British Council

Stephen Kinnock Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. I congratulate the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (David Warburton) on securing this important debate.

I must declare an interest. I worked for many years at the British Council, with overseas postings in Brussels, St Petersburg and Sierra Leone. I will always remember my time at the council fondly and with a sense of pride. In Brussels, I saw how British skills and know-how could be deployed to support the transition of the former eastern bloc countries to democracy and the market economy, through the European Commission’s aid programmes. In St Petersburg, I was proud to be the director of an operation offering young Russians the opportunity to learn English and engage in a range of cultural and educational projects. In Sierra Leone, I was honoured to be a part of the huge impact of the council’s work in building the capacity of that country’s Government. It is for those reasons and more that I am such a firm believer in the organisation we are discussing today.

As hon. Members will know, the British Council is the world’s outstanding example of a successful soft power institution. It is the model that all other countries try to emulate when developing their soft power networks. It is respected, professional and diversified and we are fortunate to have such a positive face to present to the world. As the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome has already mentioned, the council was founded to create

“a friendly knowledge and understanding between the people of the UK and the wider world”

and has been promoting the values of fairness, democracy, tolerance and dialogue across the world for decades. But the magic of the British Council is that it does not promote those values by way of megaphones or propaganda; rather, it operates through the mediums of exchange and long-term relationship building.

The council understands that communication at its best will be a two-way conversation between the UK and the rest of the world, with each side listening to and learning from the other. It is founded on the principle that the Brits do not have all the answers. It is a vehicle for building trust through honest and open dialogue, as opposed to banging the drum for Britain, which can be so counterproductive. At a time when we are more interconnected as a planet than ever before and trust is a rare commodity, the long-term trust and confidence-building work of the British Council has never been more important; its values are the ones we require if we are to minimise culture clash and the violence that can often result from it.

Through the British Council, we engage civil society in countries where the Governments are not always our closest allies. We propagate a love for our art and music around the world. We can build grassroots understanding of democratic practices, harness the power of sport to inspire and engage young people from all over the world, and promote ourselves as a top-rung tourist destination and trading partner. Through the council, we ensure that the propaganda our enemies disseminate about us is dismantled. Why then is the council facing such huge cuts, when we can all agree that its work is more important than ever?

This year, the council’s FCO grant was increased by £10 million, to reflect its effectiveness in delivering ODA.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

On the issue of spending and ODA, does the hon. Gentleman agree that the British Council’s valuable work is put in jeopardy by a reduction of more than 50%, looking back just five years, in terms of ODA spend and that that needs to be examined very closely in the forthcoming review?

[Stephen Kinnock]

I do. ODA has been given as a demonstration of the effectiveness of the council’s work in least developed countries. The major challenge the council faces is the reduction in the FCO grant, which has been eroded constantly over the years. As the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome mentioned, the fundamental problem is that that increases the council’s reliance on commercially generated funding. We all acknowledge and welcome the council’s ability to raise that type of funding, but the reduction in grant funding reduces its flexibility to operate wherever it needs to in this rapidly changing world. I absolutely agree that the reduction in the grant is having a negative impact on the council’s ability to deliver across the board.

[Mr Baron]

In addition, is not there another concern about the decrease in FCO funding? It will not simply be a case of having to make up the lost income—and with regard to commercial activities, that can be many times the factor of the income required, as a turnover of £100 million may just about produce a profit of £10 million, and the reduction from the FCO grant would be £50 million over five years. As the British Council becomes more commercial to make up the lost revenue, its integrity and credibility could also be threatened. Does the hon. Gentleman consider that a risk as well?

[Stephen Kinnock]

I do. Also, as I will go on to argue later, the council’s English language teaching and exam work is important, makes a big impact and is very lucrative, but it tends to be for the elites in the societies where the council is operating. It is the high end of English language learning and people pay top dollar for it. If we are saying that it is important that we engage with the disaffected, disfranchised youths who are potentially going to become a security risk for us, it is arguable that that section of society will not be able to pay for those English language courses. Looking at the council’s strategic objectives and values, it is important that its reach is wide and that it goes into sections of society that its English language teaching and exams administration simply cannot reach.

