BRITISH COUNCIL

HC Deb 09 February 1972 vol 830 cc1351-432

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House takes note of the First Report from the Select Committee on Expenditure in Session 1970–71 and of the related Special Report—[Mr. du Cann.]

4.8 p.m.

Mr. Lewis Carter-Jones (Eccles)

May I say to the Chairman of the Expenditure Committee that my Sub-Committee will be very grateful to him for allowing this report from a previous Session to be accepted, because a considerable amount of work has been done by hon. Members on both sides of the House, by the Committee Clerk, our secretary, by certain members of missions overseas and by the British Council itself. It is for that reason that I am most grateful to the Chairman and this Committee for allowing this particular report to go through.

Although I could have dealt at great length with this very expansive report, I have felt that perhaps we ought to reply to the detailed observations we have had from the British Council and from the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. I believe that my Sub-Committee would join with me in saying that the fact that we have had a joint report causes us great alarm and concern. The fact that the British Council, which prides itself on its independence, should have had to make a sub- mission together with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office tends to confirm what the Sub-Committee found at every stage of its investigation.

I ought to say at the outset that the Sub-Committee was agreed, and it was completely unanimous, that the British Council was doing a first-class job for Britain, and we felt that the Foreign Office was poking in its nose where it really had no concern.

I say that with a qualification. It is that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office must make up its mind whether the British Council is completely independent or whether the Department is to interfere. It cannot have it both ways. The Council tries to hold up its head, insisting that it is completely independent. However, as soon as it tries to take independent action, it is sat upon by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office—[Interruption.]I am glad to note that I have the support of a number of hon. Gentlemen opposite when I say that.

In this connection, we found a remarkable state of affairs in Germany. The Germans were completely straight forward. They told us that where a cultural relations organisation is sponsored by the German Government, the Government are in on it and its activities are part of their foreign policy. The Germans were completely honest about it. Apparently, it is only we who prevaricate.

I turn next to a matter which may affect the Treasury. The Sub-Committee's first two recommendations are concerned to see that the British Council should not be forced to withdraw representation for financial reasons, and, secondly, that for four, five or even six years in advance, the Council should know precisely how much money it has to spend.

It appeared to the Sub-Committee that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, influenced by the Treasury, was sometimes, for the sake of a very small sum of money, compelled to withdraw British Council representatives, with disastrous effects on the relationship between ourselves and the country concerned. It is a great tribute to the British Council that it is accepted, welcomed and often blessed in the countries where it gives its services. When representation is withdrawn, the impact on our relations with the country concerned is frequently out of all proportion.

Frequently, we were talking in terms of £50,000 or £60,000. No one in his right mind will say that it is worth while jeopardising international relationships for the sake of such a small sum. Accordingly, the Sub-Committee's first observation was to suggest that the Treasury, supported, I hope, by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, ought to make quite sure that British Council funds are available for a continuing period of time so that no embarrassment arises.

The Sub-Committee, made up of a mixed bag of back bench hon. Members from both sides of the House, found itself questioning senior British Council staff and senior Foreign Office representatives overseas, as well as junior staff. No matter how long our questioning went on, we found that they welcomed the fact that we were challenging certain assumptions. In terms of feed-back, we were told time and time again by long-serving members of the British Council and of the Diplomatic Corps that they found it extremely challenging to have to answer questions which involved discussions of their practices and procedures.

One point of interest which arose in Germany is worthy of mention. In the developed countries, the British Council ought to think very carefully about the vast sums of money that it spends on libraries. In many towns in highly developed countries, the chances are that public libraries have better English sections than most British Council libraries. Six or seven Members of Parliament full of energy who are let loose for a quarter of an hour in a library are able to flick open a large number of books to discover how many times they have been taken out of the library. I am sorry to report that we did this during our German visit, only to find that the overwhelming majority of books had never been borrowed. That is not to say that the British Council is not performing a useful function. However, it should think twice about stocking a library in a highly developed country.

We did exactly the same exercise in British Council libraries in Nigeria and Ethiopia. We found that in most books there was hardly any more room for entries, so many times had they been borrowed. I hope that the British Council will look carefully at its policy in this connection.

With the exception of one issue which it discusses, the Duncan Report met with the Sub-Committee's complete agreement. The one point of disagreement concerned the report's assumption that we are going into Europe. I do not intend to go into that at the moment. However, Duncan said that a lot more effort should be spent in Europe. Disagreeing with that, my Sub-Committee was completely unanimous in its view that the British Council could do the greatest amount of good in the underdeveloped countries. Since the British Council's finances had been stabilised and since there seemed to be no end to inflation, we felt that the greatest effort should be put overseas in under-developed countries, where we are made welcome, where tremendous use is made of our resources, and where we can do an even greater job in the long run.

The Sub-Committee was tremendously proud as a result of its visits to Addis Ababa, Lagos and Ibadan. We talk sometimes about the use to which we put rooms. Never have I seen libraries used as intensively as they are in those three centres. People queue for the right to sit there. Any British tax payer would have been proud to see what we did, and would have said, "If I am voting money for this cause, it is well worth-while". However, it should be pointed out that people queue to study, sometimes bringing their own books. That may be a minor criticism. Nevertheless, the use which is made of the books in our libraries in those three African towns has to be seen to be believed.

Everywhere we went, British Council representatives welcomed our questioning of its work methods. I am delighted to report that the Council has decided to invite independent people to challenge it in the future about the work that it is doing.

We encountered one matter which caused us some grievance and some sadness. We cannot understand why the Director-General should be appointed as a result of advertising. I make no bones about the fact that I do not like a "trawl". The idea of pushing out a net and trying to pick up the appropriate man seems to be about the most inefficient method of all. It is like saying "I want to catch a particular herring in the North Sea, so I shall trawl for it." I think we should use a combination of advertising and invitation and the existing staff should be allowed to feel that they have a chance to claim the job.

Although we made these observations, which were strong and forceful I think that in fairness to Sir John Henniker I ought to say that no criticism, implied or otherwise, was levelled at him. We wanted to put this on record, because if something financed from central funds cannot or will not accept that a public appointment should be publicly advertised we must be failing badly in our duty.

Perhaps the most exciting thing we saw—and I should like to talk about some of the exciting things—was in Addis Ababa.

Mr. Hugh Delargy (Thurrock)

My hon. Friend may have finished the point he made about the Director-General, but surely he must be aware now that the recommendation has been accepted wholeheartedly by the executive committee, which advertised the appointment last October and the matter has been going forward to proper selection.

Mr. Carter-Jones

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing that point to my notice. The Chairman of the Expenditure Committee will now realise that, even if only for this reason, by allowing our report to go through he has done a power of good. We are most grateful to him for that.

The exciting thing we saw in Addis Ababa was a small number of enthusiastic people working on a shoestring, doing a wonderful job. It was a combination of effort between the British Council and the O.D.M. by which they were trying to establish television programmes, for limited distribution because of geographical difficulties, to teach English to people in the area.

Mr. Donald Coleman (Neath)

Is my hon. Friend aware that there was a report by the O.D.M. when we sent a Sub-Committee and we formed the same opinion of the value of the great work which is being done in Addis Ababa.

Mr. Carter-Jones

This is another reason why the Chairman of the Expenditure Committee was right in allowing the report to go forward.

It was remarkable to find two enthusiastic young men, working virtually all the hours which God sends in a not easy climate and under not easy conditions, turning out wonderful work. What was even more impressive was the fact that young V.S.O.s on their day off were going to the mass media centre to help in pushing out these programmes. The House should note that these young people, who are sometimes knocked hard for not being very helpful, in their free time were travelling long distances to promote this effort. I am glad that the British Council has accepted this policy.

I hope that I do not sound too much like a petty-minded administrator, but point 5 arose out of the question whether sometimes British Council personnel would be prepared to give a considerable amount of time to advising and helping people who come in casually. Sometimes they represent one-third or sometimes 50 per cent. of the staff, and they are absorbed in this task for virtually half their time. Unfortunately, no records have been kept on this subject. I am not the sort of person who feels, nor do I think my Sub-Committee feels, that we should keep records for the sake of keeping records, but in terms of job analysis it might have been helpful if a breakdown of the work load had been undertaken to ascertain whether or not an advisory service could have been given in the country concerned by a native of that country. It is worth while having a look at that.

I have mentioned the problem of library facilities. I sincerely hope that a much closer look will be taken at the problem of the relationship between the type of country and its wealth and the sort of library which we provide. I do not want to use the word "flashiness", but in terms of swish, smooth buildings, we cannot teach the Americans. Yet in terms of attracting people we can do equally as well as they can. In our survey we found that the work done by the British Council was as effective, as efficient and as well done as anything done by our American friends.

We came to the very serious problem of financing expensive tours overseas by drama groups. My Sub-Committee had extremely strong views about this, because we found that the British Council had what we thought the best and the worst of both worlds. We discussed the visit of the Royal Court Theatre Company, which presented the play "Saved" in Europe. This may be an admirable production, and I have great regard for the Royal Court, but I wonder who chose a play which is extremely difficult for the British public to follow in their own language and then spent a large sum of money for that difficult play to be put on in a foreign language for a limited number of people. It was a sort of esoteric production for a minimum privileged group. In terms of value for money, although we do not say that we are against the Royal Court, we think that the British Council should watch this very carefully. That was one side of the question, and we admitted that we might be wrong—

Mr. Will Griffiths (Manchester, Exchange)

Does my hon. Friend think that the play "East Lynn" should have been put on? The fact that the play to which he referred is not widely known and is difficult to follow does not necessarily mean that it should not be displayed by the British Council overseas.

Mr. Carter-Jones

I accept the point made by my hon. Friend. It would be a very valid point if the funds of the British Council were unlimited, but unfortunately it works on a very limited budget.

I quote another example in which a highly competent actress and actor, Judi Dench and James Cairncross, went to Nigeria. From all inquiries we made, official and unofficial, those two players worked tremendously hard, certainly beyond the amount of money which they were given. They covered a vast amount of ground, met large numbers of people and did a power of good.

I have not been attacking "Saved". I am merely saying that when we made the comparison we felt that, given the limited resources, given the point about transport, that sort of undertaking—I am sorry to use the British Council's word which I cannot get used to and it was anathema to the Sub-Committee; somewhere along the line the British Council evolved a word "manifestation"—the Council does not send parties overseas to produce a manifestation. That may not be a new word, but it is not the word for which we would look in this context. We should like the British Council to review its policy on this matter, and I understand that it is doing so.

I come to recommendation (xv). When we talked about recruitment at the top, we felt that the staff association ought to make its views known to us. Accordingly, in the best democratic sense, the Sub-Committee invited representations. We were a little disappointed with the recommendations. It did not seem to us that the staff association had fully thought out precisely what it wanted. Apparently this was noted by the British Council and it has asked the staff association to make a further representation on what it thinks its needs are.

Finally, in the Conclusion, we have the observation from the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary, the British Council, and a letter from the Secretary of State to the Chairman.

The Sub-Committee was unanimous that this organisation was doing an extremely good job. We were well satisfied with its performance. We felt that the British Council had a dedicated staff. We would ask it to look at and re-think some of its policies and activities. But, above all, we would say to the Treasury, "Make quite sure that, although the sums involved are small, you at least guarantee a continuing source of money to the British Council so that you do not cause unnecessary international conflict for the sake of pennies." At the same time we would say to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, "Make up your mind whether you do or do not want to admit that you have control over the British Council." This is a matter on which it must make up its mind, because it has a say in the appointment of the Director-General, and it even has a say in the appointment of British Council staff overseas. When we pressed for the reason why this was so, we were staggered to find it was so trivial—that the man appointed did not know the language of the country. This may be true, but it is something which the British Council should have found out at the outset. I believe that the British Council's reputation will be enhanced if it is clearly part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office activity or if it is given a separate Vote to finance its activities.

I wish the Council well. The report found that it worked well. I hope that it will go from strength to strength because, from our findings, it is doing nothing but good for this country.

4.43 p.m.

Sir Gilbert Longden (Hertfordshire, South-West)

I am glad that time has been found to debate the extremely important report of the late Estimates subcommittee. I am most grateful for the way it was introduced by the hon. Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones) and for the very nice things he said about the British Council, of which I have the honour to be one of the three vice-Chairmen.

