Migrant Children: Welfare

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Tuesday 9th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, the consequences for children of the hostile environment created in a cold and calculated manner by Theresa May when she was Home Secretary are laid out in Project 17’s powerful report, and they are deeply concerning. We should all be grateful to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham for securing this timely debate. The report provides a stark insight into how the current immigration system is impacting on the lives of children and forcing them into poverty and towards destitution. I commend the author’s research methods and presentation of these findings, which provide a powerful platform for the voices of children so often silenced and overlooked. I very much hope that as many local authorities as possible will sign up to the charter, as advocated in the report.

Not Seen, Not Heard highlights that, lacking a legal right to work, many families are pushed towards homelessness and made highly vulnerable to exploitation. I want to draw attention to the common experiences of families with no recourse to public funds, who are the focus of the report. People seeking asylum in the UK are effectively prohibited from working and, until recently, the Home Office’s target time for decisions on asylum cases was six months. Yet immigration statistics released in May revealed that the number of main applicants waiting over six months for a decision on their claim had reached 46%. The system is certainly not working—at least, not for asylum seekers.

A large number have good qualifications but are banned from working, making it all but impossible to provide adequate care for their families. Research by the Lift the Ban coalition suggests that the current system is wasteful, as it fails to harness the skills and talents of often well-educated people. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has recognised this failing, stating that allowing asylum seekers in the UK greater access to the labour market would not only increase individuals’ self-reliance but help to provide skills that the economy needs.

The UK has the lengthiest restrictions in Europe on people seeking asylum gaining the right to work. Spain, the Netherlands and even the USA allow work after six months; in Germany and Switzerland, it is three months; in Canada, asylum seekers can find work from day one. In this country, asylum seekers must wait a minimum of 12 months before they are given the right to work. There is public support for looking at asylum seekers’ right to work more holistically and in a way that better respects their human dignity. Will the Minister commit to a review of government policy and allow all people seeking asylum and their adult dependants the right to find a job and support themselves?

The Not Seen, Not Heard report illustrates the effects on women of being left in poverty. They are often forced to stay in situations of domestic abuse as they do not have the resources to support themselves or their children independently. A significant longer-term barrier to work for many people seeking asylum, and another which disproportionately affects women, is a dearth of free and accessible classes in English for speakers of other languages, commonly referred to as ESOL provision. Even where it is available, too often women are unable to access it due to inadequate or non-existent childcare.

According to recent research carried out by Refugee Action for its report Turning Words into Action, more than 75% of parents said that lack of childcare had prevented them attending English lessons. Resources must be made available to address such impediments to learning. How can we expect people to integrate if we fail to support them to learn English? The Refugee Action report showed that in England government funding for ESOL suffered a shocking real-terms cut of almost 60% in a decade. More comprehensive strategies for ESOL exist in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. It is entirely unacceptable for the quality of English language teaching for refugees and asylum seekers to depend on what part of the UK they happen to be in.

The Government’s 2018 Integrated Communities Strategy Green Paper contained welcome proposals and acknowledged the vital importance of English for integration, while last year’s immigration White Paper committed to,

“an ambitious and well-funded English language strategy to ensure that everyone in this country, especially those with newly recognised refugee status, are supported to speak the same language”.

Someone should tell that to Boris Johnson who, only three days ago, demanded that immigrants should learn English to integrate better. His ignorance would be amusing if this was not such a serious issue. Mr Johnson should look no further than the Governments he has been part of, who have presided over a cut in ESOL funding from £212 million in 2008 to just £105 million last year. If he does realise his life’s ambition to be Prime Minister, it will be instructive to discover whether he remembers his demand and whether he will put money where his mouth was to help bring it about.