The grant represents just 16% of the British Council’s funding. The rest is earned, as we have been discussing, and those earnings are projected to increase. Despite that good news, all is not financially rosy at the council. The FCO grant was reduced to £154 million in 2014-15, down from £201 million in 2009-10, so despite the extra £10 million in ODA, cuts to projects are having to be made. The choice for the council is stark: either a managed decline in its scale and reach, or growing its self-generated income to continue its work. The council has been forced to choose the latter, but should it have to and do we want it to?

Of course, it is truly commendable that the council’s English teaching and exam management can generate enough income from those who can afford to pay to fund projects aimed at those who cannot. Work done administering exams, managing international contracts and fostering corporate partnerships is important, but the more money that is raised from commercial sources, the more the British Council’s core purpose becomes divorced from its soft power potential. My concern is also that language teaching and exams are expensive, and so tend to benefit elites. Grant-funded activity is far more likely to have a wider reach.

We must recognise that, if the British Council is to remain an important wing of British diplomacy, public funding must remain an important element of its financial base. That is crucial for accountability and flexibility, and to supporting the council’s activities in fragile, unstable states, where it is harder for the council to raise the private funds to enable it to build long-term, mutually beneficial relationships with future leaders. It is an important fact that one in five world leaders studied in the UK; we are talking about a brand that we can, and do, export, but without public funding, it stops being linked to Britain as a country and becomes just another product.

ODA money is specifically for British Council work in areas that are of key interest from a security and stability perspective. Those areas are current flashpoints, and the money is crucially needed. In Tunisia, for example, a fledgling democracy is trying to embody all the original hopes of the Arab spring, but more of the foreign jihadists in Iraq and Syria originate there than in any other country. The British Council runs debating clubs across Tunisia—a programme that it wants to grow tenfold and that successfully engages young people at risk of radicalisation. For Tunisia, whose economy relies so much on tourism, the good publicity afforded by successful British Council projects feeds into confidence that the country can move on and rebuild after recent horrors.

ODA funding also goes towards co-operation work with countries such as China and India, where engaging with societies that are growing increasingly prosperous is an investment in our future.

The debate is about how best to build trust between Britain and the rest of the world, and nobody does that better than the British Council. More ODA money would maintain its public funding and consolidate its position as a respected arm of British diplomacy. The Government’s spending review is coming up, and my colleagues and I urge the Minister to communicate that request in the strongest terms to the Chancellor.

During his Grant Park acceptance speech in 2008, Barack Obama famously stated that the true strength of a nation is demonstrated

“not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals”.

I urge the Minister to take note and to ensure that the outstanding nature of the work done by the British Council is adequately reflected in the comprehensive spending review.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tristram Hunt]

Things happen so fast these days. We are all looking forward to the remarkable events that will take place in Wembley, and I hope the Minister will be assisting with them. We have a very complicated and long relationship with India, and although many young Indians have a relative lack of interest in the colonial past, they have a great interest in, and passion for, Britain and the meaning of Britain. The British Council has helped to shape some of the debate on that.

Colleagues have rightly made the case for funding and support for the British Council. Its work is profound and important. When I visited its offices, however, I got a sense that the demands of English language teaching and the business model that that involves sometimes overwhelmed the broader functions of those offices. Clearly, we need those offices to be income generators, but we should not lose sight of the British Council’s broader functions and purpose.

I would be delighted to see more money going to the British Council and a return to its previous funding. I have no problem with more of those resources coming from the Department for International Development. It is no secret in Whitehall that DFID cannot get the stuff out of the door quick enough, although it does not always go in the most effective directions. The British Council, however, is incredibly effective.

