Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what studies his Department has commissioned or conducted on the worldwide reach of British soft power assets.

​The FCO draws on a wealth of independent, external studies which assess soft power. These include the Portland Soft Power 30, Elcano Global Presence Index, Global Power City Index, the Anholt GfK Nations Brand and the IFG-Monocle Survey.

The British Council has produced several studies looking at UK soft power, such as the 2018 Value of Trust report, which surveyed young people in G20 countries, and the 2017 report Soft Power Today, which examined the impact of investment in soft power.

In addition, the Government conducts a global poll of perceptions of UK as part of the 'GREAT' campaign, alongside its 'return on influence' measurement framework.

It is clear that the reach of British soft power assets is significant: the British Council alone worked directly with 75 million people in 2017-18. The BBC is the world's largest international broadcaster, reaching 347 million people worldwide in over 40 languages.