schools and local authorities to deploy public service interpreters to help asylum seeker parents manage their children’s home schooling?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, within the figure of 1.3 million that I outlined, there will, of course, be some children of asylum-seeking parents who are eligible for free school meals. It is an allocation per pupil, so if there are siblings who claim free school meals, that can be two laptops or tablets per household. Teachers should recognise that, if there are the type of barriers the noble Baroness refers to, they have discretion in those circumstances to classify the child as vulnerable and bring them into school.

Skills for Jobs White Paper

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, I hope my noble friend Lord Baker will think that this answer is sweet for him. We as a Government support a strong cadre of university technical colleges. Indeed, one opened with the full support of the sector and the local authority in Doncaster in September. There are UTCs that Ofsted has rated as outstanding, such as the Ron Dearing UTC, and obviously that forms part of the name of the Baker Dearing Educational Trust. When there are further free school applications, we look forward to any applications that are put forward for UTCs. We want to see a strong cadre of UTCs.

[Baroness Coussins (CB) [V]]

My Lords, the White Paper focuses on English, STEM and digital skills, but employers and the British Chambers of Commerce also say that the UK’s deficit in foreign language skills damages the economy and inhibits recruitment across all sectors and at all levels. Languages are not just an academic discipline; they are a vital technical skill that can boost export growth and social mobility. So will the Minister agree to look at how to integrate foreign language skills into the plans for technical education and the remit of the careers hubs?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is correct about the importance of modern languages, which is why they are part of the English baccalaureate and why we have given £4.8 million to fund the modern foreign language pedagogy pilot, which is looking at the attainment of languages at levels 3 and 4. However, I suggest to the noble Baroness that, when employers are leading on the local skills improvement plans, if the employers in a region say, “Actually, what we need in addition to that technical skill is a language—for instance, Polish or any other language”, it is open to them to say, “This is a skill that we need in the local area.” Then, as I have said, the strategic development funds will help the colleges to have the content of courses to match that skills improvement fund. If employers need those skills, we hope to see the need for foreign languages coming in as part of many higher technical qualifications and integrate it in that way. I invite the noble Baroness to make sure that employers are doing that as these plans are developed.