Leaving people isolated without the ability to speak English can have a detrimental effect on their mental health and well-being. Preventing them taking up employment forces them closer to destitution and towards the shocking living conditions laid out so starkly in Project 17’s report. As that report makes clear, because families are offered insufficient financial support due to their immigration status, children are bearing the brunt, too often living in abject levels of poverty. By their inaction, the Government are flouting their commitments to children under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

I have highlighted two areas that could improve the lives of many people: granting asylum seekers the right to work and increased and accessible provision of ESOL and childcare. However, these issues are part and parcel of the same policies that are punishing children from families with no recourse to public funds. Urgent action is needed from the Government to reform our inhumane immigration system. I look forward to hearing from the Minister what steps are to be taken to achieve the crucial changes that would improve the lives of so many. Adopting the recommendations of Project 17’s excellent report would be an effective start.

Brexit: Foreign Language Teaching and Public Service Interpreting

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, on initiating this debate on a subject of some urgency. For that reason, I share the dismay of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, that so few speakers have been motivated to participate.

For the UK to succeed outwith the EU, international awareness and skills, such as the ability to connect with people globally beyond English, are more vital than ever. However, the UK is currently facing a languages deficit, as other noble Lords have said. At the end of 2017, the British Council published a report on modern foreign language teaching in our schools and universities which listed Spanish, Mandarin, French, Arabic and German as the languages the UK will need most once we depart the EU. But recent research has shown that the percentage of 18 to 34 year-olds who can hold a basic conversation in those languages is 14% in French, 8% in German, 7% in Spanish and just 2% each in Mandarin and Arabic. This comes at a time when language learning in UK schools is facing what the British Council rather kindly described as a “difficult climate”, as the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, said.

That is despite the introduction of the English baccalaureate which was, in part, designed to promote greater take-up of French and German, but does not seem to have made any meaningful impact. In part, that is due to a lack of suitably qualified teachers of languages for schools, and cuts to school budgets mean that there are fewer teacher education opportunities, especially in the lesser-taught languages.

The decline in the number of young people studying languages is hardly likely to have been lessened by much of the Government’s rhetoric since the referendum, fostering negative impressions of people who are “not like us” and hence of their languages. Such hostility has caused foreign nationals to leave the UK while deterring others from coming here. That policy is particularly demonstrated by the Government’s senseless determination to include overseas students in the immigration figures, when in fact they make a decisive net contribution to this country.

There is already a shortage of modern foreign language teachers, yet the Government seemingly ignore the fact that currently around one-third of those in post are non-UK EU nationals. We need more of them, particularly from France, Spain and Germany, as the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, said, to plug the gap, but the generally inhospitable atmosphere—perceived or real—since the referendum makes that much more difficult.

The effect is also serious concerning the ability of young people to prepare themselves for the fast-changing demands of the economy in the years ahead. At a time when global connections matter more than ever, it is worrying that the UK is facing a languages deficit, because that restricts access by young people to overseas work experience, which is a vital part of preparation for them to develop a career in international business.

The threat to the ability of UK students to access the Erasmus+ programme after we leave the EU is an issue that the Government claimed that they would resolve through negotiation. We know all too well how those negotiations worked out, and now the country faces hurtling over a cliff edge in only nine weeks.

Failure to reach agreement with our EU neighbours can only lead to a reduction in the demand for undergraduate language courses at UK universities. What do the Government intend to do to ensure the supply of modern language teachers in our schools and universities? Although it is not within the ministerial remit of the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, I imagine she will have had advice from DfE officials for this debate.

The Government finally published their much-delayed immigration White Paper last month, and we know that free movement of EU nationals will end on 29 March. That will leave us with a single immigration system for all nationalities, with no cap on the number of skilled migrants. But what is a skilled migrant? It is a positive step that the Government have not followed the Migration Advisory Committee’s recommendation to retain the £30,000 salary threshold. But with the matter out to consultation, it seems that a salary threshold at some level is inevitable.

A threshold of £30,000 will not help to fill many of the skills gaps in the UK economy, not least the need for essential workers such as health and social care staff. The noble Baroness, Lady Garden, has just added several other skills, particularly hospitality. Newly qualified teachers can expect to earn around £23,000 outside London and around £26,000 in inner London—so, without doubt, language teaching and interpretation can be added to the list.