I will detain the House for a short time only in order to deal with one or two of the recommendations made by the Estimates Committee. I have already asked my hon. Friend if he will forgive me, and I now ask the hon. Lady and the House if they will forgive me, if, having made my remarks, I depart. Owing to the somewhat curious method by which we conduct our affairs, the Standing Committee of which I am a member began at half-past ten yesterday morning and finished at lunch-time today. I believe that it is to repeat that performance tomorrow. Therefore, I should be grateful for a little time off. I will, of course, read everything that is said in the debate. The Committee are in no doubt about the Council's actual and potential contribution to international relations and to educational development overseas. I think that anybody who has been overseas and has seen the representatives of the Council at work—and I hope that they will always take that opportunity—will agree with that. I will come later to the criticism of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and only say here that we do not in any way feel that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office pokes its nose into our affairs.

The first recommendation of the Committee is: The Government should take all possible steps to ensure that the Council are not forced for financial reasons to withdraw existing representations. I am glad that that was the first recommendation.

Recommendation (ii) is: The Council should be afforded some guarantee that their budget will not fall below a certain level during the period reviewed by the White Paper on Public Expenditure. It would be a great asset if that could be agreed.

The Duncan Committee, too, found that the Council plays an important rôle in overseas representation and that it should not be subjected to financial reductions. Sometimes the Treasury does not always seem to be in its right mind. Withdrawal means that years of work are destroyed in a day, and it needs years more to rebuild.

Five years ago The Times published a report on its front page with the heading, British Council leaving six countries. It went on to say how unfortunate that was. This was taken up by most of the other newspapers of the day, which, with one lamentable exception, were wholly favourable to the Council. The Guardian pointed out that the Council and the Overseas Service of the B.B.C. together cost a tenth of our aid budget and a hundredth of our defence budget.

The Sunday Times had an article by its deputy editor, Mr. Frank Giles, entitled, The Muffled Voice of Britain", in which he questioned whether sufficient value was placed on the overseas information services, comparing the British with the more positive attitude of the French—and he might have added the Germans. A positive attitude in this matter simply means vastly greater funds. Mr. Giles went on to write: The limitations on the work of the British Council are another example of this shortsighted approach. … Anyone who travels widely, as I do, will know the sense of frustration and disappointment when he hears the laments in some foreign or Commonwealth country over the shortage of English teachers or English libraries. Changing national characteristics is a long, slow process which in some cases is never achieved. Presumably the British will continue for a long time to regard the export to foreigners of their own far from ignoble image as an optional, fringe activity, expendable when occasion demands it. If so, they will be making a big mistake. Moreover, as the hon. Member for Eccles implied, we are not by any means always fittingly housed.

I think it is quite understandable that a joint answer should have been given to the report, because we work in partnership with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. I will have more to say about that later. The answer here is that when an overall reduction in public expenditure has to be achieved, it is difficult to select the Council for exemption in such a context. Nevertheless, it would be the hope of the Government that the general level of the Council's work can be maintained during coming years. It is certainly the hope of the British Council.

I should like to digress for a moment on "manifestations", which I entirely agree is an unfortunate word. I have not seen "Saved", so I cannot comment. No doubt some extraordinary things are sent overseas, but we are advised on the selection of companies and plays for overseas tours by an independent drama advisory committee under the chairmanship of Mr. Norman Fisher and by its overseas representatives. I do not see how we can do better than that.

Now I come to the criticism about the appointment of the director-general. The hon. Member for Thurrock (Mr. Delargy) who is another vice-chairman of the Council, has already said that that mistake has been corrected. I did not at the time understand why the appointment should not be advertised, and I still do not understand.

This time, an advertisement has been placed in all the papers and we had nearly 180 applicants. There is a very well qualified selection committee, consisting of the chairman and the three vice-chairmen, Lord Goodman, Mr. Feather and the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh), the Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society, Sir Harold Thompson, Mr. John Whitehorn and Sir John Wolfenden—

Dame Joan Vickers (Plymouth, Devonport)

There is no lady member of the selection committee, although there is one on the executive.

Sir Gilbert Longden

There is one on both—Lady Albemarle.

The staff has always been given the opportunity of competing for this job, and this year is no exception. What is more, a new career structure for the staff has been finalised and will shortly come up for consideration by the Executive Committee.

On another minor recommendation, that the Council should consult heads of mission before it sends out a representative, who is sometimes also cultural attaché, one must remember that the Council's representatives work in close and daily contact with Her Majesty's heads of mission and their staff and it would seem only common courtesy, to say nothing of common sense, to acquaint the head of mission of a proposed posting and ask for his comments. The occasions when such a posting has been changed because of unfavourable reaction are very few indeed, and such as there have been have been justified in the result.

I agree on this matter with my hon. Friend the Member for Westbury (Mr. Walters), who said on page 163: I should like to say from my own point of view that I am perfectly satisfied with the answers that have been given by the Council on this. It seems to me perfectly reasonable that the approval of the embassy should be sought. I think so too.

Mr. Carter-Jones

The corollary to this is that the ambassador or the overseas representative has the right to scrutinise any appointment in any other field if the British Council is independent. It raises some very difficult problems. In my view, and that of the sub-committee, it challenges the ability of the British Council to choose wisely.

Sir Gilbert Longden

I am very sorry to have to say that I wholly disagree with the hon. Gentleman on this—

Mr. Ted Fletcher (Darlington)

The hon. Gentleman should say why.

Sir Gilbert Longden

I have said why.

Mr. Fletcher

Not in a very intelligent way.

Sir Gilbert Longden

I thought it was fairly clear. If one is sending a man out to work with some other men, I should have thought it was common sense to ask the head of the mission his opinion of the man, because he might know him; if they do not happen to get on together it is so easy to send that man to another post.

Mr. Carter-Jones

On our findings, we thought that there were other reasons, but in a large number of cases the ambassador said that it was because the man did not know the language of the country. I should have thought that the British Council would know this.

Sir Gilbert Longden

If a man is sent out who does not know the language, that must be the Council's fault. I do not blame the ambassador for that.

Mr. Richard Hornby (Tonbridge)

For information, I think that I am right in saying that in a very large number of appointments the number of suggestions or alterations received from ambassadors has been eight, and that on three of those occasions only has a change been made.

Sir Gilbert Longden

I know that it is a very small number.

On the question of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the independence of the British Council, I must put on record the Foreign Secretary's own views: In transmitting this Memorandum, I wish to draw your attention to one matter of general importance. Certain sections of the Report … deal with the Council's relationship with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Her Majesty's Government attach importance to the independent status of the British Council; this status enables it to conduct its work overseas comparatively detached from the vicissitudes of the day-to-day political relations between Her Majesty's Government and the Governments of the countries where the Council is operating. I believe that this detachment is understood and valued by these Governments and the peoples of their countries. But, as the Report itself remarks in paragraph 22 this independence cannot be absolute. The Council is financed from Government funds; and the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary is answerable for the Votes concerned to Parliament. That is the present position. I know that the hon. Gentleman has suggested a separate Vote, which is a matter to be considered, but that is how things are at the moment. My right hon. Friend went on: … the Government consider that, while the Council must enjoy the greatest possible freedom to conduct its activities in the way which it considers professionally most effective, its work nevertheless forms part of the officially-sponsored British effort overseas and the scale and nature of this work is therefore a matter of concern to them. I believe that the governments of the countries in which the Council operates are under no misunderstanding as to the nature of the interest of Her Majesty's Government in the Council, and are aware of the high degre of independence enjoyed by the Council in the fulfilment of the tasks with which it is charged. … The need for this approval "— that is, the approval of the Secretary of State to the two appointments— does not limit the freedom of the Executive Committee to consider any candidate for these posts, nor does it confer a right of nomination on the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary. But I regard this requirement as essential if I am to be able to discharge on behalf of the Government, my responsibility for ensuring that the Council assumes its proper place within the general framework of our relations with overseas countries. Finally, there is the criticism of the Executive Committee. Under Clause 4 of our Charter, the management of the British Council is vested in the Executive Committee, and under Clause 6 all the powers of the British Council are vested in the Committee. We have an individual and a joint responsibility to ensure the efficient use of some £16 million per annum, plus half as much again of agency funds.

It is therefore a pity if, as the Estimates Committee found, this should be "a self-perpetuating body", "a closed corporation", whose "representative character should be strengthened." The Executive Committee consists of 20 people including Members from both sides of the House equally; of representatives of the universities, the publishing world, industry, the arts, the sciences, the unions and the B.B.C.; there are also representatives from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and from the great Departments of State.

I should have thought that that was as representative a body as could well be collected. However, the Executive Committee has now decided that in future its members can only be re-elected—and they have to be re-elected every four years—once after they have reached the age of 65 and that they should be subject to retirement after they reach the age of 70. We intend, when considering the re-election of members of the Executive Committee, to consider first the general contribution which the member has made and secondly his record of attendance.

The whole question of "geographical priorities" of course engages our constant attention. We administer, as agents for the O.D.A., £8 million to £9 million a year which goes to the developing countries. However, we feel that we cannot ignore our friends and potential friends, or even our potentials enemies, and the difficulty of assigning the right amount of money to these three separate spheres is considerable.

It can best finish a necessarily brief intervention by quoting our conclusion: It is a cardinal principle of the Council's policy that everything it does should not only be to the benefit of Britain, but should also be and be seen to be of benefit to the receiving country.

4.51 p.m.

Sir Geoffrey de Freitas (Kettering)

My experience as a member of the Executive Committee of the British Council, though some years ago, leads me to believe that it could be improved, and my suggestion for improving it is simple. It is that nobody should be re-elected more than once. In other words, we should ensure a turnover in membership.

I make this suggestion not only because of my experience of the Committee but because it would enable more men and women who have served on the Committee to go out into the world, in whatever spheres they operate, with experience of the British Council.

They are thereby able to interpret the aims of the Council and encourage others to appreciate them. I am glad to hear that the Executive will now have a more flexible composition. As I have said, I would like it to go further and have shorter periods of membership.

I shall come to the point made by the hon. Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Sir Gilbert Longden) about the relationship between heads of missions and British Council representatives abroad, and I shall be dealing with this subject from my experience.

It is important to remember, as the chairman, my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones) pointed out, that his sub-committee was complimentary to the British Council. When the report was published the Press unfortunately concentrated on one valid criticism, and that was the way in which the director-general had been elected. The Press did not criticise the directorgeneral—indeed, nobody has criticised him—but simply the method of his election. Unfortunately, the reports in the Press did not deal with other aspects of the report; but at least as a result of those criticisms there has been a change of procedure and we now have a better system for choosing the new director-general.

It is also important to remember that in the final sentence of its conclusions the Committee refers to the characteristic energy and dedication of the staff of the British Council. I have seen the Council at work in West and East Africa, and whenever I have been abroad I have tried to meet the Council representatives and see the buildings in which they work. There is no public institution that I admire more, but I want us to give the Council the tools to do the job, and one obvious deficiency in its equipment is its buildings. In evidence before the Committee Mr. Phillips, the deputy director-general, said: I do not think our buildings should be a discredit to this country. He added: Many of them are. That was the statement of a most responsible man and not a wild statement by someone unfamiliar with the Council.

There are, of course, some good buildings, and many hon. Members will have seen them. For example, those in Nairobi and Madras are excellent. But some are squalid, and we should be ashamed of this. Consider the office in Bombay, one of the most important posts anywhere in the world. The Council's offices there are tucked away on the third floor in a back street in the French Bank building.

Despite the dreadful office accommodation in Bombay, the library's success is evident, and it is probably more like Lagos than Germany. In its unattractive accommodation in Bombay the British Council has managed, among its other activities, to establish a library containing 80,000 volumes with an annual turnover of issues of nearly half a million, and a paying membership of about 17,000 Indians who want to use the library. This is a fantastic achievement. I accept from what has been said that intensive use is made of the library in Lagos, but I think that Bombay even beats that.

At long last the Government have accepted the Council's view that it is nearly always better to build or buy than rent. What are the possibilities of obtaining better buildings for the Council and owned by the Council? Why not start with Delhi, which is by far the Council's most important post? In Delhi the Council has for many years had a valuable plot of land, but all along there have only been promises about building on it.

I have found over the years that the Council has been extremely successful in publicising British contributions to music, drama and the fine arts. Indeed, nearly 10 per cent. of the Council's total budget is spent on trying to organise overseas tours by British theatre, ballet and opera companies, as well as orchestras and exhibitions by British artists.

