British Council

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (David Warburton) for securing the debate. I was not intending to speak, but I want to make two brief points arising from my personal experiences with part of the British Council.

As other Members have done, I praise the staff of the British Council, who helped me in my former life, before coming to this House, to take a British business—Christie’s—out to China. They enabled us to negotiate with the Shanghai Government and to win the first licence for a British auction house to hold a stand-alone auction in China. That, perhaps, has led me to take a different view from that of my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) about the tangible benefits of the British Council for British businesses operating in the wider education and cultural sector on a daily basis.

It is primarily not UK Trade & Investment or British business councils such as those in China or India but the British Council to which businesses such as Christie’s, or education providers and great universities such as those near my own constituency in Nottingham, turn to for expert advisers and ambassadors when trying to forge links, whether cultural or commercial ones. Those links have tangible benefits for the British economy—in many cases, important commercial benefits—and, of course, are the drivers of soft power in new economies such as China in particular, where Britain’s brand is as much dependent on Christie’s, “Sherlock” or “Downton Abbey” as it is on education opportunities. We have to appreciate the role of the British Council. I hope the Treasury will appreciate that it is providing not only intangible benefits in economies and countries around the world but very tangible ones as well. I hope the Minister will take that up in his negotiations.

The need for a new commercial focus at the British Council requires new skills for its employees, who are not simply providing education opportunities and intangible benefits but negotiating links between British universities and universities in the field, sometimes involving multimillion-pound—and, indeed, bigger—contracts. With the help of the British Council, my own local university in Nottingham has founded one of the UK’s only stand-alone universities in Ningbo in China. It is not a joint venture with a Chinese university, but an independent university—a model that others around the world have sought to follow, which the Chinese Government have in fact prevented because it has been so successful. That is a huge benefit, both financially and in terms of education opportunities, to a UK university. Those are important factors that I hope the Treasury will take into account.

Through my experience at Christie’s, I have seen that there are enormous opportunities internationally for the British cultural sector—the arts and museums—particularly in emerging markets such as China. More museums are being created in China today than anywhere in the history of the world. There are 400 museums looking for new collections; all the auction houses and art dealers around the world are keen to get involved in that, for obvious reasons. The British Council is, again, crucial to that. Primarily commercial organisations but also our own museums, which are strapped for cash with reducing budgets, are turning to the British Council for help. There are huge tangible benefits that make the British Council essential.

Having spoken to my noble Friend Lord Maude, who is now at the helm of UK Trade & Investment, I know he is very conscious that one crucial element of his work in the education and cultural sphere is, in fact, in the hands of the British Council. Funding for the British Council and upskilling its staff, which costs money, is therefore crucial. British Council staff are paid less in general than those who work in the Foreign Office or UK Trade & Investment; if we want the highest-skilled and, particularly, the most commercially-minded employees, we need to pay them.

My second point is perhaps a contrarian one, given other points made today. Despite the fact that our soft power is extremely strong in the world today, I do not think the UK Government give sufficient priority to cultural diplomacy. Some of the UK’s greatest cultural ambassadors, such as Neil MacGregor, the outgoing director of the British Museum, say that the Foreign Office could and should give more priority to cultural diplomacy, particularly in comparison with some of our neighbours, who have systems such as cultural attachés in our embassies and people acting as principal ambassadors, forging powerful links. We see that in the British Council. For example, Carma Elliot, the head of the British Council in China, is arguably—I mean no disrespect—better connected than our ambassador, having spent an entire working lifetime operating in China and forging links at every level, whether those are cultural, political or commercial.

Greater investment in the British Council and in particular giving it greater priority within the Foreign Office are important. I have recently been involved in a campaign to create a greater role for the UK in protecting sites at risk in Syria and Iraq—on which we have made great strides, as I hope will be reflected in the Chancellor’s statement in a few weeks’ time. At an important summit that we held a few weeks ago at Lancaster House, the British Government committed £3 million to a cultural protection fund to support the brave men and women operating in the field through the British Council.

The British Council was integral to the success of that work; it was really the only point of contact in the British Government that those of us campaigning on it could go and see. The Foreign Office, at times, struggled to give us a contact and there was nobody else—neither the Department for International Development nor the Department for Culture, Media and Sport—to be the glue at the heart of our cultural diplomacy. It was the British Council that could take that forward and work with us to reach a point where, ultimately, the British Government will be the world leader in an important element of cultural diplomacy in the world today.