British Council and the Integrated Review

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 4th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Asia (Nigel Adams)]

I am incredibly grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) for securing this debate on the British Council and the integrated review. May I use this opportunity to pay tribute to him for his work as chairman of the British Council all-party group, particularly as he referenced the recent report on influence and the integrated review?

For more than 85 years, the British Council has been the UK’s international organisation for education and cultural relations. It is a crucial part of the UK’s presence overseas and it is a key soft power asset. It has work in more than 100 countries, reaches 790 million people annually, promoting UK education, arts and culture and, as my hon. Friend referenced, the English language. He also referenced in his excellent speech that the United Kingdom is a soft power superpower. We have huge strengths from sport, culture and creative industries to our world-class higher education system, and the important role that we play internationally in addressing whatever the major issues of the day are. We rank consistently in the top three in leading soft power indices, and we ranked as the most attractive country for young people in the G20 in the British Council’s recent soft-power perception study.

The British Council promotes UK influence and attraction overseas by building long-lasting connections between people. It acts as a force for good—for example, through its work to empower young women in south Asia through English language teaching. It encourages cultural understanding through programmes such as its fantastic seasons of culture and through educational exchanges.

The British Council also fosters connections between higher education institutions and students in the UK and in other countries. I am pleased to note that the council will use the expertise it derived from delivering Erasmus+ to administer the new Turing scheme from September. This will enable a new generation of international students to benefit from the UK’s world-class education system.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) for his presentation. It is always a real nice pleasure to see him again; we look forward to renewing friendships shortly.

It has been said that a state’s credibility and capacity to effect change depends as much on diplomacy and the social and human capital of international networks as it does on gross domestic product or military might. Does the Minister agree that it is essential that our diplomacy should be used to make a difference—as I often ask for—to the lives of those who are oppressed throughout the world?

[Nigel Adams]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: it is important that, through our network and posts and through what we do in our embassies and high commissions around the world, as well as through our British Council offices, there is a huge diplomatic effort going on. I appreciate that that is not the principal object of the British Council, but it does add to the UK’s strength of diplomacy. If there are emergencies or crises around the world—sadly we have seen a number of them—the United Kingdom has a strong part to play, and he is absolutely right to raise that.

To continue the theme of that intervention, the council also contributes to our global prosperity and helps to develop favourable conditions for new trade and investment links. My hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay rightly raised the integrated review. The Government want our foreign policy to deliver for the British people and to be rooted firmly in our national interests, which is why the commitment to deliver a review of foreign, defence, security and development policy was announced in the Queen’s Speech in December 2019.

The integrated review will define the Government’s ambition for the UK’s role in the world and the long-term strategic aims for our national security, foreign and development policy. It will outline the way in which the United Kingdom will be a problem-solving and burden-sharing country, and it will set a strong direction for recovery from covid-19, both here and overseas, so that together we can build back better.

The full conclusions of the integrated review will be published later this month. My hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay will understand that I do not want to pre-empt the findings, nor how the British Council will feature in the final report, but I would be surprised if soft power does not play a part in it. It is absolutely certain that the FCDO will continue to value the British Council’s role as a contributor to our long-term foreign policy and our development ambitions.

As I set out, the integrated review will map out the UK’s direction for recovery from covid-19. It is important to acknowledge that the British Council has been acutely affected by the pandemic, as my hon. Friend said. At the pandemic’s peak—at its worst—more than 90% of the British Council’s teaching and exam centres were forced to shut, with a huge impact on the organisation.

We have worked hard to provide the British Council with additional support at a time of strain on public finances. Last March, the Department provided £26 million of emergency funding, as well as providing half of the council’s grant-in-aid funding up front. We will also provide up to £145 million in loans to ensure that the British Council is able to continue to operate through this exceptionally difficult time. We will provide further financial support for future restructuring plans to enable the British Council to rebuild its commercial surpluses.