This is an enormous sphere of activity, and except for pointing out that it was the Council which introduced the Royal Ballet to North America—to Canada and the United States; the Royal Ballet now goes there on ordinary commercial tours—I shall concentrate on my experience of a theatre company which the Council sent to Ghana nine or ten years ago.

I refer to the Nottingham Playhouse. John Neville and Judi Dench went out to Ghana and had a tremendously successful tour. It is difficult for us in Britain to imagine what a great experience it is for people in a small country in West Africa, all of whose higher education is in English, to see an English Shakespeare Company. I returned to Ghana last month and it was clear to me that, 10 years later, those who had seen "Twelfth Night" and "Macbeth" performed by the Nottingham Playhouse regarded it as one of the great experiences of their lives.

It might help if I gave an illustration of the way in which the British Mission there and the British Council worked together. The President of Ghana asked that a special performance of "Twelfth Night" take place in his garden, and he made a big occasion of the event. The people responsible for protocol in the Ghana Foreign Office wanted me in the seat of honour with the President, but the Ghana Ministry of Education, encouraged by me, insisted that the British Council, and not the British High Commission, was responsible for this great event and that the Council representative should be in the place of honour. I mention this because in public there is a distinction, and there should be. That also shows how two British organisations can work together. But the identifica- tion of the Ghanaian Ministry of Education with the British Council was such that when Ghana some years later broke off diplomatic relations with Britain, the British Council stayed on. U.N.E.S.C.O. actually reported that the British Council was an integral part of the educational system of Ghana.

I again remind the House that all secondary education in Ghana—and there is plenty—is in the English language. It is not only our duty to these countries to foster the world language which we gave them; we should be foolish if we refused to take advantage of our natural place at the heart of their world culture. I hope that the Council will always remember the wholly disproportionate result of an effort in these smaller countries, which otherwise would never see Shakespeare performed on the stage by an English company.

My last point, which I do not want to labour, although it has been written about and discussed in the Press, is that unfortunately the Committee criticised the practice of high commissioners and ambassadors being consulted by the Council about the Council's representatives before they were appointed. An intervention put the figures in perpective. The Committee reported that out of 96 overseas representatives appointed by the Council over the past five years, eight had been queried by heads of mission abroad, and that in three of those cases the Council had agreed to alter the appointment.

I am not against the practice of consulting, because in private—but not in public—a British Council representative is often treated as if he were one of the staff of the British Mission. Occasionally the circumstances are such that he is forced to be regarded as a cultural attaché on the staff of the British mission. But it is not the British Council's policy or that of successive British Governments. It is important that if the British Council representative can at times be treated as a member of the staff of the British Mission, the head of the Mission should at least be able to say that he would welcome him or, in a very rare case, that he would not. Certainly in my experience a British Council representative has regarded me as someone who could intervene on some point with his office in London unofficially, and these things work out well.

I spend a great deal of my time working, I believe in the interests of my constituents, for closer ties between this country and the countries of Western Europe. I wish we could offer a great programme for the expansion of British Council activities among our fellow Europeans. It will be increasingly tempting for organisations such as the British Council to do this. But it must not come at the cost of anything that the Council is doing in the developing countries.

This country inherited certain obligations towards the developing countries, and on the whole we have discharged them well. Above all, we have provided them with one of the great world languages, and their window on the world is English. We may have pulled down our flag and gone away, but certain duties remain and they can best be discharged through the British Council. I have seen it in action and know how well it performs its duties.

5.4 p.m.

Colonel Sir Harwood Harrison (Eye)

I have always tried to follow the advice given by my hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Sir G. Longden), who said that when abroad he always visited the local British Council. I was very interested in what he and the right hon. Member for Kettering (Sir G. de Freitas) said about the relationship between the British Council and the Foreign Office. When I have spoken about this to our high commissioners or ambassadors—I did this quite recently—they have always paid the highest tribute to the work of the British Council in their particular country, and they never think of interfering, as I understand it, in any way. They regard the activities of the British Council as separate. What the Chairman of the Sub-Committee said may possibly be related more to the London level than on the ground.

I am particularly grateful to the hon. Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones), as Chairman of the Sub-Committee, and to its members for this very good and lengthy report. I am now a member of the Expenditure Committee, and so I was very anxious, after the work that has been done, that the report should be published, although late, because this subject comes under the Sub-Committee, of which I am Chairman, of the Expenditure Committee. I thought that it would be valuable as we were fairly hard pressed on the Sub-Committee on Defence and the Overseas Expenditure of the Foreign Office. I could not see where we could easily get such a long and detailed report.

During the Christmas Recess I visited the Far East and had the pleasure of calling on four offices of the British Council, in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Penang and Bangkok. It may be of some interest if I relate a few of my recent impressions. I turn to paragraph 50, on the subject of the teaching of English. It is true that in the more extreme foreign countries, such as in South America—I have seen it in Lima—this is a very important aspect. But in countries where we have had great influence in the past, where English is spoken by many people, such as in Malaya and Singapore, the great work of the Council is in the local Ministry of Education advising on the type of examinations and the type of programme for schooling rather than in the actual teaching.

We must take paragraph 76 in the context in which the evidence was taken, nearly two years ago, because from my visits I have gained the feeling that over the last 10 to 12 years the staff employed on the ground by the British Council is becoming more and more professional—professional in the right sense of knowing the job and being masters of it, both over personnel and in their tasks. Those I have spoken to recently now seem to think that there is a proper career structure.

I feel that the Council is recruiting a very fine body of British personnel. It should not be forgotten that many of those locally employed, too, give devoted service of a very high standard over many years. Here I should like to mention the lady who is secretary to our director in Bangkok. She has been employed there by the British Council for a great many years. I had the pleasure of talking to her at lunch one day. She was a great asset indeed to the director, Mr. Rutter. By that I mean no criticism of him, because I thought that he was a particularly good and outstanding man.

It is interesting that when one talks to these people one finds that a number of them prefer working for the British Council to, possibly, the Foreign Office. I think they feel they are closer to the local people, moving amongst them the whole time. Some of the personnel we employ have clever wives with university degrees who lecture in the local universities. I do not know whether the reverse is true if we employ a wife.

I was particularly impressed with two or three of the youngest of our new entrants and their obvious keenness and enthusiasm for their job. They were men of 23 or so. Most are imbued with their work and are doing a great deal to sell British culture. All of this can be reflected in the sales of our goods. If people are taught English and like our culture and our way of life, they will look towards us.

I am glad that the question of offices has been mentioned, as I regard it as most important. The situation and accessibility of the office is most important. It must look friendly and encouraging to someone who may be coming timidly for the first time. I was glad to find that in Singapore we are changing from an office which was not bad in itself but had a very bad entrance a little bit down a side road from a main street. It was necessary to climb upstairs to get to it. The office is being moved to the Cathay building where there is a lift. The Council will have good premises, which will be more welcoming, on the third floor.

I understand that we own only 21 of our offices and rent 130. That is a low percentage when we consider how expensive rents are compared with ownership. We own only 34 dwelling houses and have to rent 390. My Committee is examining accommodation and how much we own for Foreign Office staff. I found that the staff of the British Council were very alive to the problem of very high rents and the importance of ownership. It is nothing like as easy for the British Council as it is for the Foreign Office, because it has a very limited staff. A place may have a bachelor succeeded or preceded by a man with three children. In this country we own 11 offices and rent 19, which perhaps is reasonably good. Paragraph 83 concerns evidence on the building programme and the cutbacks. I hope that the situation is better today.

I should now like to say something about the young men and women who go out as volunteers. There are about 1,450 serving in 44 countries for whom the British Council is responsible. I do not think everyone realises exactly what that entails. These responsibilties are met by the Council's representative in the country concerned. In countries having a large number of volunteers he has the support of junior staff specially earmarked for the work. The responsibilities include explaining to potential users of voluntary service the scope and value of the volunteer scheme; assisting potential users to identify suitable volunteer projects; assessing their proposals and forwarding them to the appropriate sending society in the United Kingdom, with recommendations and suggested priorities; presenting the personal particulars of volunteers selected by the sending society to a potential user; obtaining his approval; negotiating terms of service, including the financial contribution by the employer where applicable—very often the volunteers earn little more than pocket money; arranging the reception of volunteers on arrival; giving necessary local briefing, which is very important; introducing the volunteers to the employer; general welfare support for the volunteer at his post; and assisting the volunteer if he becomes ill or has to go to hospital, or if he is so ill that he has to be repatriated.

In the recent past the Council has had to deal with the enforced withdrawal of volunteers. We think of Eastern Nigeria, and only at the end of last year there was the withdrawal from East Pakistan. We often think of foreign refugees in such circumstances, but forget we have young volunteers out there.

Another task is to provide where appropriate through the Council the specialist field advisers, giving professional advice and support in English language and science teaching, acting as librarians, and so on. The representative also makes arrangements for travel on final departure. This is a very big task entrusted to the representatives of the British Council.

I am a little concerned that although the British Council, I understand, has quite a large say in the numbers of those going out, it does not have full control. Many of the young people go out after university education, which is probably better. A few go before they go up to university, but on the whole they are on the young side. Volunteers are full of a desire to help the less fortunate people in under-developed countries. That is a great characteristic of the young in this country. But I am somewhat worried that the Council does not have a bigger say as to where they go.

That was brought home to me in Singapore, a small island with 2¼ million people. It is like an enormous, highly-sophisticated city. A young volunteer goes there thinking the work he is to do is important, that he will be in a small group or even on his own with native people who he thinks are backward, but he then finds himself in that great sophisticated city.

I mentioned that to the British Council representative and he was most receptive. He sees all the problems. He said that after a time the volunteers accepted that they could do education, library work and so on, and that it was worth while. But it must be a disappointment to them, and I feel that there might be more liaison here. I recall a constituent who went out two or three years ago to a Caribbean island, where he did excellent educational work and developed a great deal of keenness among the boys. He started a popular and successful cadet force, not so much on Army lines as one more like a team of scouts.

The volunteers are an excellent source of recruiting for the British Council. I am sorry that in its otherwise full report the Committee did not pay rather more attention to what I regard as this very important aspect of the British Council's work, seeing that the keen youngsters who go out imbued with the very best ideals are used to the best of their abilities and in the places where they can be of the greatest use.

Mr. Neil Marten (Banbury)

As a member of the National Council of Voluntary Service Overseas, to which my hon. and gallant Friend was clearly referring, may I say that we have the closest contact with the British Council. We greatly appreciate all the work the British Council does to help volunteers from Voluntary Service Overseas.

Sir H. Harrison

I am sure that what my hon. Friend says is right. All I suggest is that they should be used in underdeveloped countries rather than in the more sophisticated countries.

5.20 p.m.

Mr. John P. Mackintosh (Berwick and East Lothian)

This has been a useful debate and, like everyone else, I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones) and his Committee for doing this work and giving us this chance to discuss the operations of the British Council. I must declare an interest as for some time I have been a member of the executive committee, a position which I took on with great readiness and which I thoroughly enjoy. One of the points which we are appreciating about the Council is that made by the Duncan Committee and others, that in large parts of the world the British presence is ceasing to be mainly political and military and is becoming instead much more of a cultural and economic presence.

As part of the shift of emphasis, more work and more importance is going to bodies such as the British Council. This aspect of the attempt to project Britain's influence and image overseas is carried out by a large number of associations, not only by the British Council but through the British information services, the Overseas Service of the B.B.C., and such special bodies as the Great Britain-East Europe Centre which deals with four countries. There are private contacts between the universities organised through the Inter-University Council and there are particular efforts, some of them most notable for what they do for this country. As an example, T met the other day the President of the Edinburgh College of Surgeons who is going out to Burma to examine. Every surgeon in Burma is a Fellow of the Royal College of Edinburgh. This keeps up a contact and an influence in many ways more effective than anything else we could do at this time when Burma is in part caught up in international pressures from major Powers.

It is this sort of influence which we can usefully develop and maintain and which is welcome because it has no political strings attached and does not draw the country into one or other of the major Power blocs. At the same time, it is difficult to assess the precise return to the British taxpayer for the money spent on the B.B.C. Overseas Services, the British Council, university exchanges, and so on. These are long-term benefits, attempts to sow good will and understanding between Britain and other countries which will yield dividends in a generation's time. It is often easy for critics to point out a particular item, a play or broadcast or an episode, and to ask, "What value did that have for us?" In thinking about this we have to try to assess the total impact. We must appreciate the work of people who are laying such broad foundations and who may find difficulty in seeing immediate returns.