[Stephen Kinnock]

As my hon. Friend will know, one of the council’s important functions is to manage programmes such as Erasmus, as well as English language teaching assistants going out to other countries, particularly those in the European Union. Does he agree that Britain’s membership of the European Union is an important aspect of the backdrop to the British Council’s work in demonstrating that the United Kingdom is an engaged international partner that, in particular, gives opportunities to young people in other European countries?

[Tristram Hunt]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In a sense, the British Council serves two purposes: promoting an understanding of modern Britain in modern Europe; and providing young people with extraordinary opportunities to learn other languages on the European continent and to see themselves as part of a broader European culture. It is one of the sadnesses of recent years that we have seen the decline of linguistic abilities in our schools, and the British Council is working to counter that.

There are broader trends that pose a risk to the British Council’s work. First, as my hon. Friend said, we have a great tradition of world-class universities in this country and an extraordinary history of people from around the world coming here to take part in higher education. It is crazy that we include those people in the migration figures. That is an example of the dark hand of the Home Office holding Britain back from achieving what it needs and wants to do. We should welcome those young people, who will build up relationships with the British Council and build cultural relationships in the future.

Britain’s cultural footprint is something that we all celebrate. A very good series by Dominic Sandbrook about Britain’s modern cultural power is on the television at the moment. I am afraid that the Government’s education reforms are undermining that. Yesterday I was at a very good school: Burntwood school in south London, which won the Stirling prize for architecture. I was told that as a result of reforms, it is beginning to strip away art, music, drama and photography, so a different Department is progressively undermining the things that we celebrate as elements of Britain’s reach in the world. If a debate such as this happens in 20 or 30 years, will Members be celebrating British cultural achievements to the same extent and will they be able to celebrate British cultural reach in relation to young people’s opportunities in state as well as private education? If we are to feed the British Council and support its work in the future, we should not turn our eyes from our education system.

I am taking part in the debate to support the work of the British Council and the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (David Warburton), whom I congratulate on securing the debate. He has put his neck on the line, and his future career will depend on achieving real-terms increases to the British Council’s budget—we will watch with interest how he achieves that. As ever, I am sure that he will have the full backing of the Labour party.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

I was not going to speak in the debate, but given that there is a little time available, I shall contribute briefly—I am grateful for the opportunity. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (David Warburton) on securing this important debate, which is timely, given the advent of the spending review at the end of the month.

I think that all those who have spoken in the debate accept that the British Council is a valuable institution. It does great and sterling work in encouraging co-operation and improving communication, and it makes a great contribution to Britain’s soft power capability. I mentioned earlier that Joseph Nye cited the British Council as the original forerunner of the concept of soft power when it was formed in 1934. The concept has moved on, obviously, and we now talk about smart power as well as soft power, but it is important to bring the discussion back to soft power. Although the term is somewhat abused, the concept is perhaps more relevant today, in this uncertain world, than it has been for a long time. Joseph Nye defined it as

“the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payment”.

We are not alone in recognising the importance of soft power. Many other countries, including some—without wishing to name names—whose credibility is far less than ours in this context, if only because they are not democracies, are realising that soft power is an increasingly important part of an effective, full-spectrum response to the threats that they face. We would do well to learn from that in the UK. We have been through a decade, if not 12 years, when we have seen examples of hard power not providing the solutions that the Government hoped for, including our interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan post-2006, when we allowed the mission to morph into one of nation building, and Libya. Another is our positioning on Syria, where initially the objective was to support the rebels, although we have now realised that that is where the greater threat lies, so we have rightly turned on them—or elements of them, such as ISIL, al-Nusra and al-Qaeda.

We should realise by now that hard power solutions are not always what we hope they will be. That should remind us of the importance of soft power in this increasingly complex and uncertain world, yet we are cutting funding to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which is in turn cutting funding for its various activities, including its support of the British Council. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State may disagree with me about one or two aspects of our hard power interventions, but I think that he and I can agree—he may not be able to do so publicly—that we should not cut funding to the FCO in these times. If anything, we should increase its funding, at a time of increasing uncertainty, because we need our eyes and ears on the ground. We need our expertise in foreign policy issues generally to be properly funded as that can save additional costs and prevent mistakes further down the line.

