Schools and Universities: Language Learning

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, like other Members of your Lordships’ House, I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, for initiating today’s debate and speaking so eloquently that in many ways her speech alone will have given the Minister plenty of questions to answer. I pay tribute also to the work she has done as chair of the APPG—and so much more, because modern foreign languages are so important, yet they are so undervalued.

I declare an interest as a Cambridge academic, where I teach European politics. At times, having fluency in other modern foreign languages is useful, because I can say to my students, “Yes, it’s alright if you let me have that in German or French—I can read it”. But also in the last academic year, I was a HESA statistic. During lockdown I decided, having refreshed my French, German and a bit of Italian, that maybe I should try a language that I had not tried before—Spanish. In a sense, it was a very easy thing to do because, if you have some Italian, French and Latin, Spanish is quite easy. I went from beginners through to C1 level. Cambridge in its wisdom has now decided that, if you are studying C1, you get a diploma, so I now have a nice university certificate. They said that it meant they had to register me with HESA, because it was a level 4 qualification.

I am one of the few people studying at what counts as university level who is doing it in my spare time, alongside large numbers of undergraduates, postgraduates and junior researchers at Cambridge, who have realised that doing a modern foreign language is really important. My university is one of those that still understands the importance of modern foreign languages; we have an excellent department of modern foreign languages, and a centre that allows many people in the university and beyond to learn a language ab initio.

We are in a minority, yet one piece of information we were given in the excellent Library briefing was the concern of schools that Russell Group universities may not value modern foreign languages. That should not be seen to be the case; modern foreign languages at A-level are really important. One thing that we need to do is to remind students and teachers that language learning is important. We heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, that it can be fun, but it is also a vital life skill. We assume that somehow, you do languages for GCSE or A-level, tick a box and move on, but it is not necessarily the same as some other qualifications, because these are life skills which you can use not just at 15 or 18 but throughout your life.

As the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, pointed out, we should be thinking about modern languages as not just things that people study at school but as part of lifelong learning. What thought has the Minister given to people having the opportunity to learn languages at various stages? Yes, primary schools are important, as the noble Baroness, Lady Shephard, said. It is much better to learn a language at nursery or primary school than in your 50s—as I tried to do recently—but the opportunity to learn those languages is important.

The previous Government felt that modern foreign languages were important for the economy, or because they enhance other academic skills. However, they are also important not just for diplomacy in the formal sense, which the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, talked about, but for the ability for us to connect interculturally. Yes, other people might speak English, and they might speak English to us in the room, but they will speak their own language in the margins. If we can speak those languages as well, our communication and depth of experience will be so much stronger. Will the Government pledge to increase the opportunities for people at all stages of life?

Universal Credit

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Tyler for bringing this debate and to the Secretary of State for sitting in for a quite a lot of it. That was a good sign. She is no longer here, but I hope that the Minister will share her answers and the Hansard record with her, because it is about time the Government listened.

In July last year, your Lordships’ Economic Affairs Committee produced a report on universal credit. It called on the Government to make the £20 uplift permanent. It is an indictment of us as Peers that we have not yet found time to debate that report, over a year later. We need to do a better job of ensuring that we make use of such reports, because that committee raised a set of questions that necessitate considerable reflection.

In particular, the committee noted that universal credit can disadvantage women, disabled people and BAME, and that it was linked to increased food bank usage. The Leader of the other place has talked about the support given to food banks being “rather uplifting”. I do not find the support uplifting. It is a travesty that, in this country, people need to go to a food bank at all.

While I listened closely to the words of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester, and it is clearly encouraging that people have rallied around the most vulnerable during the pandemic, we should not need food banks in this country, ever. The state should ensure that people are not indebted to such an extent that they cannot afford to feed themselves and their children.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, made absolutely the right points. For so many of us, £20 might seem a very small amount of money. How many chai lattes does it buy—how many things that seem so incidental to many people above the poverty line? But for others, that small amount of money makes all the difference. If it is right during the pandemic, it is right going forward as well, because we have heard that so many people are on in-work benefits. They cannot do more and more jobs. If they can get a better-paid job, fantastic—but if they cannot, there are questions to be raised.

I have a final question for the Minister. The Economic Affairs Committee, in calling for the uplift to be made permanent, said:

“Universal Credit should be set at a level that provides claimants with dignity and security.”


Does the Minister agree? If so, does she think that reducing the uplift will leave people with dignity and security?

Armed Forces: Transition to Civilian Life

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Tuesday 15th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

I am happy to tell my noble friend that while the grant is set at just over £500, the training that it can purchase can be worth thousands of pounds. The Career Transition Partnership contract-funded courses are prepaid by the MoD and it offers other courses as well. Other financial support schemes, such as the enhanced learning credits scheme, can provide up to £3,000. Further financial support of up to £175 per year can be made available through the standard learning credit scheme and the publicly funded further education/higher education scheme provides service leavers with all sorts of support for up to 10 years to a value of up to £9,000. If we need to repackage that, I will be happy to take it back to the department.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, the integrated review envisages cuts to the regular forces of around 10,000. What work has the DWP done, alongside the MoD, to assess the possible implications for service personnel and their families who will be leaving the forces perhaps rather more unexpectedly than envisaged?

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

The services offered by the DWP through the plan for jobs and other activities with the Department for Education on skills are wide-ranging, and I know that the Ministry of Defence and the DWP will work in partnership to provide the most relevant services to the people who the noble Baroness rightly says will need help.

Supporting Disadvantaged Families

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Thursday 12th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

I am pleased to tell the noble Baroness that there is already a forward-looking approach that is long-term and cross-departmental, with DWP working closely with the DfE and Defra to target support to those in need. The Secretary of State set out in the other place her desire to ensure that every child has the chance to realise their full potential, and the long-term thinking in this support package will help to achieve this far more than piecemeal reform. I ask the noble Baroness to write to me if there are particular things that she would like included; I am quite prepared to make those available to the department.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, clearly the additional funding is welcome, but I note that the Statement suggests that there will be additional reporting requirements and conditions for local authorities. What work have the Government done in talking to local authorities to ensure that such requirements are not overly onerous? It would be something of an own goal to have money being spent that local authorities do not have the time to disburse. In the longer term, what are Her Majesty’s Government doing to make child poverty history?

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

The noble Baroness raises a really important point about reporting. We will need some information back for the sums of money that we will be spending. I sincerely hope that the reporting requirements will not be onerous, but that they will enable us to understand the impact of the spending and the difference it makes, and help us understand what needs to be done next. I really hope that will be case. I can only reiterate that we are working hard as a Government to make sure that children and families have the support they need in these even more difficult times.