Select Committee on Foreign Affairs Fourth Report


6  THE WORK OF THE FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE IN SOUTH ASIA

278. The UK is represented by post across South Asia. In India the High Commission in New Delhi is supported by Deputy High Commissions in Chennai, Kolkata and Mumbai. There is also a Tourist Assistance Office in Goa, Trade Offices in Pune, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Bangalore and a British Information Centre in Chandigarh. In Pakistan, the UK is represented by a High Commission in Islamabad, a Deputy High Commission in Karachi and a Trade Office in Lahore. The Embassy in Kabul in Afghanistan is being expanded. The UK also has High Commissions in Colombo in Sri Lanka and Dhaka in Bangladesh, as well as an Embassy in Kathmandu in Nepal.[570]

279. DfID has 111 staff based in Delhi and 16 staff spread across its focus states of Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and West Bengal.[571] The British Council has a network of 11 centres across India: 4 centres in New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata, and 7 British Libraries in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bhopal, Chandigarh, Hyderabad, Pune and Trivandrum.[572]

280. When we visited Mumbai, a city which is the key driver of India's economic growth, we were concerned by the standard of the premises in which the Deputy High Commission is housed. The tired building required a significant amount of refurbishment and did not promote a very positive image of the UK. It was also a difficult place to work because UKTI was divided from the remaining sections by five floors, with very long waits for lifts. We were also concerned about security arrangements, given the site's proximity to the main road. We were told that the leases for the current premises were due to expire in the next 12 to 15 months and we wrote to the Foreign Secretary urging her to take a decision on a future investment as quickly as possible in order to avoid increasing costs for the tax payer in a city of rising property prices. We also argued that it would be shortsighted not to invest in building new premises, as this would reduce wider running costs in the long term. The Foreign Secretary replied to us in confidence for reasons of market confidentiality.

281. We recommend that the Government should make a long-term investment in premises in Mumbai to ensure the United Kingdom is not left behind in a city that is driving India's economic growth.

Consular work

282. One of the main responsibilities of the posts in South Asia is to offer assistance to UK nationals. The figures below illustrate the scale of the work the consular sections undertake.


Source: Ev 61

283. During our visits to South Asia we heard about some of the important work being carried out by consular staff. For example, in Pakistan we learnt about the links that had been established with the police, civil society and NGOs in order to change the law, as well as attitudes, with respect to victims of forced marriages. We asked the Secretary of State whether the consular services in South Asia were sufficiently staffed. She replied:

284. We welcome the work being done by the FCO's consular services in South Asia.

UK visas

285. Another key area of work is that of visa entry clearance. India is the UK's largest visa operation and applications are expected to rise to over 400,000 in financial year 2006-07.[574] When we last visited the British High Commission in New Delhi in 2003, there were large queues of visa applicants waiting outside. In February 2003, visa applications were outsourced to Visa Facilitation Services (VFS), a subsidiary of Kuoni Travel. We visited one of the eleven application centres in Chennai and were impressed by the difference it had made to the application process. However, during conversations with staff in the Visa Section at the Deputy High Commission in Chennai we learnt that problems were still occurring because the Department for Education and Skills' register of recognised educational institutions was not being sufficiently well policed.

286. We conclude that the outsourcing of visa applications in India has made a big improvement to the application process. We recommend that the FCO work with the Department for Education and Skills to ensure that its register of recognised educational institutions is well policed.

