BBC World Service and British Council

Lord Wilson of Tillyorn Excerpts

Thursday 10th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wilson of Tillyorn (CB)]

My Lords, like others, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Alton for the chance to debate these two terribly important institutions. A good deal has been said about soft power, and I am tempted to cite a moral tale from classical Chinese Taoism: the power of water. Water appears to be the most flexible, malleable thing that there is, but it is about the strongest thing there is. You can try to dam it, you can try to divert it, but it will always get through. That is not quite a motto to put up on Broadcasting House, but it is something like that. If the British Council and the BBC keep going long enough, they get through.

I will concentrate on two areas concerning the British Council. I am a huge enthusiast for the BBC World Service and, like many others, I have depended on it for much of my life, but I have been involved, directly or indirectly, with the British Council—I declare that interest—having some time ago been a trustee for eight years and a chairman of the Scottish committee.

From practically nothing, the British Council operation in China has grown to an enormous size. There is a staff of something like 350. There are operations in Beijing and three other major cities. The potential there is colossal. It is said that some 300 million people in China wish to get more involved in the learning of English; that is of course something that the British Council does superbly. Another important thing, referred to by my noble friend Lady Coussins, is that the British Council goes in two directions: it also helps to recruit teachers of Chinese to come to this country and help people here to learn Chinese. That two-way process is valuable.

Another thing which comes from China is part of the process of “slow movement”. Many years ago I had a Chinese friend who had never left China. In the short period between the defeat of the Japanese and the victory of the Chinese communists he was involved with the British Council in Beijing; he did plays and learnt a lot. He was one of the most knowledgeable people on the subject of British literature I have ever met. After all the vicissitudes and problems of the Cultural Revolution, he eventually became a rather significant person in the Chinese cultural scene.

That is part of my water analogy. It is a drip that started a long time ago, but the power of that drip is realised long after. I suggest that it means that you cannot create a balance and loss sheet every year for the British Council. You have to think long term, not just about what is happening in the course of one year.

The British Council is also an interesting example of an organisation in the UK which very early on realised the significance of devolution and the re-establishment of a Scottish Parliament, and placed itself so that British Council Scotland was seen to be valuable. There were those who said that there should be a “Scottish Council”, but people quickly realised that that would be very expensive indeed; and that, more importantly, the British Council could do it as well if not better than a separate one. The work that could be done by a regional part of the British Council is invaluable. As my noble friend Lord Luce just said, British Council Scotland and the British Council being involved in the Commonwealth Games is a good example of that.

If, in September, the vote goes for a continuation of the union, it will be important not only that British Council Scotland shows that it represents culture in Scotland as well as in the whole of the UK, but that British Council Wales and British Council Northern Ireland and the regions of England also do the same. You need a British Council which is truly British, and not just part of an organisation.

Finally—if I am not going too far—on money from teaching English, it is sometimes said that the triennial review may say that the British Council’s role in teaching English should be reduced. I hope that the Minister may be able to assure us that that will not be the case. Of course there should be competition in teaching, but earning that amount of money is one of the things that enables that great organisation to do so much else as well.