Highly skilled people from around the world contribute to the UK economy and help to create the UK’s vibrant and world-leading research and innovation system. As the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, said, currently almost 50,000 academic and non-academic staff from other EU countries are employed by universities. A supply of native speaker language assistants is crucial to the quality of higher education provision in modern foreign languages—a subject that is increasingly strategically important to national needs as the UK looks to engage more closely with the rest of the world.

Of disciplines which have the largest proportion of academic staff from the EU, modern languages, with 35%, is second only to economics with 36%. This raises the crucial question of salaries and how these people will be affected by the Government’s new immigration regime when it is introduced in 2021. According to the Higher Education Statistics Agency, 42% of all staff at universities earn less than £33,000 and 38% of academic staff earning below that figure are not UK nationals.

Analysis by the University and College Employers Association estimates that around 42% of technician roles in total fell below the tier 2 experienced worker threshold salary of £30,000 in 2016-17 and that the median basic pay of a language assistant in higher education is £26,000.

These figures lay bare the extent of the damage that the Government’s new immigration rules could have unless the arbitrary £30,000 threshold is lowered significantly. A supply of native speaker language assistants is crucial to the quality of higher education provision in modern foreign languages—a subject which is important to national needs as the UK looks to engage more closely with the rest of the world. Such native speakers inevitably come from outside the UK and are often on termtime-only contracts, which makes it even more likely that their salary will fall below the threshold as currently proposed.

The translation industry will also be forced to make some major changes to its recruitment process post EU. In the past, translation companies, many of which supply the public sector, have been able to take advantage of the mobility of workers between EU states to employ highly skilled staff from these countries. Freedom of movement is of particular importance to the language sector, as many services require their translation staff to be native speakers, which means that many current translators are not UK citizens. The result will be that the British language industry will have limited access to a skilled workforce. Despite the difficulties, those that do still wish to work here may well be deterred or prevented from doing so by the bureaucracy that will accompany visa and work permit applications.

In closing, I want to put some questions to the Minister. What is the position of EU nationals who want to come to the UK between 30 March 2019 and 1 January 2021? Are teachers of modern languages to be included in occupations that would qualify as tier 2 general visa applications? Otherwise, the salaries paid to newly qualified teachers will prove an insurmountable barrier. If they would not be regarded as being in suitable tier 2 general visa occupations, what will be the process for recruiting modern language teachers?

As in so much of the fraught debate around our departure from the European Union, it is a case of so many questions, so little time. I hope that the Minister will be able to answer at least some of them—but, if not, perhaps she will write to me.

Role of Women in Public Life

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Monday 5th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to be able to participate in this historic debate and an honour to close on behalf of the Labour Party, which has done much over more than 100 years to promote and advance the cause of women’s rights in many areas.

I pay tribute to the noble Baronesses opposite for achieving this debate—it is of course entirely appropriate that they should—and to all those people, as well as organisations, who are recognising the significance of 100 years of votes for women by organising or taking part in such a wide range of events, some of which were mentioned by my noble friend Lady Massey. Our Parliament is well to the fore with its Vote 100 programme of events, and there are special exhibitions at the People’s History Museum in Manchester and at the Museum of London, where the shadow Cabinet will meet tomorrow to mark the centenary. Noble Lords may also be aware of Beyond the Ballot, a free online course which begins today, tracing women’s rights and suffrage from 1866 to the present. It has been produced by the Royal Holloway University of London and the Open University’s FutureLearn digital education platform, and I highly recommend it.

From this distance it seems barely credible that in the early years of the 20th century women felt driven to acts of violence simply to achieve the basic human right of casting their vote for the Government that would pass laws affecting their everyday lives. Violence can never be condoned, but in the circumstances I can understand why it was resorted to as a tactic. Let us not forget that the violence was by no means one way. The shameful events of Black Friday in 1910, when women campaigners were brutally assaulted by police and then imprisoned, where they were force-fed—an act, it should be said, that today we call torture—is not mentioned often enough when the suffragettes are recalled.

Noble Lords mentioned many of the most prominent women whose campaigning culminated in the 1918 Act. I planned to mention two, but my noble friend Lord Davies has left me with nothing to add to his excellent tribute to the remarkable Annie Kenney, one of many working-class women who fought for the right to vote. My noble friend Lady Thornton reeled off an impressive list of other working-class women, together with some beguiling and very interesting anecdotes.