We must also compare our work with that done by other countries. The French attach tremendous importance to this aspect of their diplomacy. Whereas the British Council spends £16 million a year, the French equivalent spends between £40 million and £50 million. Germany spends about £20 million. We do not want to enter into any direct competition, but it is worth noticing the importance which other countries, not world Powers but second-rank European countries, such as Britain, now place upon this sort of effort.

When we have assessed the overall rôle to be given to the British Council we have to look at the method by which we achieve our objectives. One of the methods we have adopted is this quasi-independence of the Council. This is the only point on which in emphasis I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles. It seems unrealistic to say that the British Council should either be an integral part of the Foreign Office because it has a career structure or should be totally independent. This is an unreal contrast. The object of the independence is to put a bit of push behind it, and that is a reasonable position. The point is that it cannot ever be totally independent because it is financed by the taxpayer for purposes of interest to this country, and it would be ridiculous and scandalous if this money in any way undermined or countered the efforts of British foreign policy. It is an integral part of this policy. We are running the, Council to support and assist our foreign policy effort in certain areas. It is inevitable that the two should work together.

This is not only true in terms of the overall direction from this country but, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Sir G. de Freitas) said, it is important in the local territories. It would be impossible for a high commissioner or an ambassador if he felt that he could not entirely trust the work of the British Council. It would be similarly unsatisfactory for the British Council in the area if there were any element of ill-feeling between it and representatives of the British Government in the area. It is essential that they should work together. What is the point of independence? Why not adopt the same method as the French, by which the cultural effort is an integral part of the Foreign Office, just as we have now taken our commercial branch, which used to be separate from the Foreign Office, into the Foreign Office?

The answer was admirably given by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kettering when he pointed out that if the British Council retains a degree of independence in each territory, then the particular vicissitudes affecting our political connections need not touch the long-term educational and cultural work. This was admirably illustrated by the point about his experience in Ghana.

Mr. Carter-Jones

What saddened me as a member of the Committee was that the best statement on this, despite the fact that we questioned the British Council and others for a long time, came from the Departmental Observations on page 8, paragraph 4. The explanation that came out there should have come out in the evidence.

Mr. Mackintosh

I am not particularly concerned about where the explanation came out. The explanation I and others have given is valid. This quasi-independence yields positive benefits and at the same time ensures that this effort goes in the general direction desired by British foreign policy. It seems inevitable that the major control of this effort should be in the hands of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Overseas Development Ministry.

To support this quasi-independence, which has genuine value, the British Council is under the control of an executive committee. That is a slight misnomer, because in practice it is an advisory committee. It meets once a month and as an executive body it cannot run the council or dispose of its funds or make appointments. What it does is to advise, to probe, to question, to give a kind of guidance over the years which in a way my hon. Friend's Sub-Committee has done so admirably in its thorough investigation. The Executive Committee has been simply turning to senior officials month by month and asking "What are your priorities? How do you spend your money? Why do it this way? Could you explain whether this yields better results than that?" There has been this probing, questioning and guiding, providing the sort of external advice and stimulus which a highly skilled professional body of men, like all other bodies of men and like this House needs or else it might otherwise tend to continue in the same direction without asking these fundamental questions.

In asking these questions, what have we discovered? What ought the Council to be doing to change its activities? On the whole, very little. We are agreed that broadly speaking it is going in the right direction. It is true, as my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles and others have said, that to close down an activity in a foreign country causes great loss and damage. This rather proves my argument about independence—that it is silly to close down to save a small sum of money if the result on international relationships is damaging. This is the inter-connection between the Council and this country's foreign policy. We cannot readily change the overall direction of our activities in the Council, we cannot suddenly increase or close down, without considerable damage.

Over a period of time the Council may obviously alter its activities. If we look at its spending, we can see hangovers of old policies. For example, only in this way can I explain the heavy expenditure in Cyprus and Malta—as the legacy of old imperial connections with these countries. On the other hand, as an example of new priorities, we may have taken too much for granted in the past that we could maintain the connection with the old white Dominions of Australia, New Zealand and Canada. It may be that generations are growing up in those countries who have not the automatic connection with this country which we assume. It may be necessary for the British Council to do more in those countries.

Similarly, there is a conflict between expenditure in the third world—Africa, for example—and Europe. I would agree, in this case, that the whole activity of the Council is in a different direction in the third world. It has a part in the educational system, a part in the training of teachers, in providing English language education, in providing libraries. In Europe, on the other hand, the Council is doing a different job, liaising between the efforts of universities and schools and other cultural contacts, between Britain and Europe, doing it not so much itself but by making it possible for other people to make contacts between organisations if they want to do that sort of work.

I agree with everyone who says that as this country grows closer to Europe—and I am one of the great protagonists of this country's entry into the Common Market—one does not necessarily see the British Council doing a great deal more work in Europe. It would be a disaster if it pulled out or reduced any of its work in the third world, where there might be no replacement for it, whereas in Europe there might be replacement through a university or a school.

On the question of control, the Executive Committee has already improved its methods of presenting its acounts. Its accounting in the past has tended to be the annual budgetary accounting of the sort we have in this House. It has made it very hard to use modern planning, programming, budgeting methods for adequately assessing what would be the cost, for example, of doubling any staff in a country, and what output would be obtained for increased expenditure in West Africa, for instance. The Executive Committee has the budget now presented in a more policy-forming method, which makes the control and discussion of priorities a good deal easier.

The Council's external posts have never been regarded as they are in the Foreign and Commonwealth Service. The senior posts in London are of equal rank in many ways to ambassadorships in Washington, Paris, Bonn, and a man may look forward to being an Under-Secretary in Whitehall or of going as ambassador to one of those posts. It is a curious fact that none of the senior posts in the British Council abroad is anything more than a "B" post, and, therefore, a senior job at which to aim in the whole British Council is the director generalship back in London. One of the jobs of staff structure reassessment should be to upgrade key foreign posts—in Germany, Nigeria, other key areas where the British Council is operating, and to make them of at least equal rank to that of senior posts back in this country so that a man in the Council may then end his career in one of those posts and regard it as a fully satisfactory career.

We should not be too alarmed about the number of younger people who may look to fields which would lead automatically not to further administrative service but to creative service in their own line of specialisms. In a big post one would have an expert librarian, a teacher of the English language, and so on, and someone doing arts and cultural work, and they should have a natural progression of achievement. The aim should not be merely to have a ladder of senior administrative posts but one for specialisms—it might be for a librarianship in some university in the third world, it might be the directorship of a theatre. One should not be too rigid about taking in people every five or ten years to do the sort of work which they can do in these fields, provided that the intake is of at least the same quality as before. Going further up the ladder of the Council involves detailed knowledge of the cultural structure of other countries, a skill which the original entrants may not have had or wanted to develop. There is legitimate ground for paying more to these young people to encourage them to go in not simply to Join the administrative structure but for this other work.

Finally on the question of staffing, I would say that the Duncan Report, suggestion, that, particularly in Europe, there might be supernumerary posts created to which distinguished figures in cultural life might be seconded for a limited time, is an exciting and useful suggestion.

Having made these remarks about staffing, accounting, and methods of work, I would close by once again congratulating the members of the Council on the work they do. Somebody once asked Bismarck what would be the preponder- ant diplomatic force, and he replied, "The greatest diplomatic force will be when the world speaks English".

The British Council does great service for this country all over the world. It is fantastic that now the second language in Poland is neither Russian nor French but English. That is an achievement of the British Council. It is playing its part in the educational structure of underdeveloped countries. It has been of real and permanent service to those countries. as well as to our own. It is hard work, because a man in it can never say at any moment, "This is what I have done for my country". This debate will be an indication that we appreciate the long-term value of that work.

5.36 p.m.

Dame Joan Vickers (Plymouth, Devonport)

I am very pleased to follow the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh). I shall not follow him in all the details of his speech, but I would take up one point. I wish people in this House would not talk about the "Third World", as I thought we were trying to build up one world. It is degrading in that manner to talk of some people or countries as being in a "Third World".

The British Council is a very remarkable organisation. It was begun in 1934 and now serves in about 80 countries. It does a major job in creating good relations and understanding between other countries and the United Kingdom despite the fact, as has been mentioned by some speakers today, that so many of the countries have completely different political beliefs; for example, Pakistan. Regrettably, Pakistan has left the Commonwealth, but I hope the British Council will remain in Pakistan. It has already been allocated nearly £400,000 for work there in 1971–72. It will be very beneficial if we can keep this contact.

I have had the opportunity of working with the British Council, but not for the British Council. However, when I go abroad I always take an opportunity to visit its offices, as I have done in Australia, New Zealand, the Far East, and six African countries. Therefore I was astonished to read the observation by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in regard to recommendations (i) and (ii). There is this statement: I recognise the need of the Council to be able to rely for planning purposes and for continuity of their activities upon some assurance of budgetary stability from one year to another". This is really what it cannot do, this is a very great pity, as the further statement was made: When overall reduction in public expenditure has to be achieved, it would be difficult to select the Council for exemption in such a context". We either wish to support the Council or we do not, and if we wish it to go on increasing its work and playing its very good diplomatic rôle between various countries it needs to know what is to be its financial support. I really wonder whether the person who drafted the reply has visited many of the overseas offices of the Council and has real knowledge of the work being done abroad and in this country by the Council. I have served as a civil servant overseas, and one of the first governors who came out from London to the territory in which I was working had never left the Colonial Office until he became the governor of that territory, there are far too many people in that category.

The Duncan Report, which, regrettably, has never been debated in this House, states that The British Council plays an important rôle in overseas representation and should not"— I want to stress this— be subject to financial reductions". The Duncan Report also praised the libraries and said that all library facilities, including film libraries, should be with the British Council. This is a wise recommendation. As the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian said, a large number of organisations are trying to provide similar facilities, and it would be more economical for all library and film facilities to be under the same head.

However, I do not agree with what the Duncan Report said about the shift of the balance of the British Council activities to Western Europe. Surely if we go into the E.E.C.—and I am a great supporter of entry—we should be able to put over our own point of view. It is unfortunate that out of 51 drama and music tours only 25 went outside Europe, six to Japan.

If cuts are to be made in staff, I suggest that they should be made in our Embassies and High Commissions, or in those who are in the Home Civil Service working overseas. In 1968–69 86,000 administrative and executive officers were employed—these are the figures given in the Duncan Report—and there may be more now. In the E class there are 84,000 and in the A class 2,600. Will my hon. Friend carefully consider a higher allocation of staff to the British Council?

The British Council produces the best documentation of institutions of higher education and the teaching of the English language in Britain. It is interesting to note that it is estimated that about £7 million a year come to Britain from the language teaching schools. This shows that the British Council is earning money and not just spending it. The British Council budget has grown from £3 million just after the war to £16 million, but, as a result of inflation, its resources are only at the 1965 level, which makes it all the more remarkable that its work has increased.

I agree with the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian on the need for a world language. That world language will be English. I recently attended a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Conference at Kuala Lumpur which was conducted entirely in English. In Singapore there is now the South-East Regional School for teachers of the English language, which consists of highly qualified people from eight countries, and the standard is excellent. There is a crying need in many other countries for more facilities for the teaching of the English language and for libraries, books and the training of librarians. I hope that the British Council will concentrate on scholarships for training librarians, for which I found there was a great need in many countries that I visited.

Apart from all its cultural activities, the British Council is the only organisation in which it is possible to meet the people of the country. The doors are open for anyone to come in. In many Council offices I have seen people who it might be thought from their appearance—one should never judge by appearances—could neither read nor write, sitting down and resolutely reading. In some libraries new sections have been provided containing medical books for students, and books on science and technology, all of which are in great demand.

I have recently been abroad to India, and Indonesia where, I am glad to say, since confrontation has ceased there are two excellent offices. In Malaysia the offices were so crowded that people were sitting on staircases doing their studies. In countries which are becoming more nationalistic and in which the national language is replacing English, as in Malaysia—where before getting a job a person must pass an examination in the national language—it is all the more necessary for accommodation to be provided for people to learn the English language. In Singapore the British Council missed the opportunity of securing excellent accommodation because of the delay in getting a decision from the United Kingdom. In Japan, in fairly good accommodation, the Council provided opportunities for meeting the Japanese, particularly the Japanese women.

