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9.55 am
Ms Patricia Hewitt (Leicester, West): I congratulate the right hon. Member for South-West Surrey (Mrs. Bottomley), my fellow vice-chair of the British Council, on securing this debate and on opening it with such an admirable summary of the British Council's extraordinary and far-ranging work. Like her, I was delighted to be invited towards the end of last year to take up the post of one of the vice-chairs.
I had the good fortune last summer, when I was in Australia, of taking part in one of the conferences attached to the New Images programme--a year-long event organised by the British Council in Australia, designed to change and modernise the attitude of Australians towards
the mother country, as it used to be known, and of those in this country towards Australia. Speaking as--I believe--the only citizen of both Australia and Britain to be a Member of this House, I know that those attitudes certainly needed updating.
Research carried out by the British Council at the beginning of the New Images programme suggested that young Australians in particular saw Britain as a class-divided society; as a musty old country steeped in tradition, with serious social problems. They saw it as having weak trading relationships, and as the producer of out-of-date products. New Images, a vibrant programme not simply of conferences but of exhibitions, touring cultural projects, virtual exchanges between schoolchildren in Australia and Britain and joint projects on the internet, quite remarkably penetrated more than half the Australian population. It achieved a change in attitude and a measurable increase in the number of young Australians in particular who wanted to visit and to study in this country.
The impact was summed up by one Australian journalist, who said:
Earlier this year, with the Minister, I had the pleasure of attending the British Council's conference in Prague--a fascinating and useful opportunity to bring together not only people from this country and from the Czech Republic but people from many of the other emerging democracies, the accession countries in the new Europe.
For me, the highlight of that conference was a discussion chaired by another dual British citizen--John Tusa, himself a Briton of Czech origin--on the question of identity, and what it means to be British in an increasingly multicultural and diverse country. For me, to have the opportunity to hold that discussion in a country and a city undergoing such an extraordinary change in its own identity was an admirable example of how the British Council not only contributes through relationship-building to the development of stronger democracies abroad, but learns from that participation and co-operation with people whose experience is so different from our own.
An exhibition took place in India towards the end of last year as part of our contribution to the celebration of 50 years of independence--"The Enduring Image" exhibition of treasures from the British museum, which was opened by Her Majesty the Queen in October. That exhibition was of particular interest to many of my constituents, for whom India is their mother country and second home. It brought a different facet of Britain to a country with which we have such a long and close relationship, and was ranked by Indian commentators as among the best of the cultural events during the 50th anniversary year.
As the right hon. Member for South-West Surrey said, the British Council has an extraordinary capacity to complement the work of the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office and our diplomatic missions overseas. It is the Heineken of British foreign policy; it reaches the parts that other bodies cannot reach.
In some of the ways that I have described, we help to promote the reality, not simply the image, of a modern, dynamic, creative Britain. Especially in our work on human rights, we support the Government's ethical foreign policy stance. We promote values that are of enduring importance.
I must mention in particular the council's work on gender issues. We have been instrumental in helping to promote and enhance the position of women politicians and potential women leaders in many parts of the world. For instance, in September 1997 we arranged a high-level two-day meeting in Cairo for women Members of Parliament from this country and their counterparts and colleagues from Egypt, east Jerusalem, Lebanon, Yemen, Tunisia, Morocco and Sudan. That enabled them to learn from our experience and us to learn from their experience, and enabled us all to help to devise effective strategies for developing women's position in countries in which they face particular difficulties.
Reema Hamami, head of the masters programme in gender development and law at Birzeit university, has said:
I must also mention the council's work in promoting the English language and "education, education, education". One way in which we do that, complementing the English language teaching referred to by the righthon. Member for South-West Surrey, is through our extraordinary network of libraries and computer centres throughout the world.
I have had the pleasure of visiting the library in Prague, although, unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands), I have not yet had the chance to see what I understand is a most impressive building in Hong Kong. Such libraries provide a resource for people in the 109 countries in which we operate, and people can walk in off the street--[Interruption.]
Mr. Nicholas Soames (Mid-Sussex):
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I do not like to interrupt the hon. Lady's admirable speech, but is it necessary for those pagers to go off so loudly in the House of Commons? Are Labour Members sounding a little off-message?
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin):
The noise sounds more like a Black and Decker drill than a pager. We shall have it investigated.
Ms Hewitt:
Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker--
Mr. Denis MacShane (Rotherham):
It is a bit early for the vibration.