British Council and educational links

287. The British Council explained that it viewed South Asia as a region "of high priority for the UK's public diplomacy."[575] It added:

    In recent years we have increased our resources to the region, and plan both to raise the level of impact in India and move more resources out of our European operations to other high priority countries in the region over the next three years to enable us to tackle the issues of critical importance to the UK's public diplomacy.[576]

288. During our visit to India we heard that the British Council was changing its approach to in order to target a younger generation of 15-35 year olds. It explained:

    We plan to reach 0.75 million young people directly, 2 million indirectly, 6 million through remote reach via the media, and 10 million through remote reach via the web. […]

    We are moving from high volume programmes of events to 'fewer, bigger, better' activities which make greater impact and are more closely focused on the audiences we want to reach.[577]

289. A key area of the British Council's work is promoting study opportunities in the UK, with the UK's educational ties with India estimated to be worth over £420million per year.[578] The UK is now recovering from a generation of students lost to the US, an issue on which we reported in our inquiry into "The Future Role of the Commonwealth" in 1996.[579] In its 2005-06 annual report the British Council stated that:

    "[f]rom low in the rankings India has risen to be the third biggest supplier of students to the UK, with over 20,000 Indians now enrolled in UK further and higher education—a figure we expect to grow by more than ten per cent a year in the years ahead."[580]

Applications from Indian students to study in the UK increased by more than 250 per cent between 2000-01 and 2005-06.[581]

290. However, competition from other countries remains high. The US and Australia "are also seeking to expand their ties in areas such as education, ICT and science".[582] Dr Smith told us that "the UK's one big advantage is the English language, although many linkages are increasingly being transferred to the US rather than to the UK, such as education for Indian students. In the past, many of the Indian elite went to universities in the UK; in the future, the US will challenge those UK advantages."[583]

291. The British Council stated that:

    We conducted some 80,000 examinations on behalf of UK examination boards, exposing many young aspirational Indians to UK educational opportunities.[584]

During our visit we were told that the British Council had worked with the British High Commission and UKvisas to produce a DVD to help students with the visa application process.

292. At the 2005 India-UK summit, the Prime Ministers announced the UK-India Education and Research Initiative to improve educational and research links between India and the UK. This pledged £10million of UK government funding (through the FCO, Department for Education and Skills and the British Council) plus corporate sponsorship, with the aim of making India and the UK "once again each other's preferred partner in education".[585] The FCO explained that the Treasury had since given a further £2million to the Initiative, the Indian Government £6million and nearly £2million had been received in funds and in kind from industry.[586] The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP, announced the successful applicants in the first round of research awards under the Initiative during his visit to India in January 2007.

293. We welcome the British Council's decision to target more funding on South Asia. We also conclude that the British Council is right to change its approach in order to make itself more relevant to the new generation of Indians.

294. The establishment of the UK-India Education and Research Initiative is very important for the UK to maintain a strong position in the higher education market and we recommend that the Government continue to work to strengthen the promotion of bilateral educational links.

BBC World Service

295. The BBC World Service explained that it:

BBC World viewing stands at 16 million in India which is South Asia's largest market.[588]

296. In India, there are currently restrictions placed on international companies broadcasting news on FM. This is important as short wave is in decline in many rural areas. The FM market is gradually being deregulated and the BBC World Service stated that it expected restrictions to be lifted shortly. Consequently BBC Hindi was

    gearing up to enter the FM market in the main cities in India, as soon as government restrictions on news broadcasts are lifted. The BBC already has a foot in the door, via commercially-run BBC Worldwide which has gone into partnership with a local FM operator in Delhi.[589]

297. We recommend that the Government set out in its response to this Report what representations have been made to remove Indian restrictions on broadcasting news so that BBC World Service can broadcast on the FW wavelength.



570   www.fco.gov.uk/ Back

571   www.dfidindia.org/ Back

572   Ev 172 Back

573   Q 165 Back

574   Ev 57 Back

575   Ev 170 Back

576   Ev 170 Back

577   Ev 170 Back

578   Ev 168, para 2 Back

579   Foreign Affairs Committee, First Report of Session 1995-1996, The Future Role of the Commonwealth, HC 45-I,

para 120

 Back

580   British Council, Measuring Success: Annual Report 2005-06 Back

581   Ev 176 Back

582   Ev 170 Back

583   Q 6 Back

584   Ev 170 Back

585   Ev 168 Back

586   Ev 46 Back

587   Ev 109 Back

588   Ev 138 Back

589   Ev 137 Back


 
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Prepared 4 May 2007