Recommendation (vii) of the Expenditure Committee's Report is excellent, but mass media projects are extremely expensive. Recommendation (viii) is not practical, and I hope that no attempt will be made to fulfil it. I agree with the observations of the British Council on recommendations (xii) and (xiii). Wherever possible, live presentations are better than films. For people whose command of English is not good it is much easier to follow a live presentation than a film.

The Duncan Report recommended the setting of an Estate Board with responsibility for the purchase and maintenance of buildings both for the Diplomatic Service and for the British Council. I agree with this recommendation and I hope it will be implemented soon.

The British Council should discontinue the practice of consulting ambassadors before confirming the appointment of overseas representatives. The person who works for the Council is usually of a quite different type from the person who works in the Diplomatic Service. Ambassadors and High Commissioners are appointed to represent the British point of view, whereas the British Council is concerned with cultural activities. I therefore strongly support the recommendation that the Council should be completely independent and able to appoint its own representatives.

The Council is the main organisation for introducing overseas students to families in Britain. In Plymouth, for example, several holiday courses are arranged each year, and the great advantage of these courses is that the students live with English families. Last Christmas about 30 students from Commonwealth and foreign countries lived with families in Plymouth.

I was amazed to see from the report that the Department of Education and Science has cut its grant from £10,000 in 1968–69 to the paltry sum of £2,000 in 1971–72. This is most unwise, especially as so much of the work of the Council is educational. It will be difficult to increase this work unless more accommodation is available, particularly for books, when this cut is made.

Recommendation (xi) on libraries is not practical. We cannot work on American lines. If hon. Members who write books were to donate copies this would be a help. Magazines are most welcome. I often wonder what happens to all the colour supplements of the Observer, The Times and the Daily Telegraph. I collect my copies and give them to a school in Plymouth. Thousands of weekly magazines could be collected, as is done by the Ranfarley Library depot. By this means a supply of interesting literature could be made available for handing out in overseas territories.

Women should have more say in work of the British Council. Only one woman was asked to give evidence to the Committee; there was only one woman on the Executive Council and she is the vice-chairman. There is no woman chairman of any of the British Council committees and no woman on eleven of the main committees. Although women do a marvellous job overseas, they do not seem to be able to get into the top British Council jobs abroad. On the educational side, I hope that consideration will be given to allowing women to play a more important part in the work of the British Council.

I should like to give full support to the excellent work carried out by the British Council. No doubt tomorrow one daily newspaper will have certain things to say about my remarks concerning the British Council. I can only say that my experience from visiting the many countries where I have seen the work undertaken by the British Council is such that I cannot speak too highly of this body. Therefore, I hope that the Council will be given adequate funds to carry on with its task.

5.50 p.m.

Mr. Edwin Wainwright (Dearne Valley)

It is a pleasure to be able to take part in this debate, and we are grateful to the Government for allowing time for these Expenditure Committee reports to be discussed in the House. My hon. Friend the Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones), who was Chairman of the Sub-Committee which considered the work of the British Council, led the Sub-Committee extremely well, and we were grateful for his leadership.

I have been somewhat surprised to hear criticisms of the Sub-Committee's recommendations about the appointment of representatives of the British Council. We were not making the recommendation merely because we felt that the Foreign Office should not have the power, through its ambassadors, to agree the appointments. We merely wanted to emphasise that the British Council should be as separate as possible from the Foreign Office. Events in Ghana should have taught the Government a lesson. I feel that if the British Council appears to be too closely linked with the Foreign Office, the Council may in future be asked to leave the country concerned. This would be a tremendous loss to that country and would not be helpful to the interests of Great Britain.

I found the work of the Committee both interesting and stimulating. It is difficult to appreciate the work of the British Council unless one goes abroad and sees it in operation. The British Council seeks to promote abroad a wider knowledge of Britain and the English language and to develop closer cultural relations with other countries. This is something of which we can be proud, since work is carried out in 75 countries. Our nation and its institutions have proved to be stable and steadfast, and over many years we have built a reputation for being tolerant, compassionate and non-violent. We shall be failing mankind if we do not try to export this kind of prestige.

The English language is important, it is spoken by many millions of people throughout the world, and the more we promote it the better it will be for world peace. I am glad to know that, even in Ethiopia, English is the second language, and I hope that it will become the second language in many countries. I say this, not because I want to push the English language on to other nations, but because I feel the more that nations speak one language, the better will be the development of understanding and peace.

The Sub-Committee had many sittings, and our visit abroad was extremely arduous. In fact, we hardly had time to look around the countries we visited. I remember our getting off the plane at Addis Ababa at about eight o'clock in the morning and meeting as a Sub-Committee at nine o'clock. We continued our work for the whole of that day until about eight o'clock in the evening; then we had another meeting at nine o'clock the next morning, finishing at about midnight, and caught the plane home. That was as much as we saw of Addis Ababa. But it was a very interesting visit. I feel that it is neither wise nor prudent to send a Sub-Committee on such a long journey in such a short period of time. I believe that a few more days would have given us a wider impression of the countries we visited and would have led to a closer study of the work of the British Council.

In spite of the cost of the Sub-Committee's visit, which took in Germany, Nigeria and Ethiopia, I feel that the visit was extremely worthwhile. It gave the Sub-Committee an insight into the work carried out by the British Council, and I should like to thank all the witnesses who gave evidence to us. Answers were readily given to our many detailed questions and, even though on occasions they might have been slightly embarrassed, witnesses were quite open in answering our queries.

On educational grounds I feel that the Council is doing an excellent and useful job. In many of the buildings abroad the British Council staff work under difficult circumstances. For example, in Cologne we saw the United States Information Services library which contained far better facilities than those in the British Council premises. It has been suggested that the British Council should own the buildings in which it works abroad, and certainly there is a great contrast between the buildings occupied by British staff and those of the United States personnel. This is not good for our prestige, although I am not suggesting that we can compete with the United States, since it is a much wealthier nation. However, we should make sure that the British Council is able to carry out its duties and responsibilities in reasonable surroundings.

We discovered that the library in Cologne was not used as much as it should have been. I believe we should not spend a great deal of money in Germany at the expense of the under-developed and developing nations. I know that it is fashionable to refer to these countries as the third world, and personally I prefer to call them the developing nations. However, I am sure that anybody using the phrase third world does not mean to denigrate those nations, we refer to them in that way merely as a matter of convenience. My hon. Friend was not seeking to say anything that could be harmful to the nations involved.

On this question of space in our libraries we found there were no rooms for meetings or lectures and that the library shelves took up a great deal of the space. It was recommended that the library shelving should be placed on wheels so that it could be moved about and room provided for lectures and meetings. I believe that that suggestion has been carefully examined by the British Council and that there may be some result.

At the United States Information Services library, we noticed that many periodicals were given away. These were unsold copies of periodicals from the United States. We found that there was some difficulty in the Council doing this because publishers in this country, unlike those in America, do not print a surplus. But I am quite certain that it would be possible to get spare copies from the publishers at a very cheap rate and to send them out. We found, especially in Ethiopia and Lagos, that there is a great demand for English reading matter.

The exchange of students to which reference has been made is very important because a great deal of the work of the British Council is taken up by looking after students who travel abroad and arranging the exchange of students as part of their duties and responsibilities. I am shocked at the suggestion that we should spend more money in Europe at the expense of the under-developed nations. I would not even accept that if it were related to the question of going into the Common Market, because those in Western Europe can well look after themselves. It is no good our building libraries there when they already have their own libraries, of a very high standard. I am hoping, therefore, that we shall not spend money in Western Europe at the expense of the underdeveloped nations.

We found that in Nigeria and Ethiopia films were useful, and this side of the work ought to be expanded. I do not know why we do not do this, because in this way we can attract more children with all kinds of films and can make life in the villages less distressing than it must be, and can reach a great number of people with our language. The problem is that of money. The question of the mass media has been raised. A wonderful job is being done in Addis Ababa. Fifty television sets were donated and now they have had another 75, but why can they not have more? More television sets would enable us to reach more children and to develop education in the schools.

The Committee was extremely impressed by the enthusiasm of the staff, who worked marvellously well, without concern for their own health. There is no doubt that the mass media can make a valuable contribution to the education of the people. I hope, therefore, that the Government will take note of this and try to ensure that more television sets are supplied to the British Council. It deserves our praise for the work it carries out in promoting international operations. No small responsibility lies on the shoulders of the Council, for it must never on any occasion give the impression to those in the country in which it is operating that there has been insufficient consultation. This is important in connection with taking films into villages. It is essential that permission to do so be obtained first. I am sure that the British Council representatives will ensure that that policy is carried out.

A word about the policy of Governments—one does not wish to be parochial on this. Why are we not increasing the amount of money spent by the British Council when we all praise it for the work it does? The amount is now just over £16 million, but I am informed that this is of no greater value than the 1964 figure. We are not taking into account the increase in the wealth of this nation. We should spend more money to try to make certain that the British Council can carry out its duties and responsibilities with forethought and care and without being too greatly worried about money.

An important factor is that if the British Council can budget only each year and there is a reduction in the following year, something already planned has to be cut out; and the worst thing one can do in these countries is to plan and to promise something and then have to say in the following year, "We are sorry; we cannot carry it out". The Government should consider allowing the British Council to budget for at least three years, guaranteeing that a certain amount will be provided—and one always hopes that it will be further increased. The British Council can then say, "Instead of planning for only 12 months hence, we will plan for 2½ years, which will enable us to make better schemes and to spend money more advisedly".

In conclusion, I wish to thank members of the Committee, who were so very helpful and who helped to make that visit most pleasurable, despite the hard work. I hope that if they send another small committee on such a visit, the Government will make sure that a few more days are allowed to enable more information to be obtained so that the committee can make an even better report.

6.8 p.m.

Mr. Richard Hornby (Tonbridge)

I should begin by declaring an interest as a member of the Executive Committee of the British Council. I have seen some of the Council's work both at home and abroad. In passing, we should remember that important work is being done by the Council in this country no less than overseas, particularly in its dealings with the exchange and reception of students and so on; so when I was invited last year to become a member of the Executive Committee I was delighted to have the opportunity of being more closely associated with the Council's work.

Secondly, I welcome very much the inquiry instituted by the former Estimates Committee and the report now published by the Expenditure Committee. It is worth noting at the outset that this is the second report in a relatively short period of time which has commended very warmly the value of the work of the British Council, the earlier report being that of the Duncan Committee already referred to in the debate. The essence of that work is the steps that are being taken to achieve a better understanding between ourselves and other countries and of us by other countries.

That work really involves their seeing the best of the things that we are doing and writing and the art that we are producing and other activities. It involves meeting needs and requests from other people who are anxious to see how others are grappling with the particular problems they face and finding out how best their needs can be met. It also involves teaching our own language, far and away the best instrument we have for the communication of our ideas throughout the world.

As such and in all these capacities, the work of the Council is a very valuable adjunct of foreign policy, and not just a promotion of our culture. As the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) said, foreign policy depends no longer on military presence or economic power alone. It depends also on an understanding of the values and cultures that countries uphold. It is to that end that the work of the Council is directed.

If the Council is to be able to do that work, it must be able to take a longterm view. That is right at the core of the Sub-Committee's report. The dangers of "stop-go" policies in this connection as in others have been emphasised. To take up a project, to initiate a teaching scheme link between a local authority here and some other part of the world and then to abandon it at the half-way stage is not only wasteful in money terms; it can be positively damaging to the relations between the two countries because of the resentment that the abandonment arouses.

I wish to refer to three aspects of the work of the Council. The first relates to its finances, the second to its priorities, and the third to its independence.

Dealing with finance, the Council is wholly dependent on its annual grant from the Government. I see no alternative source of funds. Certainly I see none which would provide the necessary volume of money.

One has to ask one question about the amount and another about the effect on the Council's work of funds coming from this source. I do not believe that the fact that the Council is financed by the Treasury is inimical to its reputation for independence. After all, the universities take 95 per cent. of their money from the Government, and they would be the first to cry out if they thought that their independence was threatened. I do not think that we need be worried about the nature of the source affecting the Council's independence.

I have one or two comments on the amounts and the way in which they are supplied. The Council has been treated stingily with regard to capital provision. Inadequate housing is perhaps the best evidence of that stinginess. As other hon. Members have said, it is folly, especially in capital cities, again and again, year after year to be renting instead of buying. What this policy must have cost the country over the years is anyone's guess, but, clearly, it is madness and should be stopped progressively at the earliest possible moment.