Ms Hewitt:
I should be delighted to lend the hon. Gentleman my pager, if he would like to experience its delicate low-tone vibration for himself.
Mr. MacShane:
That is an offer to take up--[Hon. Members: "He is getting over-excited."] We shall have to give him a Viagra pill as well.
Ms Hewitt:
May I return to slightly more serious business, Mr. Deputy Speaker?
Mr. Rowlands:
I apologise for interrupting my hon. Friend, but she mentioned the facilities in Prague. I visited those before the fall of the old regime, and the role of the British Council at that time in making connections with information and with individual citizens, who often ran great risks in getting access to our library facilities, was most memorable.
Ms Hewitt:
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving that example, because when I was in Prague it was clear that we had been able to build on those relationships, which were established before the change of regime.
I can give another example--from Indonesia, which has recently undergone appalling economic and political turmoil. When the British Council reopened our office and library there after a period of enforced closure, in the first three hours 400 people came in to get back into contact with the outside world through the English language and the British Council resources. That is another wonderful example of the people-to-people relationships that we can construct.
The British Council has now established a website, which receives more than 1 million visits a month. I urge right hon. and hon. Members who have not yet visited it to do so. It is a comprehensive website which acts as a virtual gateway to Britain for millions of people throughout the world.
The right hon. Member for South-West Surrey also talked about finance and administration. Two years ago, we had the misfortune to undergo substantial cuts in the British Council budget, but they were entirely absorbed within the United Kingdom operation; they did not fall upon the overseas operation. As a result of that painful and difficult process, we are now confident--and our confidence is upheld by independent audit--that we are running the most efficient possible operation.
We are a public-private partnership in action. The grant in aid that we receive from the Foreign Office--and which, until the comprehensive spending review, we also received from the Department for International Development--is more than matched by the funds that we raise and earn through our own trading in services and enterprise.
Like the right hon. Member for South-West Surrey, I regret the fact that changes in the way in which the Department for International Development is organising its programme support to developing countries have produced a sharp downturn in the Department's demand for our services, particularly for project management
services in parts of Africa, the middle east and India. Those changes result from the shift in development philosophy--which began before the election--away from specific projects, which require project management, towards sector development programmes in partnership with the recipient Governments.
I hope that, in the new development world, there will still be a real need for the expertise that the British Council has brought to bear through the services that we have offered in international development for several years--even if, in future, those services are delivered through recipient Governments, rather than brokered through the Department.
In particular, I warmly welcome the settlement for the British Council announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the comprehensive spending review statement yesterday. It is immensely welcome. The British Council had been planning for a standstill budget--that is to say, a cash-limited budget that would stand still in money terms but fall in real value. Had that been the situation, we would have had to start cutting into programmes in other parts of the world. That threat no longer faces us.
Instead, we have not just the inflation-proofing of our budget, but more than £5 million of new money over the next three years. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development has said, that is welcome and will enable the council to retain and build on its extraordinarily valuable work. It will not permit, as my right hon. Friend rightly said, investment in our estate, buildings and information technology, which badly need modernising. I hope that the Minister will indicate that he and the Department would look on it favourably if the British Council were to come forward with a proposal to fund that necessary capital expenditure through a formal public-private partnership. It seems to be admirably fitted for that approach, and I hope that it will be taken.
Following the comprehensive spending review, we know what the budget will be for the next three years. We know also that the Foreign Office wishes to focus its activities, both geographically and in terms of theme. It is vital that the British Council and its leadership engage in a dialogue with Ministers and with the FCO, to look at how we focus our work around the world. We want to ensure that we do everything as superbly as we currently do the best of our work.
"Ye Olde Mother Country is undergoing a personality change so dramatic it's breathtaking--as if your old grandmother suddenly started wearing Gucci jump-suits".
We clearly did not get through to him completely, because, in the light of the men's fashion exhibition this week, he should have referred to Paul Smith rather than Gucci. None the less, the programme was extraordinarily striking and successful, and funded almost entirely through private sponsorship, levered in on the back of the public grant in aid that we at the council were able to contribute.
"One of the great strengths of the British Council in East Jerusalem is that it responds to local needs instead of imposing pre-selected frameworks. The Council has been an important supporter of work for gender equity and the promotion of gender-legislation, development of local capacity and the integration of gender as a fundamental component in the development process."
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development has repeatedly stressed that it is vital and central to any effective development strategy that we invest in the capacity and the abilities of women as well as men in developing countries.
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