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11.51 am
Mr. Mike Watson (Glasgow, Central): This is one of the rare occasions when hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber seem to be singing more or less from the same song sheet. I hope that, because of the pressure exerted from both sides, when the Minister responds he will have something positive to say about the future funding of the British Council. I should like to put to him a quotation from his colleague the Foreign Secretary, in answer to a question from the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Sir J. Lester). He said:
- "We have protected the operating costs of . . . the British Council from the economies that are being made elsewhere in the public sector. I entirely endorse the objective that my hon. Friend has stated."
That was about improving Britain's influence in the world through trade flows.
If that is good faith, I would not like to encounter him in a bad mood.
We have heard a litany about the projected cuts and the effect that they are likely to have if they are not reversed. I am concerned particularly about the prospect of a reduction in the British Council's influence in a number of countries in various parts of the world. The hon. Member for Broxtowe quoted from the transcript of last week's hearing of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs. At that meeting, the director-general, Sir John Hanson, suggested that it was likely that there would have to be a pull-out from 27 major cities and 16 countries, seven of which would be Commonwealth countries.
I must ask the Minister whether the Government are prepared to tolerate that. If they are prepared to see withdrawals from certain countries and closures in certain major cities, will he name the cities and countries that he thinks are dispensable? If he does not, he will put an intolerable burden on the British Council, not just in terms of the work that it has done in the past, the contacts that it has made and the vacuum that would be left behind, but in trying to choose one against another. It is an impossible task and it is one that it should not be facing. It is incumbent on the Government to take some of that responsibility and on the Minister to tell us whether he feels that it is acceptable for such closures to be made.
Some hon. Members have mentioned the fact that the British Council is far better known overseas than in this country. That is true. Perhaps the debate and the coverage that it has received--there is a comment in The Daily Telegraph today--will help the council's image with the public.
I am concerned about the British Council's work in respect of international students in the United Kingdom. My constituency contains two universities, and I was at a meeting as recently as yesterday dealing with cuts in education. As we all know, those cuts are across the board and are aimed at fattening the calf--if that is not too topical a reference--for the tax cuts that it is hoped will help the Conservatives at least to hide some of their embarrassment at the general election. It will be futile, and it is a shame that organisations such as the British Council and universities have to bear the brunt of that political axe.
Both the universities in my constituency, Glasgow-Caledonian and Strathclyde, have international students. The British Council's role in influencing the number of students who come to this country should not be underestimated. The number doubled between 1984 and 1994, and with universities being so strapped for cash, they desperately need the full-cost funding brought by international students. If there is to be a reduction in numbers--there might well be as a result of a reduction in the British Council's influence and in its education counselling service--it could have a knock-on effect in the United Kingdom, quite separate from the British Council's situation. That must be borne in mind. I realise that that is not directly part of the Minister's remit, but I hope that he will comment on it.
There are 28 British Council offices in the United Kingdom, and a number of them could face closure. How will it help the British Council to improve its image with the British public if it has to withdraw from areas in which it already has a presence? It needs to be better known in this country and needs more outlets if it is to do its job that much better.
My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Litherland), whom I congratulate on obtaining the debate and on the content of his speech, made it clear what the closures could mean for jobs. If the jobs go, there will be a knock-on effect on the way in which the British Council operates overseas. That is the base from which many of its activities are resourced, and if that base is cut, it will seriously affect its operations.
I am concerned at the extent to which the cuts imposed on the British Council have been disproportionate to the cuts announced in respect of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. If there are to be cuts across the
board, every Department must take its share. However, within that, it is unfair that an organisation as vulnerable as the British Council has been forced to take a disproportionate cut of 16 per cent., if one takes its Overseas Development Administration and diplomatic wing funding together. That is double the cut in the FCO as a whole. Can the Minister justify such a swingeing and unfair cut?
My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Central talked about the British Council's approach to dealing with the cuts since they were first announced some five months ago. It has been a softly-softly approach, quite different from that of the BBC World Service. It is up to the British Council to decide what tactics are best suited to it and, at the end of the day, their effectiveness should be the deciding factor.