With regard to the current account, the problem that the Council faces is that the annual grant which is made to cover its schemes does not make any allowance for cost increases in the ensuing year. In the course of a year, as costs inevitably rise in this inflationary age, the Council is forced to chip away at its work before the next negotiation comes at the end of the year. An allowance should be made for estimated cost increases in the ensuing 12 months at each annual grant review.

Then, as other hon. Members have said, it is important that a longer view than one year ahead should be taken. It is suggested that a five-year view ahead is to be preferred. I understand the anxieties of the Treasury that one cannot give absolute guarantees about amounts that will be provided. However, certainly it should give the strongest possible declaration of intent, and certainly a stronger one that the Council has had hitherto. Without that, there is a danger of cut-back, followed by waste, followed by the resentment to which I have referred.

The second aspect to which I refer concerns the Council's priorities. These are extremely difficult matters of judgment. They are difficult geographically and functionally. Decisions, reviews and discussions between representatives of the Council and the sponsoring Departments, especially the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, go on the whole time. Discussions in the Executive Committee go on the whole time, and rightly. Inevitably, one is making balancing judgments, for better or worse, with a little less here and a little more there.

There are three factors which go into those judgments. The first is the nature of the requests received, bearing in mind that, by the nature of its work, the Council must engage in projects which are wanted and which are to the direct benefit of those requesting and receiving its help. It has to be meeting needs all the time. Then there are its political priorities. There is a dialogue and a partnership with the Foreign Office which must go on all the time.

What is perhaps the most important factor when taking decisions is the resources available not only of money but of appropriate and skilled manpower. It is no good agreeing to requests or getting the political and geographical priorities right if, that having been done, the right person cannot be placed in the right post at the right time. The essence of the Council's work is the personnel function; in other words, finding people who can do the work, who are anxious to do it, who are trained for it, and who are adaptable and suitable for the places where they will be sent. Training, retraining, and providing a career structure with, possibly, a secondment and temporary appointment structure alongside it through which it is possible to get the appropriate skilled person to the right place at the right time is the essence of what this is about. It cannot be emphasised too much.

The third aspect is the Council's independence. It seems to me that the present position is an adequate compromise. In one or two respects, this otherwise very useful report makes heavy weather of this issue. I have discussed already the relationship with the Treasury. I do not regard that as damaging in terms of its nature. I am concerned only about its manner.

As for the Foreign Office and the question of contact with ambassadors before British Council appointments overseas are made, it seems to me that it is the only sensible course. The Council has the right to say "No" to a suggestion from an ambassador overseas that a certain appointment should not be made. However, we must bear in mind that the partnership overseas will be extremely close. Posts are often lonely unless the relationship is a good one. It is no good service to the individual concerned, to the work of the Council or to the work of the Foreign Office unless there have been private consultations before making individual appointments.

Mr. Stratton Mills (Belfast, North)

The B.B.C. Overseas Service is also financed by the Government. Would my hon. Friend expect an ambassador to be consulted about an appointment in respect of the B.B.C. Overseas Service?

Mr. Hornby

The two cases are by no means parallel. I am always chary of encouraging governmental interference in the media of communications. Then again, the relationship on the ground is not of the same kind. The B.B.C. representative is never a cultural attaché. He is never housed within the precincts of the overseas post. I think that my hon. Friend is making a totally false and misleading comparison.

With regard to senior appointments on which the Foreign Secretary has the right of veto—namely, the chairmanship of the Council and the position of the director-general—if part of the task of the Council's work involves discussion and deliberation about where to go, about political priorities and so on, it seems that those discussions can be held freely in the way that the Council would want only if there is a total degree of confidence in the man at the top. For that reason I should regard it as prudent that this relatively gentle Foreign Office interest in this field should be maintained as now.

In looking at what the Council should be doing, bearing in mind that demand for its services and help is always in excess of the supply of resources available, one should always be looking for what the Committee called the multiplier effect. In the educational field one cannot do all the job oneself but must concentrate on training the trainers of teachers. In Europe many contacts have already developed, and many of the actions taken by the Council will be in trying to bring professional bodies together to get on with the job in their own way. The most important multiplier of all is continued emphasis on the teaching and use of the English langauge, which I believe represents the best investment of all that the Council is doing.

I therefore suggest that the best thing which this House can do tonight is to ask my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs to give the strongest possible guarantee to the Council about the stability and improvement of the financial climate within which the Council can plan for its future.

6.22 p.m.

Mr. Ted Fletcher (Darlington)

I am certain that the House is grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones) for initiating this debate. I am in no doubt at all that the British Council is doing valuable work and is staffed by dedicated officers. It has a tremendous contribution to make to international relations and to educational development overseas.

Like the hon. Member for Tonbridge (Mr. Hornby), I want to divide my contribution into three parts—finance, priorities and independence—although I shall probably reach different conclusions from those which he reached. Although in money terms the income of the British Council has increased over the years, in actual terms the activity has not increased substantially because of the impact of inflation, rising costs, devaluation and so on.

One has only to contrast the £16 million per year income of the British Council today with what is happening in France. There the budget devoted to cultural activities is three times as large as the budget controlled by the British Council. Approximately £45 million per year is spent by France on cultural activities abroad. We had the opportunity when we visited West Germany of speaking to German Foreign Office officials we found that, although their finance is channelled through three or four cultural organisations, the amount is well in excess of £20 million.

The first thing that the Government ought to do is to look very closely at whether we are getting value for money. If the Government conclude, as the Committee concluded, that we are doing so and that the British Council should expand, then more money should be devoted to the work of the Council. What I think the Executive Committee needs even more than additional finance is some stability. It needs an assurance that it will be able to plan for three, four, or five years ahead. That is not possible today. For example, in 1967–68 it was compelled to reduce its budget by half a million pounds. I know that there were special circumstances during that period because of foreign exchange problems, but nevertheless this meant that it had to withdraw from eight countries only to re-establish posts there 12 months afterwards.

In order to establish itself in a country it is necessary for it to spend at least two years making contact with the local population, to become assimilated in the community and to get into contact with educational institutions and universities. That cannot be done overnight. All this valuable know-how is lost when, because of some action by the Government, the organisation has to withdraw its activities from certain countries.

Of course, the Government issue a White Paper on Public Expenditure which attempts to project public expenditure for five years ahead. That is not very much use to the British Council because it does not deal in any detailed sense with what the British Council should spend, but deals only in a sort of global way with overseas expenditure. The two things which we need in this field are more money to be made available and a sense of continuity, and some guarantee should be given to the British Council that it can plan for at least three or four years in advance without the apprehension that the Government might take away half a million or a million pounds and as a consequence destroy the opportunities which the Council has to build good will in other parts of the world.

On the question of priorities, the Duncan Committee's Report stated: we consider that there is now a strong case for shifting the balance of British Council activities towards Western Europe". Because of the political overtures that were being made at that time and are being made now with a view to our joining the Common Market, no doubt influence was brought to bear on the Government to give emphasis to the idea of stimulating British Council activities in Europe. Every member of the Committee will, I think, agree that this priority is wrong. I and my colleagues cannot claim to be in any sense authorities on the work of the British Council. We visited three countries: Ethiopia, Nigeria and West Germany.

Our experience in West Germany showed that there was little interest in the British Council libraries. For example, we went to a library at 10 o'clock in the morning and found one student sitting there. When we got into conversation with him we found that he was a citizen of the United States of America.

This contrasted greatly with the position in Addis Ababa and Lagos. In Lagos we found an astounding response. Every seat in the overcrowded library was occupied by a Nigerian student. Many other students were sitting on the stairs, in the corridors and in the compound, engrossed in reading English books.

There is a tremendous demand to learn English and to study English literature, but in my opinion this demand is not being satisfied.

Previous speakers have mentioned the inadequacies of the buildings. I know that the building in Lagos could be improved. It is bursting at the seams. It is not adequate for the task which it has to perform.

I notice that the British Council proposes to spend £400,000 in the next five years on buildings. This works out at less than £100,000 per year spread over 80 countries. It is not possible to enter into any vast capital undertakings with such a small sum at the disposal of the British Council.

Our experience in Africa shows that there is a tremendous demand in both Ethiopia and Nigeria for a knowledge of English—in order to read English textbooks. These young people want to get to secondary and grammar school. They can do so only by studying in the British Council library. That demand is not reflected in Europe. After all, the citizens of West Germany can receive the B.B.C. international services, so they have the opportunity of listening to English. Many hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of tourists come from Europe on visits to this country, so they are in contact with British cultural and artistic activities. In my view, the emphasis on Europe is wrong. We should devote more attention to the problems of the developing countries. This is borne out by our observations particularly in Nigeria and Addis Ababa.

I turn now to the experiment which is going on in Ethiopia with the mass media centre. Here is a project of broadcasting sound and television programmes in English which reach 50,000 students. This is done on a shoe-string budget. The capital cost of setting up the radio station was about £40,000 and the running costs are about £23,000 per year. They are now thinking of extending the programmes from student to adult education. The Overseas Development Administration has made arrangements for 150 television sets to be made available. But even this provision is quite inadequate. I understand that there are as many as 400 students to a single television set. They sit round in a huge class to assimilate the knowledge they are getting through this television channel.

I pay tribute to the engineers in charge of this development in Ethiopia. They have vast technical problems with the mountainous country. Despite those problems, they are dedicated to the job. There are possibilities, because of close co-operation with the Ethiopian Government, of opening up other wave-bands, extending the time, and so on, but the capital just is not available for this development. The Government should look into this matter.

There was a suggestion that a soap manufacturer in Britain might be prepared to advance £40,000 to double the radio network if he had the opportunity of advertising his detergents on the radio or television. I am sure that if there were that demand—I do not think there is that demand in Ethiopia—this opportunity would be jumped at, because £40,000 is a small price to pay. It would cost the British Council £40,000 to send one of the Shakespearean companies behind the Iron Curtain for one or two weeks.

We should extend the idea of using the mass media, television and radio, to broadcast lessons in and knowledge of English to other countries. We have not explored this idea deeply enough. I hope that more money will be devoted to this venture. I was probably more impressed with this venture, because of the enthusiasm of the engineers and the fact that the staff of the British Council have voluntarily given of their spare time to running this radio station, than any other activity of the British Council.

I turn now to the point about independence. This is probably the most controversial subject which we have discussed in the debate. We questioned members of the British Council very closely about this matter. We know that if there is a break in diplomatic relations between this country and other countries the embassy staff have to pack their bags and go, but the British Council almost always remains because it is not regarded as an agency of the Foreign Office.

By contrast, let us look at what happens with the American Information Services. They are regarded as an agency of the State Department. Indeed, when there are, as often happens, demonstrations against American involvement in Vietnam, for instance — this often happens in the African countries—not only are the windows of the American Embassy smashed, but the windows of the American Information Services are smashed. Sometimes they ask for it. As a rule they have ostentatious places with the Stars and Stripes proudly flying. It is part of the advertising technique of the Americans lo show what they are doing for the under-developed countries. We are more modest. Nevertheless, the American Information Services are associated with American foreign policy.

We are told that the British Council is independent. I believe that we have not only to say that it is independent but to show that it is independent. Therefore, it seems to us that when staff for the British Council are vetted by the ambassador—the ambassador is asked whether a certain individual is acceptable to him; in other words, acceptable to the Foreign Office—it shows that there is some connection between the Foreign Office and the British Council. If the British Council is to be truly independent, it should, although it has to co-operate in day-to-day activities with the embassy, be shown to be truly independent. It is true that the budgetary arrangements mean that the Council is on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Vote. Therefore, something should be done to end this. We ought to establish the fact that the British Council is entirely independent of the Foreign Office. Indeed, in the under-developed countries the British Council is regarded as a cultural centre and educational institution, not as an appendix to the Foreign Office, and it is important that we should safeguard this position.

I do not think that any member of the Committee will apologise for the fact that we probed this matter very deeply. We endeavoured to point out that in our view, if the Council is truely independent, it should show this publicly by saying that it will not be told by the Foreign Office whom it employs.

I pay tribute to the Sub-Committee's Chairman, my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles, who introduced the report. I think that hon. Members on both sides of the House who were on our small Sub-Committee know of the valuable work which the Chairman has done and the co-operation which we have had from the British Council during our investigations.