I thought I would be the only person to mention Margaret Mackworth, the 2nd Viscountess Rhondda—but the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, stole my thunder. However, I will say one or two things about her, because she seems to have been a remarkable woman in many ways. She was involved in militant action with the Pankhursts—activities which saw her thrown into jail, and she was released only after going on hunger strike.

Neither the 1918 Act nor the one that followed it a year later satisfied Margaret Mackworth. The Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 ended most of the existing common law restrictions on women, with marriage no longer legally considered a bar to the ability to work in the professions. But Mackworth realised that much more remained to be done, and you can understand why when I quote from the Times of 1920. I dare say that the Times regarded itself then, as it does now, as the newspaper of record, but it issued grave warnings about the dangers of extending voting rights to women under 30. Mature females might finally be allowed to engage with politics but the,

“scantily clad, jazzing flapper to whom a dance, a new hat or a man with a car is of more importance than the fate of nations”,

must never be entrusted with a vote. So in 1921 Margaret Mackworth founded the Six Point Group, a feminist campaign group focusing on equality between men and women and the rights of the child. It was instrumental in winning support for the change to all women getting the vote in 1928.

After her father’s death, as the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, mentioned, Lady Rhondda tried to take his seat in your Lordships’ House, citing the 1919 Act, which, in theory, allowed women to exercise “any public office”. The Committee of Privileges voted against her plea and she never did enter this Chamber, although she very nearly lived to see the first women do so in 1958. That was when women were first admitted under the Life Peerages Act and, as many noble Lords have pointed out, a total of only 294 women Peers have been created since—that is less than five a year.

In the debate, noble Lords from all sides have welcomed the all-women shortlists introduced by the Labour Party. I think that generally there has been a great deal of agreement on that across the House. I would say that all-women shortlists are a means to an end, not an end in themselves, and I saw them operate effectively in the Scottish Parliament. So perhaps, as my noble friend Lady Kennedy said in her typically forthright contribution, the time has come to consider quotas to lift the number of women Peers to 50%. Such a move could not be regarded in any way as ground-breaking in your Lordships’ House. After all, for the first 600 years of its existence it operated a quota—of 100%. Of course, as many noble Lords have said, 100 years ago it was not just in terms of the right to vote that women were held back. In many spheres of life—not least in terms of improving themselves—quite artificial barriers were placed in their way.

This year also marks the 150th anniversary of women being admitted to higher education. That was at the University of London and they were able to sit only for “certificates of proficiency” rather than being awarded degrees. It was a further 10 years before that threshold was crossed, although that still left women far apart from men, and it was not until the 1919 Act to which I referred a few moments ago that women were allowed to enter the professions.

In the years since, opportunities for girls and women have advanced considerably, but young women continue to experience gender stereotypes which prevent them reaching their full potential, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, said. It runs a bit further than Peppa Pig; none the less, those are influential children’s television programmes, as the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, will know. Only one in three girls who take maths and science at GCSE progresses to take a STEM subject at A-level or equivalent, compared to eight out of 10 boys. Many schools still restrict the educational achievement of girls through gendered subjects at school and in apprenticeships. The Royal Society reported two months ago that only 20% of GCSE uptake in computer science in England is by girls; at A-level the figure is 9%. That is an essential tool for our economic future, yet so many females are excluded.

Even when they do well in attainment in education, it does not necessarily transfer to the workplace. There is a major shortfall in the number of women in senior positions, while, as we know only too well, gender-specific roles at work and the glass ceiling persist widely. According to the House of Commons Library, in 2016-17 54% of apprenticeship starts were by women and 46% by men, and more women than men have started apprenticeships each year since 2010. But the Fawcett Society analysis of BEIS data on apprenticeship starts and achievements reveals that men continue to dominate those with the best earnings potential. In 2014-15 nearly 17,000 men started engineering apprenticeships, while only 600 women did so.