Sadly, it seems that the softly-softly approach has not been effective. There is clear evidence of that in what I suspect the Minister will say today--although I remain optimistic--and in the views of the British Council's chairman. He seems finally to have lost faith in any approaches that he could make behind the scenes or in any ears in which he could whisper in the corridors that he treads.
It is strange that Sir Martin Jacomb has been placed in a position in which he has to be so trenchant in his criticism of the Government in general and the Foreign Secretary in particular. I have no doubt that he feels uncomfortable with that. He has talked about being strung along with assurances and of promises remaining unfulfilled to such an extent that he has now said that he is disappointed and filled with despondency. He is no icon of new Labour with a background of Eton, Oxford, Prudential and the Bank of England and all the other badges of honour that come from the corridors of power in this country. However, he has made that criticism.
It is shameful that the Government should treat people in that way, regardless of the organisation involved. There are means of arm twisting and negotiation to reach the end that one wants. Clearly, there is a feeling that the British Council has been let down. Everybody who knows the organisation, here and abroad, feels that if the cuts go ahead, the organisation will be severely undermined in an unfair and unwarranted way. I hope that the Minister will bear those comments in mind, as well as those from hon. Members on both sides of the House.
Ms Joyce Quin (Gateshead, East):
I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Litherland) on initiating the debate, and on the way in which he introduced it. I am not surprised by the strength of feeling that he showed in his speech--indeed, that strength of feeling has been widely shared by all hon. Members who have spoken. This has been a cross-party debate in terms of support for the work of the British Council and the deep concern about the effects that the cuts will have on it.
I know that this concern is widely shared by hon. Members who have not been able to speak in the debate. For example, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford
(Mr. Lloyd) also speaks on foreign affairs from the Front Bench. His constituency adjoins that of my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Central. As a Front-Bench spokesman, he knows--as I do--the effect that these cuts will have on areas of the world for which we have responsibility in our Front-Bench roles.
My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Central spoke eloquently about the fact that the British Council was relocated to Manchester only four years ago. However, it is now facing major upheaval: there will be a dramatic loss of jobs and the office will be vacated--it took possession of the office so proudly only four years ago. The office was named 1993 office of the year. Despite that, the British Council is being forced to find smaller premises.
We also know that 1992 was the year of the general election, and the year in which the Conservative party put in its election manifesto its commitment to a strengthened British Council and a strengthened BBC World Service--that has been referred to by several hon. Members. Until now, this has been a less well publicised broken promise of the Conservative Government. The Labour party intends to continue to draw attention to this issue.
My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Central recognised that the British Council has an impact far wider than Manchester and his constituency--that it is of worldwide significance, that it is an important part of Britain's role and image in the world, and that its work brings substantial economic, trading and other short-term and long-term benefits to this country that are difficult to calculate but are evident.
It has been said that the villain of the piece is the Treasury, in forcing these cuts on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. While I do not dissent from that, it seems to me that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has achieved particularly poor performance in defending those parts of its budget that are particularly useful, such as the British Council and the BBC World Service. The Minister will remember the strength of feeling in the debate on the BBC World Service earlier this Session.
The hon. Member for Torridge and West Devon(Miss Nicholson) referred to the position of the BBC World Service Television in Arabic. A few days ago, I asked the Minister a question in this regard. He replied:
In other words, the Minister has washed his hands of the future of the BBC Arabic service, which is unacceptable, given the Government's responsibility for the budget of the BBC World Service and the concern about the future of the Arabic service and the BBC World Service in general.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. Watson) and other hon. Members have said, the British Council has tried to be reasonable in its approach to the Government in the face of the huge problems it is encountering. The enormity of what is happening is only just starting to strike home, because it has not received the publicity that has been given to other issues. As a result of this debate, the Government can be in no doubt that there is great concern about this issue. Now that publicity has been given to the problem, we will not be satisfied until some proper action has been taken.
