King’s Speech

Earl of Dundee Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Dundee (Con)]

My Lords, in connection with this debate I join in congratulating the two Government Ministers on their appointments, the noble Baroness, Lady Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent, and the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, as I do on their different appointments: two very much-needed fellow Scots, the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, and the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen.

I will connect three themes: within international communities the extent to which world peace and democracy can be assisted through improved education opportunities; the current means for achieving that purpose; and the ways in which the United Kingdom and our Government can now help to facilitate this delivery. In so doing, we are fortunate to operate against the much-respected background of the British Council’s core actions and solid achievements over the last eight decades, sponsored from the outset by our Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

On the immediate problems we face abroad, I join many of your Lordships in approving of the defence and security commitments made in the King’s Speech, including to NATO’s principles of defending individual liberty, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

The Council of Europe recently produced a resolution: The Transformative Power of Education. It identifies disadvantages affecting countless groups of people, ranging from girls and women, students with disability and special needs, learners living in remote areas, and refugees and asylum seekers, to those experiencing discrimination emanating from various pretexts and prejudices.

Considering the problems of education, not just in Europe but throughout the world, this is a robust and useful intervention by the 46-state affiliation of the Council of Europe. Here I declare an interest as recent chairman of its Committee for Education and Culture, and as current chairman of the United Kingdom All-Party Parliamentary Group for Community Development, which, in seeking better education opportunities internationally, has an informal partnership with the Council of Europe. I am particularly glad that the Minister winding up this debate is the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, who in Strasbourg was a parliamentary colleague of mine on its Migration Committee.

The Council of Europe’s education resolution equally points to the huge scope, already proven and accepted, of digital technologies and how online education programmes can reach out through the world: adapting to differing circumstances and needs; complementing rather than replacing classroom teaching; covering all subjects within the humanities, sciences and technologies; and thereby not least enabling the acquisition of competitive skills easily available to us, in the United States and in the majority of European countries but often, for various reasons, denied to so many elsewhere. To encourage the consensus on education as an international delivery responsibility, I have a Private Member’s Bill on the subject, and here at Westminster I recently put together and chaired a parliamentary conference on education as a human right and cornerstone for any democratic society.

During its G7 presidency in 2021, the United Kingdom gave an undertaking to promote education in the third world and elsewhere in countries where education systems do not fully operate. What actions have been taken since then? Which combined initiatives are in progress? Can the Minister affirm that G7 sequitur plans are being clearly designed and carried out so that they also contribute towards building up the strength of international communities themselves?

Does the Minister concur that online education programmes are best delivered through public/private joint ventures, these being cost effective, focused and of sustained quality? Will the Government encourage them?

Do they also have plans to make use of and broaden the recently revived Horizon scheme towards Erasmus—already advocated today by the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie—thereby further enabling working arrangements between schools and universities in different countries, such as that, which recently I helped to set up, of joint research into green energy carried out by the Scottish University of the Highlands and Islands in the United Kingdom together with Zadar University in Croatia?

NATO’s worldwide security aims to protect human rights and democracy should be supported by initiatives to improve education opportunities. Following its recent G7 commitments, the United Kingdom—in its own interest and that of others—must continue to pursue this objective.