Schools and Universities: Language Learning

Baroness Murphy Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Murphy (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, give thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, for raising this debate, and for her powerful introduction and sensible proposals.

We have all welcomed the reinstatement of the Erasmus+ programme, but, as universities will tell you, it will take a good 10 years to reverse the adverse effects of foolishly stopping it. Even before it ceased, as the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, pointed out, it was easier to attract students from the continent to come to universities here than to find students from our universities wanting to spend time abroad, especially in the sciences, because their lack of basic language skills was the main deterrent. So, we are talking about a long-term problem here.

The recent figures from the Higher Education Policy Institute have highlighted what a shocking situation this is. We have to keep repeating that the decision back in 2004 to remove the compulsory status of modern languages from the national curriculum meant a dramatic reduction in GCSE take-up. That, coupled with the important emphasis on STEM subjects, has further marginalised modern languages.

There has been little recognition of the future economic importance of global trading partners in India, Turkey, South America, China and the Far East, even though the Labour Party itself drew attention to this back in 2015. We are very well positioned, because of our large Asian and Turkish communities, to study those languages through which we are most likely to benefit economically. As the noble Baroness, Lady Stuart, has already mentioned, we have failed in schools to recognise and encourage bilingual children in some of these rarer foreign languages. However, the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, laid out the proposals, and the Government should surely change their attitude to understanding the importance of languages as both a route to other cultures and to build bridges that lead to economic success.

We have talked about teachers coming from abroad, how important they are and what needs to be done. But one of our problems is the way we treat all migrants, which militates against welcoming them. The national political debate is itself a deterrent to anyone coming here. In this respect, though, visa waivers and some of the other proposals are very important.

I did school French and German and enjoyed them very much, but I was never particularly brilliant at them. I then worked for the World Health Organization, which asked me to go as a consultant to the beautiful little food manufacturing town of Piacenza, in the Po Valley in Italy, back in the 1980s, where the local authority wanted to improve the health and social care of older people. The WHO wisely insisted that I take a lengthy immersion course in Italian, so that I could engage in some basic discussions with the delightful Communist mayor and his incredibly forward-looking team. My life was transformed. I fell in love with Italy, of course, and the Italians, and eventually bought a home there. Forty years later I am still learning Italian, and Italian friends are laughing at my mistakes. I would like to think that every state school child here could have their eyes opened to lives beyond these shores, because perhaps it would change our currently depressing national conversations, and the conversations would be different.

Modern languages teaching can be fun, as has been stressed. We would like to see everybody having the opportunity to see other people, to visit, and to get to have some of that fun. To the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, I would like to stress that I too was addicted to Duolingo, but only a few months ago I managed to wean myself off, because the pings were driving me crazy. I will offer her treatment in mental health ways of getting rid of that addiction if she would care to. Duolingo is a start. It is a help in refreshing, but it does not substitute for that wonderful involvement we get through travelling abroad.