Schools and Universities: Language Learning

Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Chartres, who predictably gave us a unique perspective for this debate. We are very fortunate to have so many illustrious speakers in this debate and, in particular, two first-class bookends, if I may call them that. We have the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, who I know from working with her on the APPG is a tireless and tenacious campaigner and advocate for this, and the closing bookend is the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Malvern, who is a heavyweight Minister in this House. She is a former senior Cabinet Minister and has ministerial clout. We are looking for that ministerial clout in this debate today.

We all know that the whole position and state of the teaching and learning of modern languages in this country is in crisis. We know that there is a downward spiral of fewer pupils learning them, fewer teachers coming in, fewer graduates coming out of our universities, and fewer courses and faculties at universities. As my noble friend Lady Shephard, said, it was not helped by the decision that Charles Clarke made in 2004.

The Prime Minister has said in his own words that he wants to put Britain back on the world stage and to reset our relationship with Europe. It is worth quoting briefly what the Times said on this, when it talked about the fact that a nation that speaks only English

“limits Britain’s ability to do business, understand our neighbours, broaden our views and make lasting friendships with those beyond our borders”.

That is of course true. As other speakers, such as the noble Baronesses, Lady Blower and Lady Garden, have said, there are the wider advantages of improving and helping with learning, memory, mental faculties and so on.

My noble friend Lord Willetts referred to the Treasury approach to these things and its very hard-headed approach to taking decisions. These things are difficult to measure, which is why the Treasury has enormous difficulty. The Treasury simply cannot measure common sense and it does not know how to put it into its calculations. I hope, again, that the Minister will be an advocate when she deals with other government departments.

I understand the difficulty—the Minister will understand this better than anybody—of competing subjects jostling for position in a very crowded curriculum. I have had many discussions about this with my noble friend Lord Baker of Dorking, who, as we all know, is a great advocate for engineering, science and technology. Of course, in the modern world these are very important, but if you talk to employers who are recruiting young people, you find that they recognise that there are downsides, sometimes, of technology, in that many of the people they recruit are not always as good as they should be at communication and find it more difficult to express themselves clearly and succinctly. Again, that is one of the big advantages of learning a foreign language.

I come back to the Minister. There have been, in this debate, a whole range of proposals from the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, and from other speakers. I am sure the Minister has a very good speech which will tell us everything that the Government are currently doing, but I hope she will take the opportunity to commit herself to further action in a positive way. Many proposals have come forward, and I hope she will be able to give us some comfort that there is more action to be taken by the Government.

Pension Credit

Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

If only the Opposition had been as attentive when they were building up the deficit as they are now it is there. To be really straightforward, the Chancellor came in and looked at the public finances, which were the result of significant pressures having built up in departmental spending. Significant commitments had been made, but no spending review had been done since 2021 to make sure that the money was there to pay for things. As a result, this Government have had to make the hard decisions that were not made previously, and this is one of them. We have taken action to make sure that we are protecting the poorest pensioners. Everybody on pension credit will be entitled to the winter fuel payment. We are targeting it at those who need it most, not at the many pensioners who do not need it as much.

[Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)]

My Lords, when the Government looked at the various candidates for cutting public expenditure, why did they choose winter fuel payments?

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, the pressures were such that some of the money had to be found in this financial year, because a series of expenditure gaps came to light in this financial year. We have already cut other capital programmes, and departments are absorbing pressures. This was a cut that could be made in-year, so it was added to it.

I am sorry to say that this is not the last difficult decision this Government are going to be forced to make, but we will try to target things appropriately. I think most Members of the House would agree that something like a winter fuel payment should not be going to the roughly quarter of pensioners who have a million pounds in assets; it should not be going to those who can manage. What we should be doing is trying to target the money at those who need it most, and that is what we set out to do.

Benefits: Reductions

Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)]

My Lords, it a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, whose speeches I always listen to with great interest. She has great expertise in housing, about which she has been speaking this afternoon.

This debate is about the impact of government policy on family life. I want to focus my remarks on the way in which this Government, and their reforms, are making life better for families by increasing social mobility and improving life chances. It is worth remembering that to be successful in this regard, all Governments must do three fundamental things. First, they must continue to manage the nation’s finances in a prudent way in order to avoid the financial crash which we know can cause huge social damage. Secondly, they must go on ensuring that we have an enterprising economy, because that is only way to generate the jobs that give people the wages and salaries they need. It is the only way to generate the taxation which sustains our vital public services. Thirdly, we need a welfare system which protects those who cannot protect themselves and those who need additional help, but it must be a system which does not blunt incentives. As Lord Beveridge said in his report:

“The State … should not stifle incentive, opportunity, responsibility”.


It should be a welfare system which is financially robust and viable for the long-term.

That brings me to universal credit, which I strongly support because, I am afraid, Labour’s system of tax credits turned out to be something of a shambles. Tax credits were impossibly complicated. Hopeless computer systems left people out of pocket and, tragically, they kept millions of people trapped on out-of-work benefits.

Last week the Economist magazine, which is no uncritical supporter of universal credit, wrote:

“Universal credit has a lot going for it. Streamlining benefits into one monthly payment will eventually make the system easier to administer. It removes perverse incentives whereby somebody moving from welfare to work can lose about as much in benefits as they earn. Allowing people to make a single application for all their benefits should improve take-up, and so reduce poverty.”


That was before the improvements and enhancements announced in Monday’s Budget, which have been welcomed by many charities such as the Trussell Trust, the Resolution Foundation, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the CPAG.

Is universal credit a perfect system? No, of course not. It is a major reform and there were bound to be problems—I readily admit that—so people in this House are right to be eagle-eyed and vigilant, as they should be. Those people include the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and of course the late Baroness Hollis, who many colleagues have mentioned and who is a real loss to this House. The Government should listen to their criticisms; the Budget has shown that the Government are listening and responding. The Government are now providing increased funding to give additional protection to existing welfare claimants as they move on to universal credit. In addition, work allowances are being increased.

Perhaps I might make one additional point, because the responsibility of the Government goes beyond the welfare system. I want to talk about the provision now being made by the Government for health and the National Health Service. Many noble Lords have talked about the impact on people with mental health issues, so I very much welcome the increase in spending on the NHS by over £20 billion a year by 2023-24. I welcome in particular the fact that mental health will take an increasing share of the NHS budget. For all these reasons, I welcome and support everything the Government are doing to help families.