The divided labour market is a key cause of the major issue in the working environment—the gender pay gap. This is a national scandal, and we knew that long before the BBC forced it into the spotlight. I have had an interest in this issue for a considerable time. Indeed, my university thesis in 1974 was on the implementation of the Labour Government’s Equal Pay Act. Of course, although that Act got on to the statute book in 1970, there was a five-year lead-in period for employers to make the changes necessary to accommodate the legislation. That was always an optimistic aim but, almost 50 years later, more than a quarter of the gender pay gap remains to be filled.

In 1975, women earned 36% less than median male hourly earnings. The latest available figure issued in April last year in the Office for National Statistics Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings is 9.1%. That represents the comparison between full-time workers and excludes overtime earnings, but of course more men than women work overtime and more women than men work part time, so the 9.1% figure gives a distorted view of the gap in actual take-home pay between men and women. Taking all employees into account, the gender pay gap in 2017 was 18.4%.

That brings me to the BBC. Various noble Lords, not least my noble friend Lady Crawley and the noble Lord, Lord Sherbourne, highlighted the recent events. I am one of the organisation’s biggest supporters and have defended it often from attacks by Governments of left and right, as well as by the right-wing tabloids. But I have to say—and I would do so were the noble Lord, Lord Hall, in his place today—that the BBC has got it very wrong on pay. As an organisation it has been slow, even reluctant, to take meaningful action for far too long. Who could have listened to the brave and hugely impressive testimony of Carrie Gracie to MPs last week without experiencing anger? That anger was not assuaged by the frankly risible conclusions of the PWC report on pay that there was,

“no evidence of systemic gender discrimination”.

Really? That message would have been no more credible had it been tattooed on the body of a pig flying past Broadcasting House.

Of course, we know what we know only because the BBC is publicly funded and has a duty of transparency. What about private companies in the media, as well as other sectors of employment? Anybody who does not believe that systemic gender discrimination in pay exists widely needs to get out more, probably from the comfort of their men-only club.

The Labour Party is proud to have a gender-balanced shadow Cabinet and to have more women MPs than all other parties put together, but we acknowledge that there is no room for complacency. We have yet to see the first female Labour Party leader elected at national level, although there is at least the fine example of Labour in your Lordships’ House, where we now have our fifth woman leader.

Women’s right to vote was achieved by determined and committed groups of politically motivated women who sacrificed much for their struggle. A record 208 women were elected to Parliament last year. But 100 years after the law was changed to allow women to become MPs, they still account for just 32% of the House of Commons, which simply is not good enough. Only in 2016 was a landmark of sorts reached, when the total number of women MPs ever elected reached 455—the same as the number of men then sitting as MPs. Were the suffragettes and suffragists able to express an opinion on events since 1918, I suspect they would be disappointed that the advances they achieved have not spurred more extensive gains bringing greater equality to the lives of women—and, as many noble Lords have said, a greater presence of women in senior posts in the law, business and the media, to name but three sectors.

My noble friend Lady Kennedy was undoubtedly right when she said that the game can no longer be played by men’s rules. We men must make it our duty, too, to change attitudes. As the noble Lord, Lord Addington, said, there must be a culture change. It is surely the collective duty of all of us, men and women, to ensure that the progress achieved thus far is extended until its natural and only acceptable conclusion of true equality is solidly embedded in all aspects of life.

International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Friday 23rd January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, occasionally, when a Private Member’s Bill arrives in your Lordships’ House from another place, the noble Lord who picks it up here appears to do so on a rather fitful basis. The very opposite was demonstrated today by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, who exhibited passion and commitment to the cause in what was a first-rate speech.

It was hugely significant when, in 2013, this country met the ODA target for the first time. Even prior to that, British aid was a success story, and I believe that the Bill offers the chance to ensure that it continues to change the lives of millions for the better. We should remember that that aid is delivered through the Department for International Development. I take this opportunity to pay due credit to my former colleague in another place, Clare Short, who, when she shadowed the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, prior to the 1997 election, ensured that the Labour Party included in its manifesto the establishment of a separate department, and then, famously and commendably, went on to serve with distinction for six years as its first Secretary of State. It was Clare Short who insisted that British aid should target those countries where people are most in need of it and where it can have the greatest impact. That is exemplified by the fact that 30% of our ODA is directed towards fragile and conflict-affected countries or regions, a policy that I very much hope will continue.

