FCDO Staffing Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Chris Stephens
Main Page: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)Department Debates - View all Chris Stephens's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
FCDO Staffing
Chris Stephens Excerpts(2 years, 4 months ago)
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James Cleverly
I am glad that my hon. Friend has raised his recent trip to Brazil. He is right to say that that country plays an important role commercially, agriculturally and environmentally, and I have no doubt that we will continue to make the most not only of our bilateral relationship with Brazil but of his language skills and experience in that incredibly important country.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
FCDO staff need only to look at the experiences of the staff at the British Council, a departmental agency, where there have been massive cuts and job losses. Will the Minister tell us what is being done to minimise redundancies at the British Council? Also, why was the decision taken to outsource the Turing scheme, which will undermine the jobs, skills and experience of the British Council staff?
James Cleverly
I remind the hon. Gentleman and the House that we have gone through an unprecedented financial contraction because of covid. The British Council, which derives a significant proportion of its income from tuition, has been hit because of the difficulty in providing tuition in the era of covid, but it has done genuinely fantastic work using technology to continue to provide those services. The Foreign Secretary and I recently had a meeting with the senior leadership of the British Council to discuss what we could do to protect the things that we value highly in terms of its delivery of soft power, to ensure that it not only survives but thrives, once we are able to get past this covid situation.