It is important to stress that we are talking about cuts on top of cuts--that is what is making the situation so difficult for the council. It was hard enough to manage the cuts that were already in train, but the practical and economic consequences of cuts on cuts will make the problems catastrophic.
The British Council contests the figures that the Government gave in the narrative report accompanying the expenditure of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. It has said that the report ignores the effect of cuts announced in the 1994 public expenditure round--cuts that take effect during the current survey period. The British Council has to face cuts of 16 per cent., rather than the 8 per cent. that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is facing as a whole. I should like the Minister to comment on that.
This morning, hon. Members have given examples of the ways in which these cuts will affect the services of the British Council--they may even result in some closures. The British Council also gave examples in its evidence to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. They seemed to me, and to other hon. Members, very alarming indeed.
For example, cutting services in central and eastern Europe seems to be a crazy and short-sighted decision when those countries are going through such a difficult transition period and need help, support and advice on a huge scale from western Europe and other parts of the world. It is particularly short-sighted if we are really interested in establishing long-term, good economic and political relationships with those countries. North Africa has also been mentioned. My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) referred to Nepal and to some of the work that the British Council does in the poorest countries.
What is the Minister going to tell us this morning? Is he going to say where he is prepared to see those cuts? He should not evade his responsibility. As he has put the British Council in this situation, he has to be open with hon. Members and say where he expects those cuts and closures to take place, and what problems will be created as a result.
The debate has shown that hon. Members who have spoken are familiar with, and appreciative and supportive of, the work of the British Council. I have participated in some of the conferences organised by the British Council, in particular a recent conference in Oxford that brought together participants from the European Union and from central and eastern Europe. That event was most worth while. I know that the contacts that are made in such forums are likely to have long-lasting and positive effects.
Today, hon. Members have referred to the cuts that the British Council is being forced to make, and have said that they are short-sighted and, in many ways, self-defeating. The value of the council's work is tremendous. The spin-off of its work is terribly important in terms of the British economy and good relationships with other countries.
I have had interesting contacts with the British Council in Japan, and I know that the work done in that office is of dramatic value to the United Kingdom economy. An example was given where the arts section of its budget--which is about £500,000 a year--helped to promote activity that was estimated to be worth £50 million. The figures provided by the British Council and some of the
activities that it has promoted show a 10:1 return on investment--sometimes the investment is modest, but it has enormous economic spin-offs.
We are also very worried about the costs of closures. The BBC World Service has made that point effectively, especially in its evidence to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. For example, the closure of the French service was estimated to cost £300 million, even though the overall cost saved was only £400 million, so one had to spend a tremendous amount simply to make such a closure. The British Council is especially worried about the cost of redundancies that will be caused by the loss of jobs resulting from the cuts.
I ask the Minister to give a specific commitment to give the British Council help with those redundancy costs. One of the problems that are especially acute at present, as the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Sir J. Lester) said, is that, if a decision to give some help with redundancies is not taken in the next few weeks, it will mean accelerated closures in some of the council's overseas operations--and the Minister must realise that no one who has spoken in the debate wants that.
The British Council is being put in an impossible position because it is required to live within the new rules, the new cuts, without adequate means of getting there. That is a real problem, which demands urgent negotiations with the Government and with the Minister. Perhaps the Minister will give us a commitment to hold urgent negotiations and discussions with the British Council.
I should like the Minister to give us an assurance that the cuts that we know affect the Overseas Development Administration, and which in turn affect the British Council, can be mitigated, so that the work of the ODA and of the British Council does not suffer disproportionately as a result of the contractual relationship between them to provide specific services.
"If we did not take the same view, we would have subjected the operating costs of the . . . British Council to cuts. We have not done so. That is an indication of our good faith."--[Official Report,29 November 1995; Vol. 267, c. 1189.]
"Decisions about any future developments are a matter for BBC Worldwide Television."--[Official Report, 29 April 1996; Vol. 276, c. 358.]
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