Schools and Universities: Language Learning

Lord Freyberg Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freyberg (CB)]

My Lords, we are all immensely grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, for securing this important debate. Her Motion rightly draws attention to the supply chain for qualified modern foreign language teachers and to practical measures, such as visa waivers, that could help sustain language learning in our schools and universities. These measures may sound, as she said, technical, but they go to the heart of whether we are serious about languages as a national priority.

I argue, as other noble Lords have already highlighted, that the debate is about more than teacher supply alone. Language learning is not an optional enrichment or a narrow skills issue; it is a form of living cultural infrastructure. Just as roads enable the movement of goods and digital networks enable the flow of data, languages enable the circulation of ideas, values and relationships. When that infrastructure weakens, the consequences are not abstract but cultural, diplomatic and economic.

We increasingly recognise that infrastructure is not confined to concrete and cables. The British Academy, in its 2025 report on social and cultural infrastructure, argues that such systems underpin social cohesion, resilience and long-term prosperity, and deserve the same seriousness we afford to transport or broadband. Language learning belongs squarely in that category. It enables participation, mutual understanding, and the circulation of ideas across borders and communities. Without it, our cultural life becomes thinner, our diplomacy weaker and our global engagement more fragile.

Professor Li Wei, of UCL’s Institute of Education, has described language learning as fundamentally a “process of cultural translation”. By this, he does not mean a mechanical exercise but an active negotiation of meaning between people, histories and values. Through that process, learners develop creativity, critical thinking, and cultural and sociolinguistic sensitivities—qualities essential not only to education but to civic life and international co-operation. Language classrooms are, in effect, places where cultural understanding is practised daily. This matters profoundly for the UK’s place in the world, as the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, so eloquently emphasised in his speech.

A recent British Council survey shows a six-point fall in the UK’s overall international attractiveness in 2025. That should concern us. Yet the same research offers reassurance, with trust in the UK remaining high and engagement indicators recovering. We are still widely perceived as a reliable, value-driven actor—no small advantage in a fractured and volatile global landscape.

However, trust is not self-sustaining and reputation is not self-renewing. Both depend on sustained investment in the relationships, programmes and people that build familiarity and understanding across borders. Language teachers are precisely such people. They are cultural ambassadors in every classroom, shaping how future generations understand the world—and how the world understands us. When fragmented immigration policy makes it harder to recruit and retain them, when visa waivers that could ease critical shortages are dismissed, and when international trainees are forced to leave just as they are ready to contribute, we are not merely adjusting administrative rules but dismantling infrastructure that serves our strategic interests.

Language learning sits at the intersection of education, culture and diplomacy. To neglect it is to weaken all three at once. So yes, we should examine visa waivers and policy coherence, but with a broader ambition in mind: to recognise language learning as the strategic cultural asset it truly is, vital to our schools and universities, and to invest in it accordingly for returns that are social, cultural and enduring.