Lord Anderson of Swansea
Main Page: Lord Anderson of Swansea (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Anderson of Swansea's debates with the Cabinet Office
(8 years, 3 months ago)
Lords ChamberIndeed, I can confirm that, and my noble friend makes a good point about ensuring that civil servants from Scotland are exposed to Whitehall.
My Lords, I joined the foreign service in 1960 as a working-class boy from the University of Wales. There were only two women and no one from the ethnic minorities at that time. Does the noble Lord agree that our schools, because of the collapse of language teaching, are often unable to provide sufficient language competence and we need to look carefully at language potential? Such matters should never trump merit and competence.
I entirely agree with the noble Lord. We have come a long way but there is always more to be done. I concur with him about language skills.