There are high returns to be had from what have been termed smart investments: the channelling of aid to projects where there will be real, sustainable outcomes. That involves investment in family planning and sexual and reproductive health and rights. As a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health, that is the subject on which I want to concentrate my remarks.

The millennium development goal that has lagged behind the most in the current international development agenda is MDG 5 on maternal health. Women’s and girls’ health must be at the forefront of the post-2015 development goal agenda. The greatest proportion of ill health among women and infants is concentrated in places where health systems are weak and provision is unavailable or inadequate. Statistics for 2014 show that sexual and reproductive health services still fall well short of needs in developing regions. An estimated 225 million women who want to avoid a pregnancy are not using an effective method of contraception. Increases in contraceptive use have barely kept up with growing populations. According to the World Health Organization, of the 125 million women who give birth each year, 54 million make fewer than the minimum of four antenatal visits recommended by the WHO; 43 million do not deliver their babies in a health facility; 21 million need, but do not receive, care for major obstetric complications; 33 million have newborns who need, but again do not receive, care for postnatal health complications; and 1.5 million are living with HIV, more than one-third of whom are not receiving the antiretroviral care they need to prevent transmission of the virus to their newborns and to protect their own health.

If all women who want to avoid a pregnancy used modern contraceptives and all pregnant women and their newborns received care at the standards recommended by the WHO, the results would be dramatic, not least in terms of the transmission of HIV from mothers to newborns, which would be nearly eliminated, achieving a 93% reduction to fewer than 10,000 cases annually. According to the United Nations Population Fund, fully meeting the need for modern contraceptive services would cost $9.4 billion a year, while treating the major curable sexually transmitted infections for all women of reproductive age would cost $1.7 billion.

These investments, if made together, would bring the total cost of sexual and reproductive healthcare to something like $40 billion annually. That figure represents more than a doubling of the current cost of those services, yet it amounts to only $25 per woman of reproductive age annually, or $7 per person in the developing world. Not only would the additional investments have major health benefits, they would be cost-effective because helping women to choose the number and timing of their pregnancies makes healthcare more affordable overall. With far fewer unintended pregnancies, the cost of improving pregnancy and newborn care and preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV becomes much lower than it would otherwise be.

Investments in sexual and reproductive health are critical for saving lives and reducing ill health among women and their children. Spending $1 for contraceptive services reduces the cost of pregnancy-related care, including care for women living with HIV, by $1.47, so over years there are real savings to be made, although the health dividends are multiplied when taking into account the wider long-term benefits for women, their partners, their families and their communities. These include increases in women’s education and earnings, increases in household savings and assets, increases in children’s schooling, increases in GDP growth and a reduction in just one thing—poverty.

I welcome the fact that all the main parties are committed to allocating the resources needed to improve the lives of people in the developing world. The Bill will perform a vital role in that task and I congratulate Mr Moore and the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, on their determination to make that happen.

BBC World Service and British Council

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Thursday 10th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on securing this debate, but I regret that he included the word “values” in the Motion. Not surprisingly, he said little about values in his opening remarks and made no attempt to clarify what those values are. That is my point.

We had a debate in this Chamber two weeks ago on the question, which was utterly inconclusive. It is instructive that both the British Council and the World Service in the briefings provided to noble Lords for this debate tried to define British values. The British Council described them as “respect and tolerance”; the World Service listed “fairness, integrity and independence”. “British values” means different things to different people; there is very little consensus on what the values are. Therefore, until such time as there is a settled view on what British values involve, it should not be seen as the role of the British Council, or indeed the World Service, to promote them, because what are they promoting?

