Lesser-taught languages

Mark Lazarowicz Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) on securing the debate. I am glad that we have a few more minutes than are normally available for Adjournment debates, so that some of his colleagues can comment on this important issue.

The debate highlights the changes proposed by examination boards in England, but the issue also affects my constituents very directly. Many people in Scotland, in my constituency and elsewhere, want to take exams in the so-called lesser-taught languages but cannot do so, because, even now, the Scottish Qualifications Authority offers a very limited range of subjects. People do take exams in subjects offered by examination boards elsewhere in the United Kingdom, but they have to pay the fees and travel to the approved centres because they cannot take them in Scotland. The only subjects offered by the SQA are Cantonese, French, Gaelic, German, Italian, Mandarin, Spanish and Urdu—and a small element of Polish in what is not a full national course. If exams in lesser-taught languages can no longer be taken in England, people from Scotland—and, presumably, in Wales and Northern Ireland—will not be able to gain these qualifications either.

Polish is my particular concern. As the hon. Gentleman said, it is the second most commonly spoken language in the United Kingdom, and is one of the foreign languages that have the most speakers in the UK. There are a great many Polish speakers in my constituency, which contains the largest number of Polish-born people in Scotland and one of the largest in the UK. Obviously, I have a certain personal interest and experience as well. I have been approached by members of a Polish community and others in Scotland who have been campaigning for the Scottish Government, the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish authorities to ensure that Polish is included in Scottish national examination courses, both at national 4 and 5 and at a higher level. That campaign is on much the same lines as the one described by the hon. Gentleman.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

rose—

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[Daniel Kawczynski]

The hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) is a very active member of the all-party group on Poland which I chair, and I hope he agrees with me about the strong representations we have had from the Polish Ambassador Mr Witold Sobków as to how strongly he and the Polish diaspora feel about the importance of the retention of the Polish A-level.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

The hon. Gentleman is right. As he says, there has been a campaign with strong support from the Polish community throughout the UK. Dziennik Polski has conducted a big campaign to which many of us have given our support.

There is an issue not just for people in Scotland who want to take exams in Polish, or other languages, or for people who are interested in studying Polish. As the hon. Member for Enfield North pointed out, many languages face being axed as examination subjects, at least in some parts of the UK. In so doing, we are underlining the reputation of the UK as being bad for languages. We all know that is the case anyway and this decision will only make it worse.

This is not just about people who want to learn a language because of family or connection with the diaspora, although that is an extremely important asset that we should be taking advantage of in encouraging economic links to other countries. It is also often important for cultural reasons and cultural cohesion. Anyone in the UK who wants to learn these languages will have a disincentive to do so if there is no examination at the end of the course. As has been said, that will diminish the economic well-being of this country and its ability to reach out to what are growing and important economies. Poland is the ninth largest UK export market, and the UK is the third largest investor in Poland. Turkish has been referred to as well, as has Portuguese, which is important in terms of reaching out to Brazil, one of the biggest economies in the world.

The examination authorities in England are therefore taking a short-sighted approach, which will have a direct effect on my constituents. It is also unfortunate that so far the Scottish examination authorities have not chosen to offer an exam in Polish and perhaps other languages as well. If anyone in the Scottish Government or their supporters in this House is paying attention to this debate, I hope they take that message back home, and I hope the Government here will take the steps highlighted by the hon. Member for Enfield North in trying to ensure this regrettable decision by the exam boards is reversed, so that the immense talent and ability which can be released by encouraging these languages to be learned and studied with a qualification at the end can be maximised for the benefit of the entire UK in the way that has been so amply outlined in this debate.

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[Mr Gibb]

There are genuine commercial factors that the awarding bodies have to take into account. We could compensate or pay awarding bodies to produce qualifications. I will deal with that point shortly.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

I look forward to the Minister coming to that point, and I hope he will show what the Government are going to do to encourage or even require the examining boards to meet the demand and the requirement for other languages that has been so clearly identified in this debate. We want not just good words, but action to make that happen.

[Mr Gibb]

I will come to that in a moment. First, I wanted to point out to my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North and to other hon. Members that OCR plans to continue offering an IGCSE in first language Turkish, which I hope will be of interest to many of my hon. Friend’s constituents who already speak Turkish.