The Importance of the Relationship Between the United Kingdom and India

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, on securing this debate. I speak as a former member of the UK-India round table, where I sat alongside the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria. I think that we like to believe that the round table acted very effectively in bringing the two countries together. One thing that we helped to secure for India was the equivalent of Teach First, which continues to do a great job there. It is really the issue of culture and education that I want to dwell on today.

While I was involved with the round table, what we saw was the effectiveness of the British Council in particular. It worked very hard with the UK-India Education and Research Initiative and achieved a great deal on the education front generally, all over that country. Like every other aspect of the British Council, it has had to be cut back, and I understand the funding difficulties. If the Minister were able to give any reassurance that there will be no further cuts to the British Council, particularly in India, it would be good news for all of us here this afternoon.

We have heard a lot about the new initiatives to continue increasing trade with India and to bring more students to this country. I would like to look at it from a slightly different point of view, in the very limited time that we have. Like the noble Lord, Lord Leong, I would like to see more people from this country going to India. UK universities have 90 establishments in the world top 1,000, but India now has 41, and many of those are way ahead of the lower tiers in this country. What a fantastic educational experience it would be for our students to go to India—and how much better their student debt might look at the end of that experience.

The other issue that I would like to look at is medicine. We have the new agreement over skills and training in medicine, particularly in nursing, but, again, India is a real pioneer in some important aspects of medicine. For instance, it now has joint replacements down to a fine art. It may be very boring for some surgeons, but they are specialists in hip and knee replacements. India is already the seventh most popular destination for well-being and health tourism; its income in 2022 from health tourism was estimated at $7.4 billion, and it is predicted to reach £42 billion by 2032.

Would it be such a step of the imagination, with the current waiting lists in this country, to think not just about bringing Indian doctors and nurses—and certainly some of their techniques—to this country, but about getting those waiting lists down by being innovative and sending some people who would like to make the trip to India? Waiting three years for a hip replacement is a very uncomfortable experience, but that is what some people have to undergo now. If they went to India, they could enjoy good weather, perhaps, and would come back healthier. The Department for Health and Social Care really needs to be thinking imaginatively if we are to make any progress through those waiting lists.