| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
11.17 am
Mr. Tim Renton (Mid-Sussex): I congratulate the hon. Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Litherland) on securing this Adjournment debate on the British Council. I share many of his concerns about the British Council. He has represented a Manchester constituency over the years, so I appreciate his strength of feeling on behalf of British Council employees in Manchester, which he so vividly expressed.
I do not at all agree with the hon. Member that the British Council is--I think that I am quoting him correctly--in "a state of collapse". I do agree, however, that there is very widespread concern at all levels in the council about precisely where its future will be. I state that as an unpaid vice-chairman of the British Council--an interest that has regularly been declared in the Register of Members' Interests. I have had the honour and good fortune to hold that post for nearly four years, and during that time, two themes have dominated our board meetings and all the contacts that I have had with British Council staff in London, Manchester and abroad.
The first theme is simply the relentless pursuit of better housekeeping, through greater cost-effectiveness, more modern accounting and a better use of information technology. The move from London to Manchester was one aspect of that, and was intended to save substantially on salaries and associated expenses in the United Kingdom.
The hon. Member for Manchester, Central has stated that there has been a substantial reduction in UK staff in the past four years, before any consideration is made of the effect of the new grant in aid proposals. We have recently sold or let half the headquarters building near Trafalgar square to bring United Kingdom costs down.
The other--and more positive and exciting--side of our affairs has been the careful expansion of British Council posts in, for example, eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, and the re-opening of posts in Shanghai and Beijing. These can help us take advantage--usually on a fee-earning basis--of the enormous opportunities for all aspects of English language teaching, training and technical co-operation in the contracts that are now available to the British Council, often on a competitive basis. We must fight to provide ELT services against competition from Australia and the USA, and we must fight to win technical co-operation contracts with the Overseas Development Administration, the World bank and the European bank of reconstruction and development.
In the past three or four years, I have heard the British Council praised and encouraged by the Prince of Wales, the Prime Minister, successive Foreign Secretaries and countless ambassadors, both abroad and at home in London. It is worth pausing to think that, on a rough calculation, there are something like 1 billion people in the world at the moment who want to learn English. English is now by far and away Britain's most valuable export. It is the universal second language, the language of computer-speak and the language that almost all professionals use in discussing technicalities through the Internet. To the chagrin of the French, English is now the language of diplomacy. In a euphoric mood, I could say that every one of those billion people--or their teachers--is in some way a potential client of the British Council.
I am delighted to add that the revenue earned by the British Council from its activities is increasing. The amount was £62 million in 1990-91 and increased to£115 million in 1994-95. It is estimated to increase further to £130 million in the year that has just ended.
I wish to refer for a moment to China. I visited the British Council's offices in Shanghai and Beijing after going to Hong Kong in October. No one can go there and not be amazed at the potential for opportunity. After all, it is a country with 1.2 billion people, and its GNP is growing at a rate of 10 to 12 per cent. a year. It has more than 1,000 universities. English is now the official second language for everyone aged nine upwards until they finish their education. That is against the background of the fact that more than 90 per cent. of students do not have any English language teachers because they do not exist. The scope for an organisation like the British Council to team up with the Chinese open university, the BBC or David Puttnam to provide distance learning in English and to train and teach people up to the professional standard for English teaching is absolutely huge.
Even if some of the British Council's activities become fee-earning, they need seedcorn capital to get started. As the hon. Member for Manchester, Central said, the British Council's activities are often not recognised in this country because we do not trumpet them around the United Kingdom enough. The council is helping to win for Britain its present market share in the global education and training export business. This is estimated by the Department of Trade and Industry--not by the council--
to be worth some £7 billion a year. The council's education and counselling service operates in 10 key markets in the far east and, through our education fares, exhibitions and face-to-face advice to students, the service is contributing to increasing the number of overseas students in Britain to beyond the level it was when full costs for fees were introduced. I simply do not believe that that would have happened without the British Council.
The council is involved not only in higher education, but in the promotion of United Kingdom education at all levels. I attended an education seminar over lunch in the Jubilee Room on Monday, which was aimed by schools, universities and colleges of technology in Sussex at overseas students. Without my proclaiming that I was the vice-chairman of the British Council, strong credit at that meeting was given to the council for its work.
My right hon. Friend the Minister is well aware that the council's overseas offices depend for their viability on a fixed bunch of activities. It is not possible to say to any of them that they should concentrate on revenue-earning activities because such activities are not yet of a sufficient size to enable the posts abroad to be viable and to justify themselves. Such a demand would totally ignore the original aims of the British Council--the promoting of British art, culture, books and music abroad. The other side of our activities brings in a good many people into our posts, but the availability of libraries and information centres about Britain and the sponsoring of art and culture tours abroad are not necessarily financially viable.
Continued grant in aid is necessary to keep the whole plethora of council activities going. Without grant in aid, many British Council overseas posts will simply have to close, as they will be unable to expand their revenue activities quickly enough. Against that background, I find it hard to believe that the Government will wish to force the British Council--that jewel in the crown for marketing Britain abroad--will wish to force us into the closure of libraries or overseas posts. I must say, however, that the present forecast for grant in aid for the British Council would have exactly that effect.
The sums needed to prevent this are not large. The British Council would certainly need assistance with the cost of redundancies at home in which we are now bound to be involved. Beyond that, we have spoken of the restoration of some £5 million grant in aid in 1997-98, and £10 million each year thereafter to avoid the closure of posts. Frankly, that would run wholly contrary to the Government's policy of support for the British Council and the better presentation and marketing of contemporary Britain, its education, IT and modern technology abroad in which the British Council excels.
I know that the board, senior management and staff of the British Council very much hope to hear some good news from my right hon. Friend the Minister--if not today, then next week. Many important people have told me recently in relation to the British Council that they are on our side--they are with the angels on this. That is very nice, but frankly being with the angels at the moment is not enough. They will have to have clutched between their wings some rehabilitation and improvement of our grant in aid if we are to avoid the closure of overseas posts, libraries and information centres. Everyone in the House would greatly regret that.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes):
Order. There is clearly great interest in the debate, so I hope that in the short time remaining those hon. Members who wish to speak will make their contributions as brief as possible.
Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow):
I shall be brief.
The British Council is central, not peripheral, to the orientation of Britain's foreign policy. It is not on the margin. Therefore, I simply ask: what is the Government's thinking on the British Council's position in the resources queue?
The right hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Renton) has just reminded us that the British Council is a significant earner. The figure that we have been given, as he will know from the board, is £130 million. That could go up and up over a period of years for the very reasons that he has given. There is a huge market for educational training, and the British Council has a key role in the British economy.
I take just one example. I was lucky enough to be selected for the recent Inter-Parliamentary Union delegation to Nepal, which was led by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. The right hon. and learned Gentleman and I went to see the Minister for Overseas Development about the British Council in Kathmandu and how possible cuts might affect it. I can only say, without being maudlin, that it was a moving experience to see people from Nepal who, frankly, have no other decent library, streaming into the offices of that well and imaginatively run British Council post in order to enlarge their knowledge.
Doubtless colleagues could repeat such experiences from many parts of the world; I can talk only about that recent experience. To see the amount of service that was being given to that country, one of the poorest countries in the world on any index, really did make one feel rather proud to be British. Of course, a great deal more could be done. Certainly in Nepal, more could be done by distance learning in areas where, because of the terrain, it is difficult to get children to any kind of central primary school. The possibilities of distance learning there are immense, and the British Council is the body to do that.
11.29 am
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |