Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what estimate they have made of the number of UK nationals who speak a second language fluently; what strategy they have to improve foreign language skills in the UK; and what estimate they have made of the cost to the economy per year in lost trade resulting from the lack of foreign language skills.

The 2011 Census does not include information about the number of UK nationals who speak a second language fluently. However, it shows that 7.7% of the population had a main language other than English.

Studying a language provides an opening to other cultures and is important to prepare students to compete in a global jobs market. A 2013 report by Cardiff Business School, ‘The Costs to the UK of Language Deficiencies as a Barrier to UK Engagement in Exporting’, estimated that the gross costs of language ignorance might have been 3.5% of national income in 2006 - £48 billion.

The Government is committed to increasing the proportion of the population gaining language qualifications. Thanks to the English Baccalaureate (EBacc), the number of students studying a language at GCSE has increased from 40% in 2010 to 49% in 2016. In August, we confirmed that EBacc entry would become a headline measure in school performance tables from this year, alongside EBacc achievement. This will encourage schools to enter more pupils for the EBacc and for languages in future, which should increase the pool of potential people studying languages at A level and beyond.

The Higher Education and Research Bill, currently before Parliament, contains provisions that would allow Government to direct public funding to protect the supply of strategically or economically important subjects at university, such as modern foreign languages.