I rail against further cuts to the British Council. We have heard about funding being cut from £201 million to, I think, £154 million. Okay, there has been a £10 million increase since, but that is still a substantial cut of something like £40 million to a budget of £200 million in the past five years. The British Council has been left in a difficult situation because it must either scale back its activities, which cannot be good for many people around the world, or the UK, when it comes to soft power capability, or become more commercial. A sum of £40 million may not sound a lot in today’s world where figures of billions are bandied around, but to generate that £40 million, assuming a profit margin of 10%, the British Council will really have to gear up its commercial activity.

Although there are early indications that the British Council is coping, there is a risk that as it tries to become more commercial and enterprising—I accept that there is always room for improvement in such areas—its activity will begin to feed back against it, in the sense that its commercial activities will begin to erode its credibility and integrity. A great part of its strength is its quasi-independent approach, but if it is becoming more commercial, the danger is that that will be eroded in many respects. Will the Minister address that fundamental point? This concern is shared by not only me and other hon. Members, but many people within the British Council, as well as outsiders and experts.

[Stephen Kinnock]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the effect on the reputation of the British Council and the United Kingdom is an important aspect of the discussion of financing? Is there a risk of a negative reputational effect if the British Council starts to be perceived as a money-making machine in the economies where it works, rather than an organisation concerned with building mutually beneficial partnerships?

[Mr Baron]

I tend to agree, but there is a balance. In defence of what happened previously, I would say that when the funding was £200 million, there were always commercial activities in the British Council, especially through the teaching of English overseas, for which its reputation is second to none. I agree, but I am trying to get across the point that as the British Council must increasingly gear up, in a commercial sense, to make good sizeable funding cuts—something like 20% in the past five years—there is a risk of losing sight of the balance. I ask the Minister of State to consider that and give us his response, because I, like the other Members in the Chamber, worry about the integrity and credibility of the British Council. That needs to be addressed, and it is a concern that has been expressed by those at the top table of the British Council itself.

I am conscious of time, but I will quickly move to another aspect of the funding that worries me. This might be partly the fault of the five-year political cycle, but we lose sight of the longer term when it comes to these sorts of funding issues. I suggest to the Minister that although these short-term cuts might meet a financial envelope set over a relatively small timeframe, there is a real danger that by making them now, we are creating false economies. The very nature of the British Council’s work means that we are talking about intangible benefits: the improvement of communication; fostering good relations with future world leaders when it comes to the UK; and increasing communication and education links. The benefit of all those intangibles cannot, in all honesty, be quantified, but we know they exist and can become more valuable in times of crisis. These short-term cuts could create false economies over the longer term.

Most generations that have preceded us believed that they lived in a safe and stable environment, certainly compared with their predecessors, but if history teaches us one thing, it is that this is an increasingly uncertain world, with variables that need to be catered for and anticipated as far as possible. The value of soft power in helping us to meet and address those uncertainties will increase as time passes, yet what is this country doing? It is cutting funding to its soft power capabilities, and not only the British Council. Although one accepts that funding for the BBC World Service has been transferred to the licence fee, there is still pressure on it, so that is another aspect of our soft power that is having to tighten its belt.

I argue that the FCO itself should be better funded and should not have to face the current cuts. We need a properly sighted foreign policy apparatus with the expertise to face increasing challenges, yet what are we doing? We are making further cuts to that as well. As long as I am a Member of this place, I will continue—unpopular though it may be for certain Front Benchers—to make the case for increased funding for the FCO, in the hope that one day someone will listen. To be better sighted and to have the in-house expertise to ensure that we do not make the sorts of mistake we have made over the past 10 or 12 years in our foreign policy interventions, for example, is a saving that is well worth making. Such an approach would lead to considerable savings further down the line that would far exceed the short-term savings we are achieving by having to cut the FCO budget.