My Lords, the British Council plays an important role in supporting the UK’s soft power and interests around the world through its work in the arts, culture, education and the promotion of the English language. We are providing over £160 million grant in aid to the British Council this year alone, which underlines our support for its important work.
My Lords, last week, Scott McDonald, the chief executive of the British Council, told MPs that the council was going to sell all its assets and close 40 country programmes unless the Government reschedule a £197 million loan costing £12 million to £15 million in interest. The council has already sold its English language business in India and its school in Madrid, and is withdrawing from the frontier Baltic states. Why, given the crucial role of the British Council as a key instrument of soft power which is technically close to insolvency, has there been no resolution of the loan and grant in aid at all? Why is there—to quote its chief executive—a “complete unwillingness” to help? With these cuts in aid, to the BBC World Service and to the British Council, are the Government just managing the decline of Britain’s soft power from its former position of pre-eminence?
We are helping a lot. We provide about 16% or 17% of the British Council’s funding each year. There is an issue with an outstanding loan which was given as part of a Covid package by the previous Government. Terms for that loan were never agreed, and terms need to be agreed. We have organised an extension, in order for work to take place. As the noble Lord rightly says, the British Council is a vital part of the UK’s soft power internationally. It does a fantastic job, and we want to work with it to put it on a long-term, sustainable and stable footing.
My Lords, the Question we have just heard did not get a very reassuring Answer. Is this not precisely the sort of resource that we, as an advanced country, should be developing to underpin both our security and our trade? Is this not the sort of glue that binds together the Commonwealth countries, which are, of course, an expanding resource as well? Will the Minister tell her colleagues in the Foreign Office that most other countries recognise that Commonwealth power and soft power generally are part of our future? Will she encourage them to give a lot more attention to it than appears to be given in some commentators’ columns in certain newspapers, who frankly do not understand what is going on?
I am not going to make any comments about our newspapers today—I could, but I will not. We do a great deal of work with the British Council, which is an important part of soft power. We are, as I said, giving it £160 million each year and are working to help it restructure its loan. It needs to carry out modernisation work. It is getting on with that, which Scott McDonald is doing a very good job leading. However, our soft power in 2025 is not, if it ever was, just the British Council; it is the Premier League, our music, our cultural industries and the BBC—
There are so many different levers for soft power that may not have been there in the past, but that does not mean that the British Council is not central to our soft power around the world. We are committed to strengthening it and making sure that it can continue to do outstanding work well into the 21st century.
My Lords, I declare my interests as on the register. My noble friend the Minister will have the sentiment of the House on this matter and the overdue delay in resolving a Covid-era loan. Remembrance Day is the right day to remember that the British Council was founded 90 years ago, to fight fascism. It is the greatest soft power asset that this country has, and it is envied by friends and foe alike. The reality is that it is financially imperilled by a loan from the Covid era. Will my noble friend commit that the Foreign Secretary will now finally grip this issue and meet the leadership of the council to resolve the financial issues and allow it to continue to be the credit to this country that it has been in the past and should be in the future?
There is no lack of will to get this resolved. We need to see modernisation at the British Council; it is working hard at this and deserves credit for that. As the noble Baroness says, it is incredibly well-networked internationally, but I have to say that its network inside this House is equally impressive.
My Lords, the Minister referred a number of times in her answers to the important issue of UK soft power. In January, the then Foreign Secretary announced the UK Soft Power Council. We do not seem to have heard much about it since then, but the British Council is a member. Can the Minister confirm what the UK Soft Power Council’s role will be in promoting the UK abroad, how many times it has met since the announcement, and whether any of those roles are duplicating work that is already being undertaken by the British Council?
As the noble Lord says, the British Council is part of the Soft Power Council, which is a joint initiative between the FCDO and DCMS. It brings together the arts, heritage, Kew Gardens and the Premier League—many of the different soft power assets that the UK has—and the aim is to co-ordinate them and use them to best effect. I believe it has met three times now. I attended the first meeting and it met again after that, in Cardiff. I pay absolute credit to the people who are taking part and giving their time to do that. It has working groups as well, which get together and organise alongside it. It has the potential to do great things for the United Kingdom.
My Lords, the House will have heard in response to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, how the assets of the British Council are being threatened with dispersal. Among those assets is the important collection of works of art. Bearing in mind that these are public property, would not the appropriate outcome, if that unhappy event takes place, be for them to be allocated, along the lines of articles which are accepted in lieu of tax, to all the museums the length and breadth of the whole country?
I think we need a bit of reality here. The idea that the Treasury is going to accept art in lieu of a loan is a little fanciful. It is up to the British Council to decide what it wants to do with its assets. Setting aside the loan, the British Council still has work to do to make itself financially secure and sustainable into the future. It is getting on with that and doing a really good job of it. I commend the British Council for what it is doing. What it decides to do with its own assets is a matter for the British Council.