British Council

Debate between Lord Swire and Tristram Hunt

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. It is also a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock). At a time when we are seeing an awful lot of hard power on display in the middle east, it is excellent that we are having this debate about the role and virtue of soft power. As he said, soft power often lasts longer.

I pay tribute to the staff of the British Council. Before I entered this place, I was a practising historian, and I would sell my wares around the world. When I met British Council staff, whether in Dubai, Macedonia or Singapore, they were, to a man and a woman, incredibly professional and committed. They were great public servants, and they presented the best of British, often in quite constrained circumstances.

Those people did not necessarily have easy relationships with our embassies. There were sometimes tensions between the inevitable creativity and dissent that the British Council rightly sought to generate—in a helpful manner—and the sometimes narrow policy constraints of Her Majesty’s Government. Where embassies and the British Council had good working relationships, they could achieve a great deal, but where the embassy—not in a controlling manner—did not regard the British Council as part of a partnership for Britain, not nearly as much was achieved as we might have hoped.

In the past 10 to 15 years, the British Council has been a really successful part of a post-imperial, post-colonial reimagining of the meaning of Great Britain. It is hard to overplay that work, particularly in parts of the world where we have a colonial past. The British Council’s work in shaping the reputation, image and meaning of modern Britain for new audiences has been quite profound. Nowhere is that truer than in our relationships with India, as we will see next week when we welcome India’s Prime Minister to the UK.

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr Hugo Swire)]

This week.

[Tristram Hunt]

Things happen so fast these days. We are all looking forward to the remarkable events that will take place in Wembley, and I hope the Minister will be assisting with them. We have a very complicated and long relationship with India, and although many young Indians have a relative lack of interest in the colonial past, they have a great interest in, and passion for, Britain and the meaning of Britain. The British Council has helped to shape some of the debate on that.

Colleagues have rightly made the case for funding and support for the British Council. Its work is profound and important. When I visited its offices, however, I got a sense that the demands of English language teaching and the business model that that involves sometimes overwhelmed the broader functions of those offices. Clearly, we need those offices to be income generators, but we should not lose sight of the British Council’s broader functions and purpose.

I would be delighted to see more money going to the British Council and a return to its previous funding. I have no problem with more of those resources coming from the Department for International Development. It is no secret in Whitehall that DFID cannot get the stuff out of the door quick enough, although it does not always go in the most effective directions. The British Council, however, is incredibly effective.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr Hugo Swire)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (David Warburton) on securing this debate, and I am grateful for the contributions of all those present. The quality of debate today has been considerably higher than it sometimes is in this Chamber. That reflects the fact that people have come to this debate with knowledge and a genuine interest in the subject—we cannot say that about all debates—but there is an inherent danger in debates when there is virtual consensus on both sides of the House.

This debate underlines the fact that the British Council and its value remains as true today as it was in 1940-41, the year it received its royal charter and when its annual report stated that the council’s aim was

“to create overseas a basis of friendly knowledge and understanding of the people of this country”

and our foreign policy, something that is as valuable in times of peace as in times of war. When that was written, the battle of Britain was raging over our skies and the blitz of our nation’s cities was beginning. Even at that most critical moment, we knew the value of cultural relations and the role the British Council could play in our long-term security and prosperity.

Today, as ISIL’s destructive and intolerant influence spreads across Syria and as Russia continues to undermine the principles of international law and the sovereignty of its neighbours, the British Council, its values and the values it exports are needed perhaps more than ever. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Sir Vernon Ellis, who steps down as chairman next year, for his valuable work. I welcome the efforts of Sir Ciarán Devane, the new chief executive, whom I have met on a number of occasions, and his desire to align more closely the council’s purpose with our objectives: to make Britain safer; to build prosperity; and to expand the UK’s influence overseas.

It is sometimes difficult to communicate the nature of the British Council’s work because its impact on foreign policy in fulfilling its purpose, sometimes goes unsung, so it is worth reminding the House of some of its key programmes. In promoting the English language internationally, the British Council administered 3 million English language exams in the academic year 2013-14. During the same period, it taught 388,000 people in nearly 50 countries and reached an additional 132 million viewers, listeners and readers through print and digital products. Why is that important? It is because the world has a huge appetite to learn English. Almost 1.75 billion people already speak some English, and the United Kingdom publishes more books per capita than any other country. It is arguably our greatest asset—soft power or otherwise.

The hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) mentioned the number of people, including world leaders, who had studied in the United Kingdom. I am sure that if he had had time, he would also have mentioned the main Government scholarship programmes: the Marshall scholarship programme, one of the most prestigious programmes around, which currently has 31 scholars; the Commonwealth scholarship programme—two hon. Members who have spoken this morning have a strong Commonwealth heritage—which now has more than 900 students studying here in any one year; and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s flagship programme, the Chevening scholarship programme, which we have tripled to more than 1,800 students studying here this year.

All the work that I have described has a direct impact on some of our key foreign policy priorities. The British Council has maintained its public teaching operation in Kiev through the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. The council is now scaling up its work with an additional investment of more than £1 million in each of the next two financial years, which will deliver an English for universities programme, helping to transform the ability of 12 leading Ukrainian universities to teach in English and operate internationally. The council’s work is building important links with the people of Ukraine and mutual trust in a country at the very top of our agenda and at a time when they will value our support most.

My hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome, whom I congratulate on being one of the architects of the debate, mentioned Young Arab Voices. That programme works, as he knows, in six countries in north Africa and the middle east—Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Jordan—reaching more than 100,000 people in 2013 and a further 75 million through broadcast media such as BBC World Service Arabic. Through training and development of skills such as listening and debate, the programme helps young people to learn from others—to connect to their local communities through discussions on the issues that matter most to them, from unemployment and education to the media and women’s rights. I hope that hon. Members in this Chamber agree with me on the fundamental importance of building a stable future in north Africa and the middle east. By creating a space in which meaningful debate can take place without conflict, this work will, I hope, make a valuable contribution.

Looking ahead, next year, to the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, Shakespeare Lives—[Laughter]—will be a major programme of events and activities, aiming to reach more than half a billion people worldwide. The anniversary is arguably the most significant soft power opportunity for the UK in recent times. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) guffawed when I said “Shakespeare Lives”. Perhaps he is one of those people who thinks either that Shakespeare never wrote anything or that Shakespeare never lived at all, but I hope that he will take part in the activities, which he is well qualified to do.

[Tristram Hunt]

My colleagues and I were just reflecting on having a celebration called “Shakespeare Lives” on the anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.

[Mr Swire]

Well, I had to check the title because at one point I thought it was “Shakespeare Lives”—life plural—which could have meant something completely different, but I have no doubt that we all look forward to that great celebration. It is arguably the most significant soft power opportunity for the UK since the Olympics. My hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome and others talked about the British Council and cultural diplomacy. I will return to that in a minute. The British Council is working with the GREAT campaign, British theatres, museums, artists and many others to put on an unprecedented programme of global activity that will include brand-new productions of Shakespeare’s plays, film adaptations, art exhibitions, public readings and educational resources for schools and English language learners of all ages.

The British Council must undertake all this activity in a rapidly changing world. This Government are determined to play a leading role in global affairs and we will continue to influence the international agenda. Our status as an international leader in soft power—something close to my hon. Friend’s heart—is incredibly important. Therefore, the British Council will play a fundamental role in ensuring the UK’s place at the top table.

Incidentally, I think that it was my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) who talked about the importance of science diplomacy.