The British Council and the World Service are institutions which I have supported and worked for and with for many years, and I have the greatest respect and admiration for them. Both have had to adapt to the effects of cuts in funding in recent times and each has accepted the challenges that brought with a determination to maintain their high standards and long reach. The British Council has had to bear a reduction in its FCO grant of around a quarter between the year 2009-10 and now. Rather than scale back its activities, it has grown its self-generated income and is on course to fill that gap. That is very much to be welcomed.

Every year with the assistance of the British Council more than 2 million people in more than 90 countries sit international exams leading to qualifications that improve their employment and life prospects in an increasingly competitive global market. However, the council’s activities form a two-way street, because by presenting the best of the UK’s cultural assets abroad they attract tourists, students and inward investment to the UK and build links between higher education institutions in the UK and overseas, expanding the exchange of research and innovation which benefits our economy.

The Foreign Secretary is currently considering the recommendations of the council’s triennial review and I hope he will ensure that when implemented it adequately reflects the fact that the British Council is a long-established and continuing success story which does Britain proud. Quite simply, if it did not exist, it would need to be invented. The same can be said of the World Service, which reaches more people worldwide than any other international broadcaster. Independent surveys consistently rate the BBC as the most trusted and best-known international news provider, as other noble Lords have already mentioned.

Three months ago the World Service underwent a fundamental change in its funding model. It was predicted prior to that—not least by a committee in the other place—that the move to licence-fee funding would see a reduction in services and quality of programmes, yet we hear that its funding this year has actually increased by more than £6 million. That is obviously very welcome, because despite suffering funding cuts in 2010 which led to the loss of a fifth of its staff, the World Service weathered that storm and today it can be said to be in very good health, with audiences are up by some 9 million on last year. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Alton, himself who referred to the situation in Russia and Ukraine as being largely responsible for that. At times of crisis, people know where to turn for dispassionate, fact-based reporting, delivered professionally by World Service staff on the ground.

I believe there remain concerns about governance. The man in charge of the World Service, Peter Horrocks, does not have the top-table seat in the BBC enjoyed by his predecessors, and secure guarantees are required over safeguarding the distinct nature of the World Service into the future. Equally, it is essential that the World Service should be taken into consideration when conversations around the BBC’s charter review and decisions about the future of the licence fee take place.

It is to be hoped that those in senior positions both at the BBC and indeed in government fully appreciate the huge asset that the World Service is both to the BBC and to Britain.

HIV/AIDS: Commonwealth Countries

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, I am grateful to have the opportunity of speaking in the gap, and I apologise to the House, to the Lord Speaker and to the noble Lord, Lord Black, for missing the beginning of the debate due to its unexpectedly early start.

Section II of the Charter of the Commonwealth, signed three months ago, states:

“We are implacably opposed to all forms of discrimination, whether rooted in gender, race, colour, creed, political belief or other grounds”.

I cannot add anything to what the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, has just said in describing how empty those words, “other words”, are.

It is important to note that the Commonwealth Heads of Government adopted the recommendations of the Eminent Persons Group on repealing of laws in 2012, indicating that member Governments should identify which, if any, laws are considered discriminatory and what steps should be taken to address them.

None the less, the Commonwealth Secretariat has not included, as other noble Lords have said, LGBT rights, legal reform or HIV in its new strategy, and the Commonwealth Foundation’s new strategy includes no plans to support LGBT organisations or others working towards law reform. The secretariat should offer technical support to members to revise and amend their legislation, and the foundation should support civil society organisations working to promote LGBT rights. To address these gaps, I hope that the UK Government will continue actively to promote LGBT rights within the Commonwealth, particularly at the upcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting—if they attend; it is suggested that they may not—and in the work of the Commonwealth Secretariat and Foundation.

It is important that deeds match the words. LGBT people throughout the Commonwealth—indeed, wider, but the Commonwealth contains such a large proportion of those suffering from HIV and AIDS—deserve to see stigma removed through the decriminalisation of private, adult, consensual and same-sex sexual relations. It seems to me self-evident that, if that were done, it would be so much easier to treat the many people who are afraid to come forward and seek medical assistance with HIV and AIDS. I hope that that would be seen as a first step towards the tolerant and respectful societies that the Commonwealth should promote.