We have not produced a mind-shattering report; we are not suggesting drastic alterations; but we have made some modest recommendations which I think will go some way to improving the word of the British Council.

We need to focus attention on the fact that there is a tremendous demand for a knowledge of English in the developing countries. A knowledge of English and of English ways and institutions is a passport to employment for millions of people, particularly in Africa and in India. We are not exploiting this desire to learn English and to learn about English institutions, because the money is not available. Therefore, I hope that members of the Executive Committee who have taken part in the debate will realise the necessity of pressing the Government to try to make more money available for this most important aspect of selling the British way of life to people abroad.

6.40 p.m.

Sir Richard Thompson (Croydon, South)

I must be the only speaker in this debate who is not either a member of the Expenditure Committee or in some way connected with the Executive of the British Council. This is not a disadvantage, because it enables one to look at the matter a little from the outside.

One message has struck anyone who has heard this whole debate, and it is one in which we should all rejoice; that is, that hon. Members on both sides thoroughly appreciate the work of the British Council and are conscious of what it does for our reputation abroad. I hope that this message goes out loud and clear. There is no activity of which it is easier to make fun than some activities of the British Council considered in isolation. As all Governments have economy drives and retrenchment, these activities, broadly described as culture, are the easiest to cut without anyone here feeling any difference. I therefore welcome our unanimity that this is a worthwhile activity for which we get a substantial return. I hope that this debate will help to cut some of the ignorant cackle about the Council's activities.

Many hon. Members have quoted figures of expenditure, but for a layman like myself the significant one is that—referring to the latest figure in this report, which is a year out of date—although the money voted has gone up to £13,473,000 in real terms, the British Council is providing its services for the same money as it got six years ago. We in this House are not doing that. Very few public bodies are.

It needs emphasising that if economies should be made they are being made. The thing is being run on thrifty and sensible lines—thriftier perhaps than anyone would wish. But no one should think that this is a fringe activity with a cosy little budget enjoying itself without reference to the value of what it does. We get good value for money here.

As other hon. Members have said, comparing this £13½ million with the £40 million or £50 million which France, a comparable country in size and population, devotes to this activity or the £20 million that Germany spends we can see that we have a good bargain. We would all like the Council to have more, but the most important thing is to try to arrange that it has a predictable future; in other words, that it can look ahead with some confidence that it will not be suddenly chopped on a particularly vital programme. Continuity is the essence of the matter.

There has been a good deal of argument about independence and accountability, but this is overdone. If something depends on public money in the end, someone in the Government has to justify it. It would be very nice to say, "This is culture and education and we do not want any association with the Foreign Office or the Treasury", but without that association they would not get the money. This House would fail in its duty if it allowed even a small budget like this to be voted without any Minister having the power or the duty to defend it. Nice though it would be not to be attached to a Department, we must accept that it is public money and should be treated like any other expenditure.

In practice, what one calls the backseat driving of the approval of the Foreign Office for the highest appointments is not too onerous. It is exercised with tact and discretion. Here again, someone has to defend the British Council if it gets into trouble in the House. If it is not the Foreign Office, it will be someone else.

Mr. Carter-Jones

I completely agree with the hon. Member. All that we said in our report was that time and time again we were told that they were not answerable. I can understand this accountability where there is a Vote on the Foreign Office. The Sub-Committee was concerned that both sides claimed that there was complete independence.

Sir R. Thompson

I take the hon. Member's point, but I still adhere to mine. Total independence is not of this House, and the arrangement we have, although perhaps not logically defensible, does not work too badly—as with one or two of our other much maligned institutions.

I do not want to go through the minutiae of the report—those who compiled it are much better qualified than I am—but the basic question is: what is the British Council trying to do? What is its rôle, and is it devoting sufficient emphasis to it?

On page ix of the report, we read: The Council's Charter of Incorporation, drawn up in 1940, sets out their three principal aims as 'promoting wider knowledge of the United Kingdom and the English language abroad and developing closer cultural relations between the United Kingdom and other countries'. Of those three things, the most important is promoting a wider knowledge of the English language abroad. This is the grass roots of what it is trying to do. I see on a later page that the Council devotes 31 per cent. of its budget to teaching English. I hope that that can be increased and that it will never lose sight of the fact that this is its first task.

Practically every speaker today has paid his tribute to the English language and all that it unlocks, and to the fact that it is a priceless means of communication with the rest of the world. I profoundly believe that. It follows that if one wants to understand our institutions, our culture, the considerable contribution which we have made to the life of this planet, one will get nowhere without first learning to read and speak English. Otherwise, one just does not have access to what we are trying to say.

The English language is the most powerful and effective instrument left to us for disseminating information about our kind of world, of which most of us, I think, are proud, and which unquestionably has made enormous contributions to the sum of human knowledge. If as a country which no longer has the enormous material power which at one time, within the memory of most hon. Members, we had, we are to win the war of ideas which is so essential, we must impart what we have to contribute through our own tongue. It follows that English teaching, particularly in the under-developed countries, should be a major effort, as I accept it is, on the part of the British Council.

There is one respect in which I wonder whether we are using all the assets we have in this context. The war-time coalition Government under Winston Churchill knew that at the end of hostilities they would have to put this message to the world on an international scale. That was why Winston Churchill at the end of the war took a leading part in buying the copyright for the nation of a universal language known as basic English. We paid about £25,000 for it in C. K. Ogden's great work, and we paid it with the intention of using this simplified language—which consists of only 850 words in the vocabulary with a very simplified grammatical form—to talk to the people of the under-developed world and to people in places where English was not understood.

A few basic books like the Bible are already translated into basic English and are in use. There is also a scientific dictionary because this language can be adapted to be the language of modern technology. It also has the advantage of being quickly mastered and, once learned, newspapers and, from them, books can easily be read by people of a very low educational standard. It is readily intelligible. It beggars description why, having purchased the copyright for this purpose, we have made so little effective use of it.

I have looked into this matter and can only conceive that somehow it got lost in the long grass of the old Ministry of Education in the days after the war when there were so many other urgent priorities. It seemed to be nobody's business to use it as a solution of our communications problem. Nevertheless, every contributor to this debate has spoken of the urgent need to spread the use and understanding of English. It therefore seems incredible that a body like the British Council, which I believe has experimented with basic English, should not embrace it and use it much more than it does at present.

This is a waste of resources and a neglect of the nearest thing ever devised to a universal language in our own tongue. What a powerful means of communication this would be to the underdeveloped countries and what a quick and ready means of learning English for many in the Common Market which we appear likely to join in the near future.

No large expenditure is involved here. We do not have to buy anything from anybody. This is not a commercial venture. It already belongs to us, and people like Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and H. G. Wells—people qualified to judge—thought that basic English was the genesis of a universal language.

If we really want to develop the educational English teaching activity of the British Council, we should look once more at this means which lies ready to hand but which, for a reason I cannot ascertain—has it been neglect or prejudice?—has never been fully used.

Subject to that, I commend the activities of the British Council. We have a right to be proud that so relatively few resources have produced a result so greatly to the credit of our country.

6.56 p.m.

Mr. Frank Judd (Portsmouth, West)

Like the hon. Member for Croydon, South (Sir R. Thompson), I have neither had the honour to be a member of the Select Committee nor the honour to be a member of the Executive of the British Council. I, too, therefore, can bring at least an element of objectivity and disinterest to the debate.

I applaud and endorse the hon. Gentleman's remarks about the need for the British Council to be able to plan ahead with certainty. We understand all the difficulties imposed on the Council because of traditional Treasury policy. But it is important that where a long-term on-going operation of this kind is involved, those with responsibility for it should be able to look ahead with confidence.

I also join hon. Members in congratulating the British Council on its successful programme to date. As a member of the late Select Committee on Overseas Aid and Development I was able to see some of the work of the British Council in India and Pakistan. I am sure that I speak for all my colleagues who were members of that Select Committee when I say that we, like the Select Committee whose report we are discussing today, were deeply impressed by much of what we saw.

I wish, first, to stress the need for there to be a really representative cross-section of British life on the Executive of the Council. It should be self-evident that if the job of the Council is, among other things, to portray abroad the way of life in Britain, there must be among its governing bodies for all to see representatives of as many walks of life in Britain as possible.

Several hon. Members have referred to the Duncan Report. I was in the House when that report appeared and I was among those who felt that it was a pernicious and dangerous document. I did not like what it said about areas of priority and outer areas and its use of language which at times I thought was verging on the provocative.

It is tremendously important that the British Council should seize the opportunity of getting in on the ground floor in areas of the world where we are creating new relationships. As I have travelled in the developing countries it has sometimes seemed to me that other nations are proving much more effective in forming connections—friendships and relationships with newly independent countries—than are we and that they are prepared to take the risks and suffer the frustrations which are inevitable in the early stages because they see the advantages that will be reaped at a later stage.

In view of the close relationships which we were able to enjoy with much of the developing world until recently, in our capacity of the mother country of the Commonwealth, it is particularly tragic that others should be overtaking us in the closeness of their involvement with countries which, in one way or another, will have great significance in future. If we have encountered certain political and psychological difficulties in making the adjustment from our former imperial rôle to our new relationship, surely the Council is one of the bodies best able to take the lead in working out precisely what the new relationship should be.

My next point is on the degree to which the Council should appear to be identified with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in its work. This, too, has received a considerable amount of attention in the debate. I want to look at one specialist activity of the Council in this connection, to illustrate a particular problem that exists. One of the Council's functions, which it has conducted with very commendable success, has been to act as the overseas arm of some of the volunteer agencies involved in the British volunteer programme. It does seem that if volunteers serving within that programme are to be able to make the best of the projects to which they are assigned, they should be free of any criticism that they are acting directly as the tools of British foreign policy. If those who are responsible for negotiating the arrangements for their assignments appear to be too closely identified with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, this danger will exist. Therefore, in one specific sphere, we see one of the potential dangers, or one of the potentially adverse consequences, of too great an identification with the Foreign Office.

While mentioning this aspect of the Council's work in its responsibilities for the British volunteer programme, I pay tribute to those of its staff who have been fulfilling their responsibilities on this front. Many of those volunteers who have served abroad would want to place on record their tribute to what has been done to make their work as fruitful as possible. Naturally, some people working on this front are more successful than others. The Council would be the first to agree that the temperament and personality of its officers looking after volunteers are of vital importance. Naturally, the officer who has a more institutionalised and less imaginative approach will not be able to develop the same sort of volunteer programme as those with greater imagination and flexibility.

My next point concerns education and can be summarised in this way. Understandably, in the past, the Council has been proud of its emphasis on what I have heard described by its officers as centres of excellence. This has been related to the traditional élitist approach towards leadership in a number of countries in which it is operating. I believe that the Council must take a very radical look at this sort of involvement if it takes on board seriously the problems of the developing countries. Perhaps among the most serious problems and difficulties which confront the developing world as a whole is the scale of illiteracy within it. U.N.E.S.C.O. and others have estimated that there are between 700 million and 1,000 million illiterates in the third world at present. This has to be judged not only in terms of 700 million to 1,000 million people, like any one of us in the House or outside, denied the chance to develop their personalities to the full in a way that becomes possible with literacy, but it also has to be seen in terms of a dead weight holding back the effective operation of the developmental plans of those with political, economic and social responsibility in the countries concerned.

If we are to battle effectively against this problem of illiteracy, the Council has a vital rôle to play, as the hon. Member for Tonbridge (Mr. Hornby) said earlier, in training the trainers, in making sure that it is contributing to effective educational work in the front line in society and that it is assessing the success of its educational programme not just in terms of the depth of knowledge available to a few who are fortunate in being amongst the more sophisticated members of society but also in terms of the degree to which a broad cross-section of the community is sharing in educational progress and the emancipation which that brings in so many ways.

In illustration of this point, I read some figures recently about the educational situation in India a few years ago, where it appeared that 90 per cent. of the graduates from Indian universities were graduates in law, arts and commerce, 3.4 per cent. in medicine, and 1.2 per cent. in agriculture. Obviously, if the British Council is priding itself on assisting in the development of India in such a way that an increasing number of people in Indian society can feel and appreciate material progress, it ought to avoid the temptation of being drawn, in India or anywhere else, into a too intimate relationship with the 90 per cent. of graduates who are obviously not having the same proportionate success, in terms of the overall impact on India, as the small proportion of graduates in medicine and agriculture are able to have.

