Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the impact of declining uptake of modern foreign languages on the UK’s (i) future skills needs and (ii) international economic competitiveness.

The UK has taken the positive step of rejoining Erasmus+ from 2027, the EU’s flagship education exchange and partnerships programme. Erasmus+ will give learners, trainees and staff across schools, further and higher education, adult education, youth and sport opportunities to study, train, work or volunteer abroad. These experiences will bring language learning to life, inspiring more young people to study modern foreign languages and helping build the skills the UK needs to compete internationally.

Alongside this, the government is committed to strengthening the languages pipeline and increasing uptake of modern foreign languages. We are taking forward the recommendations of the Curriculum and Assessment Review, supporting high-quality teaching through the National Consortium for Languages Education, and helping recruit specialist teachers through a £20,000 tax-free bursary, or a £22,000 scholarship for French, German and Spanish trainees. We also support a broad range of language qualifications, with GCSEs and A levels available in up to 15 languages.