British Council

Nigel Adams Excerpts

Wednesday 8th September 2021 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Asia (Nigel Adams)]

I thank the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) for securing this important debate on the British Council’s global presence. I will take my mask off; that would probably help. I am grateful for the interventions of other hon. Members. I am also conscious that I need to give the hon. Lady a couple of minutes, if she would like that, to sum up.

The hon. Lady has already said that the British Council plays an absolutely crucial role as one of the UK’s international organisations for cultural and educational opportunities and cultural relationships. It is an arm’s length body of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. It has a core mission to promote English-language education, arts and culture across the globe, and it does a fantastic job of that. It delivers key soft-power benefits to the United Kingdom, and it is a crucial part of our overseas presence, operating in over 100 countries. The British Council’s own figures show that, in 2019-20, it reached 983 million people.

We recognise the British Council’s considerable contribution to promoting our influence and values overseas. It is important to acknowledge, however, the devastating impact of the covid pandemic on British Council operations. As the chairman has said a number of times, the organisation went from producing almost £1 billion of revenue to producing virtually zero overnight. It takes a lot to recover from that.

At the peak of the pandemic, over 90% of the British Council’s teaching and exam centres were forced to close. The hon. Lady referred to the fact that we have provided the council with additional financial support in an extremely challenging fiscal climate. We are facing the worst economic contraction in over 300 years and a budget deficit of close to £400 billion. However, to depart slightly from the bonhomie, I politely suggest that the hon. Lady’s remark that we were refusing to provide financial support to the British Council is frankly, on every level, inaccurate. Despite these unprecedented economic circumstances, we have allocated over £600 million to the council since the pandemic hit. The hon. Lady may not be aware of that figure.

[Chris Stephens]

I thank the Minister for giving way. Can he tell us today what the conditions are for that £600 million in terms of loans?

[Nigel Adams]

I can certainly go into some more detail on the financial settlement. It included a 2021-22 spending review settlement, in 2020, that totalled £189 million. That is a 27% increase. Furthermore, £150 million of the settlement is composed of ODA, while the non-ODA allocation of £39 million is triple that of the 2020-21 baseline. In addition to the settlement, we are providing loan support, which the hon. Member for North East Fife referenced. That is up to £245 million and includes a £100 million loan to support restructuring efforts and to rebuild commercial surpluses.

[Chris Stephens]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nigel Adams]

I will come on to the point made by the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens). The hon. Member for North East Fife suggested that the British Council had to provide a business plan to secure a loan. I am not entirely sure that a business plan requirement is a particularly heinous thing to ask of the British Council. I would be grateful if any hon. Members could point me to a bank or any lender that would provide a loan without at least politely asking what that money would be used for. We worked very closely with the management and board of the British Council to come to this arrangement on the loans. We have worked very hard with them; they have done an incredible amount of work, and I pay tribute to Stevie Spring, the leadership and the interim chief executive.

[Chris Stephens]

I thank the Minister; he is being very generous. There are problems with the restructuring, and the outcome is that some of the industrial relations from the British Council need to be improved. Is the Minister’s Department scrutinising how the British Council is carrying out the restructuring? Would he be prepared to meet me and PCS representatives to hear our concerns?

[Nigel Adams]

I am more than happy to meet the hon. Gentleman or any hon. Member here today to discuss the British Council. We discussed it in the main Chamber quite recently, and I am more than happy to do so again. Members are very welcome to come into the FCDO and meet me and our soft-power team, who work incredibly closely with the British Council. Clearly, changes such as staffing are operational matters for the council itself. We understand that it is working incredibly hard to restore its commercial operations and to maximise its revenues. It is a particularly difficult time.

While we have had to make difficult decisions across all Departments and in other areas, we are increasing the money we are providing to the British Council. Never has there been a clearer endorsement by the Government of the British Council and the important soft-power role it plays. However, the unprecedented impact of the pandemic has forced the Government to take tough but necessary decisions about the British Council’s global presence. It has reinforced the need for the council to do more to adapt to a changing world. As the interim chief executive of the British Council said at the time, the British Council will stop spending grant-in-aid funding in 11 countries and will deliver grant-in-aid programming through offices for a further nine countries.

Let me re-emphasise that decisions on presence were taken only after a thorough assessment alongside the British Council of how the council’s priorities link with the Government’s foreign policy objective, as set out in the IR, as well as how the British Council can achieve the greatest impact.

In the debate in the main Chamber, some said that the British Council can make a meaningful impact only with an office in-country. That, frankly, is incorrect. I said in June that it would be a strategic mistake to judge the impact of the British Council in a digital world by its physical presence. This crisis—the pandemic—has changed the way we all operate, and the British Council has done an excellent job.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

We returned to Westminster this week and to business as usual—in 2019, when I was elected as an MP, I did not really know what normal was—and I am sure everybody here has really benefitted from a physical presence. I absolutely understand that the British Council needs to look at different ways of delivering its services, but does the Minister agree that sometimes you absolutely cannot beat face-to-face contact and being there physically?

[Nigel Adams]

I do. In an ideal world, that is the case, but there are services that can be delivered digitally. Since the pandemic, the British Council has done a brilliant job of turning around its business model. It is rapidly expanding its digital services in response to the covid crisis. As an example, a year after the pandemic forced us into lockdown last March, there were over 80,000 students learning English online with the British Council. There were nearly 10 million visitors recorded across its online English language platforms, which is an incredibly impressive transformation in a short time.

The British Council has also continued to deliver its excellent cultural programmes and events digitally during the pandemic. It launched its Culture Connects Us programme—a digital online campaign about the value of culture for international connections and exchange. I personally had the pleasure of taking part in an online session with leading figures from the UK and Japanese cultural sectors as part of the UK and Japan season that the British Council headed up.

There is no doubt that the British Council can maintain impact through digital delivery. I understand what the hon. Member for North East Fife says, but we will continue to support the council to invest in this area. It has a proven track record now of maintaining impact through digital delivery. We are confident that investing further in that will serve to enhance its offer.

The changes to its presence are necessarily accompanied by further measures to streamline and enhance the council’s governance structures. We have agreed with the council a new set of key performance indicators and targets, and measures to update the council’s charitable objectives to focus on its core mission. I am delighted that Scott McDonald, who I met online prior to appointment and have since met physically, has now taken up his role as chief executive of the British Council. I have no doubt that he, alongside the exceptional chairman, Stevie Spring, will provide the strong leadership needed to put the British Council on a steady footing for the future.

I am conscious that we are nearly at the two-minute stage, Ms Rees. To summarise, we are absolutely committed to ensuring the future success of the British Council. We have provided a strong rescue and reform package to support it through the pandemic and to enhance its governance structure. It is important that the British Council can make the most impact in a changing world. It will continue to operate in over 100 countries and the FCDO will ensure that it can continue to play a leading role in promoting UK soft power and all our integrated objectives.

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

Unfortunately, in 30-minute debates the Member in charge does not have two minutes at the end to respond. I am sorry for the disappointment.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

It is my first Westminster Hall debate.

[Nigel Adams]

The hon. Lady could make a two-minute intervention.

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

I will put the question.

Question put and agreed to.