Schools and Universities: Language Learning

Lord Mountevans Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mountevans (CB)]

My Lords, I add still more congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, on securing this debate on such an important topic; that is clear right across the House. I pay tribute to her for her long-standing and resolute championing of modern language teaching and much, much more.

I will speak to the business case. My career has been in shipping—arguably the most international of businesses, transporting cargos all over the globe. English is the lingua franca of maritime business, employed in the vast majority of shipping contracts, as it is for most international commercial contracts. As a young shipbroker in London with English as my mother tongue, I did not realise how valuable Norwegian and French were to be for me. Taking a gap year before university and being one quarter Norwegian, I elected to spend the time as a business trainee in Norway. Despite numerous visits down the years, my knowledge of the language was fairly basic.

On my arrival, male colleagues were very affable and helpful. Rather more imaginatively, my lady colleagues announced that if I wanted any help, of course I would have to speak Norwegian. This was a challenge, but with their help, augmented by a weekly outside lesson, I made huge strides. It is amazing what six months of near total immersion can do. Three years later, on taking up my career as a shipbroker, I found that the negotiations, and a great deal of the business discussion, with Norwegian ship owners was of course in English—but they were all intrigued also to exchange some thoughts in Norwegian with this young Briton, both in and out of the office. It was an extra card that I was lucky enough to have in my hand, and I commend this to all young people thinking about their careers.

My French language shipping experience came about more haphazardly. I was a junior broker, post Cambridge, in the tanker department. One day the cry went up, “Does anyone speak French?” I assumed help was needed with an invoice or something similar. Not for the first time in my life did I find how dangerous it is to assume anything. Armed with my rather average French A-level from a summer course at the Sorbonne, I announced that I did. “Good,” announced the head of the department, “We’re going to start working with the Algerian state shipping company.” I remonstrated that my French was perhaps not all that might be required, but I was overruled. I took a few conversation classes at lunchtimes, and with some hard work on my side and some patience and forbearance on the Algerian side, we soon established a very good relationship and successfully negotiated a lot of business in French.

My point—I think it has been made many times already—is that foreign languages, particularly certain key ones such as French, Spanish and German, can be the greatest possible benefit to the individual and to businesses. Obviously today the list is getting longer, with Chinese, Arabic and Japanese becoming more prominent.

Another point relating to careers in business is that Britain is very well regarded in South American markets. There is enormous good will and great potential for British exports and invisibles. However, it is of the utmost importance to speak Spanish, or Portuguese in Brazil. I have the honour to serve as president of Canning House, the forum for UK-Latin American relations. I work very hard at it, and I love Latin America and its peoples, but alas, I do not speak Spanish. I will never equal the position enjoyed by our colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper—a former Canning House president herself, who studied in Ecuador and speaks impeccable Spanish.

Summing up all the strands—cultural, business, societal, and economic—it is essential that the UK boosts significantly its capital in languages. Recapping on all that we have heard, MFL provision is in crisis, particularly in our universities. We know that building back capacity in anything once lost is a very expensive and challenging process. I support the recommendation that a visa waiver be applied to suitably qualified foreign language teachers. I support the demands for, to be honest, most of the things that the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, said, so I will not regurgitate them here. Can the Minister tell me whether any of Britain’s education providers has sought to equal the excellence of some of the former techs in the provision of business training along with foreign languages? I have had some tremendous experience down the years of exceptional people who had studied language and business at techs.

In conclusion, looking back on my experience, it was only having commenced my career that I fully appreciated the significant business value of certain languages. I suggest that consideration be given to the establishment of language ambassadors, who would visit schools and promote the immense potential value and life enrichment provided by languages in general, and perhaps degrees in them. As someone who expects soon to be out of this place, with some time on my hands, I think this would be very worth while.