Education: Contribution to Economic Growth

Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)]

My Lords, I should like to start, if I may, by thanking everyone in this House for making me feel so welcome. Your Lordships from all parts of the House, the officials, the attendants and the police—everybody has been immensely helpful. I also want to thank my noble friends Lady Seccombe and Lady Jenkin of Kennington, who have helped me navigate my way around this place, both procedurally but also geographically, which is important for someone with a really bad sense of direction. I want to reassure my noble friend the government Chief Whip that if she ever finds me looking confused in a corridor, it will not—I hope—be to do with government policy.

I chose as part of my title Didsbury in the City of Manchester because that is where I was born, brought up and educated. I chose it also for a second, somewhat paradoxical reason—paradoxical because I have spent most of my working life in London. But I am conscious of the metropolitan bubble that so many of the commentariat seem to inhabit. For me that is best summed up by John Humphrys, introducing the weather forecast on the radio, saying, “It’s raining over Broadcasting House. What’s it doing in the rest of the country?”. Didsbury will be, for me, a constant reminder that London is not the centre of the universe.

I have been advised that it is customary in a maiden speech to talk briefly about one’s career before entering this House. I am not sure that in my case “career” is quite the right word. It has always felt more like snakes and ladders—but it has been my good fortune that there have been rather more ladders than snakes. I have been a teacher, and I was a trainee banker. I never got beyond “trainee”—and bearing in mind the banking crisis, I do not think I was alone in that. I have worked in business and for a manufacturing company, and for over 20 years in the world of communications. But I have also had the great privilege of working with three politicians whom I greatly admire—my noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding when he was Industry Secretary, my noble friend Lord Howard of Lympne when he was Conservative Party leader, and Margaret Thatcher in Downing Street in the 1980s.

I now turn to the subject of the debate, and I want to focus on one specific area—the need for our schools to turn out more students who can speak and understand a foreign language. My noble friend Lady Sharp has great expertise in this area. Why does this subject matter? The UK trades with more than 200 countries, and most of them are non-English speaking. Three-quarters of the world’s population do not speak English. Many people have English as a second language, but what arrogance to think that other people should learn our language rather than our learning other people’s languages. Arrogance, real or perceived, is not helpful in a competitive marketplace.

Of course, the most obvious practical benefit of knowing a foreign language is that you can communicate in the language of the people with whom you are doing business. But there is another important point: speaking the language of another country also opens the door to an understanding of that country—an understanding of the culture and of the mindset. That must surely give you a competitive edge when you are trying to clinch that deal or sign that contract.

A few months ago the British Chambers of Commerce conducted a survey. Two out of three businesses that were thinking of exporting saw language as a barrier, and the vast majority of businesses did not speak a foreign language well enough to conduct business in the buyer’s tongue. This is not altogether surprising. For years now, language learning in our schools has been in decline. For example, this year the number of students who took French at A-level was 50% lower than the number 10 years ago. Of all the A-levels passed by state-funded students, those in modern languages—all modern languages combined—represented less than 3%. It was, I am afraid, a mistake in 2004 to remove compulsory language learning at key stage 4, for 14 to 16 year-olds. I welcome the various steps being taken to try to reverse this trend.

From next year it will be compulsory for children in primary schools to be taught a foreign language. We know that it is much easier to absorb the sounds of new languages when you are young, and more difficult when you are older. I speak from experience: I am learning Italian, and have been doing so for many years. I want to draw attention to one practical point here. I am thinking of children leaving a primary school where they have been taught, say, Mandarin or Spanish, and then finding themselves in a secondary school that teaches French and German. It is very important for there to be co-ordination between primary and secondary schools. The introduction of the English baccalaureate is another important advance, and EBacc is already having an impact on the numbers taking a modern foreign language at GCSE. Let us hope that continues.

I have two final points to make. Of course pupils need an understanding of grammar, and need to be able to translate the written word. But as we all know, oral skills are vital, so that they can speak the language with some confidence. Secondly, as our trade with non-European countries expands, the learning of non-European languages becomes ever more important. This echoes what the Prime Minister was saying in China yesterday.

All this is a long-term process, not least in ensuring that we have enough skilled teachers in modern languages. These are the challenges for the Government of the day and for our schools, so I very much hope that the House will have the chance to come back to this subject at a future date.