It is not a matter only of getting the emphasise right in terms of collaboration with university students and university work; it is also important for seeing the rôle of the British Council outside the more academic institutions in those less high powered but, perhaps, in a way, more significant educational institutions throughout the country.

Another illustration of my point is that recently I visited Nigeria and spoke to senior officers of the government in Enugu, and the commissioners with whom I was speaking told me, amongst other things, how much they wanted Britain, presumably through the British Council, to expand the educational opportunities for graduates in terms of scholarships to universities in and beyond Nigeria and in academic advance at that sort of level. While involved in that discussion at Enugu, I could not help bearing in mind the tremendous problems of the North-East State of Nigeria, which is battling to achieve any significant degree of literacy at all amongst the wider population of that part of the Nigerian Federation. In its approach to its educational priorities, I hope that the Council will take on board all the time not only the need for qualitative achievement but the need, in terms of the challenge of the developing world, for quantitative achievement as well.

7.8 p.m.

Mr. Jasper More (Ludlow)

I am glad that I am, at any rate, the third nonmember of the Sub-Committee or the Expenditure Committee to speak in the debate. We are grateful to the Government for giving us time to debate this subject, but I hope that hon. Members who were members of the Sub-Committee will not take this as any reflection on them, or misunderstand me, when I say that although all their contributions have been most interesting and informative to the House, there must be a certain unreality about the debate if they are made up mostly by members of the Sub-Committee.

When these Select Committees were proposed in the recent Green Paper, the Green Paper said that the object was to produce a significant strengthening of the parliamentary system. It referred to the fact that when debates had taken place on these reports, the interest shown by other hon. Members had sometimes been disappointingly small. If other hon. Members are to be drawn into these debates—and surely the debate will be more real if it is largely conducted by other Members—it is necessary for some effort to be made and opportunities given. I think that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, to whom I have talked about this, has taken the point, and I hope that in future efforts will be made to arouse a rather more general interest and to produce a rather more real debate. But I repeat how much we have appreciated the contributions from those who were on the Sub-Committee, particularly its Chairman. I found its report very interesting.

Very little has been said with which we could disagree, and I hesitate to repeat all the excellent points. I very much agree that if it is to do itself justice the British Council must have a guarantee of a regular financal budget. I support what has been said about the importance of the appearance of the buildings where the Council has offices in foreign towns. It would be better to have few but good ones rather than to try to proliferate.

I also agree with most of what has been said about priorities. It is a bit presumptuous of us to express our views about priorities in the actual activities. There was criticism of a certain play sent to a certain capital, but if the British Council in its wisdom decides that it would be a good thing to send a theatrical company to perform, say, "Hair" in Addis Ababa, or "Oh! Calcutta!" in Karachi, that is a matter for it. But it is essential, seeing that the British Council is so vulnerable to criticism, that it should not make an ass of itself, and the all-important thing is to make sure that it has sensible advisers.

The argument about priorities between what are called, rather patronisingly, developed and underdeveloped countries has been very interesting. It is surprising, in view of what has been said in the debate, that the Sub-Committee does not appear to have made any specific recommendation about it. The sad story of the library in Cologne with only one gentleman there, who turned out to he an American student, is indicative of the dangers that can be run in getting our priorities wrong. It is my view—not for the accidental reason that I happen to be against our going into the Common Market—that there are certain things in the developed countries, at any rate the European countries, that we cannot now hope to do. They have a certain outlook conditioned by long centuries of habit and practice. They believe in strange things like logic and reason, and I do not think they will ever be converted to the much better system we have, with our bumbling instinct for tradition and common sense which somehow manages always to produce so much better results.

I suggest as regards the European countries that the British Council might turn its mind to the theory that in cultural exchanges—films, lectures and things like that—there is much to be said for trying to spread the doctrine that the initiative should come from the receiving country rather than the exporting country, and that as far as possible the expenditure incurred should not necessarily be expected to come out of public funds.

I agree very much with almost everything that has been said about the underdeveloped countries. What the Sub-Committee saw in Addis Ababa and Lagos is indicative of what is needed. A large number of countries, particularly in Africa, are asking for what we can give them—language teaching and even the British way of life. Where they have not been corrupted by ideas like reason and logic we might even persuade them to understand things like democracy and the rule of law. I say to the British Council, "More power to your elbow in those directions".

I should like to stress the importance of what so many hon. Members have said about the career structure of the British Council, and particularly the choice of its Director-General. If any organisation is to be a happy and practical organisation, with good morale, those who serve in it must know that there are good prospects for those within it. I am sure that that is half the battle in creating a successful organisation.

May I once again express my admiration of the work the British Council is doing and our gratitude to the Sub-Committee for its excellent report.

7.16 p.m.

Mrs. Judith Hart (Lanark)

It may be useful if I make one or two comments now before the remaining Conservative hon. Members who wish to speak make their contributions to the debate.

May I say first, as someone who is a member neither of the Select Committee nor of any of the committees of the British Council, what an interesting debate this has proved to be and what an interesting report the Sub-Committee produced. The debate has tended to concentrate on two or three of the major issues which the valuable report threw up. I want to look at those as well as one or two other points.

The report looks at the British Council with its various faces. I have mainly met the British Council abroad in developing countries; I have little experience of it in richer, developed countries. Those of us who have met it abroad see it with its educational face, its cultural face and its diplomatic face, as being the British image to many people in many places. It is probably true to say that, certainly in the developing countries, more people have an image of Britain through contact with British Council activities than through direct contact with embassies or high commissions, which tend to have a rather restricted circle of acquaintances in the cities in which we find them.

I should like to look first at the question of long-term budgeting, which has been raised over and over again in speeches. The Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary's reply to this point was perhaps well-meaning, but it was somewhat vague and was certainly not adequate in view of the seriousness of the point made in the report. It is true that the long-term basic commitments of the British Council are very marginal in the whole programme of public expenditure, and, indeed, in the whole programme of overseas development aid and the spending of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. In defence and foreign expenditure as a whole, of course, the amount involved for British Council continuing permanent activities is fractional. It does not make sense to read in the evidence of the British Council's need to withdraw altogether from eight countries as a result of a cut of £500,000 in 1967–68.

The Committee was told that the saving effected by closing down in Fiji was £13,000, compared with a cost of £120,000 for the Royal Court Theatre Week in Belgrade. While we want the British Council, of course, to be adventurous in its cultural activities, I wonder whether these priorities were right.

In particular, I wonder whether the way in which the budgeting is done is as useful as it could be. We read in the evidence and the answers to the Sub-Committee's very sharp questioning that the division of expenditure was broadly 69 per cent. to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and 31 per cent. to the Ministry of Overseas Development. That was evidence taken before the absorption of that Ministry into the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Clearly there is a significant difference in the budgeting question now that the Overseas Development Administration is part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Presumably there is no longer quite the same distinction between the two sides of expenditure since all is coming from precisely the same source. It seems to me that it might well be better if there were to be a rather more formalised division in the budgeting of the British Council as between what one might call "continuing commitments"—maintenance of building and staff in different countries—and the more ad hoc commitments which change from time to time, from year to year and, indeed, sometimes from month to month, and which account for a large proportion of the British Council's expenditure. This would possibly provide a basis on which there could be a guarantee of a minimum budget that would not be disturbed, which would enable the British Council to avoid such devastating action as having to withdraw from a country if ever there were a critical economic situation in this country.

How, in the hon. Gentleman's view, does the merger between the O.D.A. and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office affect this position? What updating needs to be made in the Sub-Committee's conclusions on this and other related financial points as a result of the merger, which we on this side very much regretted?

I turn now to the question of education, which has been raised sharply on the issue of independence for the British Council and which is the other major theme to emerge in the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, West (Mr. Judd) not unpredictably raised a key question about the British Council's educational activity. The point he made sharply focused the question of its dependence on or total independence from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. There was considerable and interesting discussion about this in the Select Committee. The British Council said that it would like one pair of executive hands. It said that it would like to have a position in which it could be much more independent in its educational work. On the other hand, the Overseas Development Ministry, as it was then … accepted that an increasing proportion of overseas aid work in the educational field should become the responsibility of the Council, though they stopped short of suggesting that it should be transferred in its entirety to 'one pair of executive hands'. They considered such a proposition unworkable' because aid to education is a part of the total aid programme and cannot be dealt with in isolation'. …". This focuses very much on the problem at issue here as to how completely the British Council should operate independently.

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs stated that independence could not be absolute. He said: … in the provision of educational aid the Council acts increasingly as the agent overseas of the Overseas Development Administration. For these reasons the Government consider that, while the Council must enjoy the greatest possible freedom to conduct its activities in the way which it considers professionally most effective, its work nevertheless forms part of the officially-sponsored British effort overseas …". On the whole, on this point, I find that I agree very largely with the Government. I do not believe—and this point underlay a good deal of what the Secretary of State said—that we can separate education from the whole process of development in a developing country because the large issues of education policy which are raised are essentially development issues.

In turn, these raise issues which are not just for educationists but for economists and specialists and, indeed, for politicians, because they often relate sharply to the kind of political judgments being made within a developing country about which way it wants to go. If it wants to maintain élitism, it will attach one of the first priorities to the kind of "centres of excellence" approach to education which my hon. Friend spoke about. It will be concerned with producing highly advanced university departments largely on the British model. If, on the other hand, it is seeking to abandon élitism and to have development which affects most of its ordinary people, it is likely to be much more concerned with the whole question of literacy, with education for the masses, with increasing the number of years which children stay at primary school, and so on.

This becomes a matter of economic, social and political judgment which should and does affect the judgment which the O.D.A. makes about its educational aid in the country concerned. That, therefore, in its turn must be allowed to influence the British Council acting as an agent in the development process for the O.D.A. in the way it spends its money, in the way it governs its technical assistance operation in education. It is not specifically for the British Council to make the judgment about how many more unemployed graduates there are to be or how many fewer illiterate children. That is not its speciality. One must accept that, whereas in all other sectors, the British Council must be encouraged to be totally independent, in this sector, where it acts as agent in the development process, the Secretary of State is probably right.

I have one narrow point about education which disturbed me somewhat when I visited Latin America recently. It concerns the English teaching tradition of the British Council. I was not altogether content to find—and I think that this may occur in other developing countries—that the British Council is using part of its funds to finance an English school where all the teaching is done in English. It is an excellent school with an excellent staff, but it is a fee-paying school for the middle class. This is not an argument about fee-paying schools in this country. But in at least one developing country the English-teaching effort of the British Council is at least in part being restricted to a middle-class élite and not being spread out to the mass of the population. I am not at all sure that this is the best way of doing it. Certainly I am not sure that it is necessarily in the best interest of the developing country itself

Few of us liked the Duncan Report. It has been less popular than most of the expert reports published about various subjects in the last few years. What most of us did not like about it was the new priority it gave to Western Europe and the lessening priority to the developing world. This debate and the proceedings of the Sub-Committee have clearly shown that, as between these two priorities, hon. Members who have taken part in the debate and the Sub-Committee are clear that the priority of this House lies more with extending and pursuing the British Council's activities in the developing world, leaving what can be done in Europe as a second priority.

It is good to have established such a clear and unanimous conclusion of which I suppose the Government are bound to take account. This is the House of Commons being clear about its priorities. I was fascinated to hear and read of the libraries in Cologne and Nigeria. I have never visited a British Council reading room or library in a developing country without finding it full of people. If this is the point which the debate has allowed to emerge, then it has been most valuable. The members and the Chairman of the Select Committee are to be most warmly congratulated.

7.30 p.m.

Mr. R. Bonner Pink (Portsmouth, South)

I would like to follow the remarks of the right hon. Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) about the Latin American school she mentioned and the British Council sponsoring the teaching of English to middle-class children. I recall that school. From memory the situation was that universal free education has a long way to go and this was a means of starting the teaching of English in that country. It must be taken as a stop-gap. I agree that the aim is universal English teaching.

The right hon. Lady also spoke about budgeting. It is essential that the British Council should be able to budget more realistically. It is clear that if the Council is to carry out its work it must have some stability and continuity. It is fatal to British prestige abroad if a British Council office is closed down. The country concerned feels that we no longer have an interest in it. We know the pressures that there are to reduce expendi- ture, but in this service it is better to spread the butter a little more thinly over the whole range of the activities of the Council than to close down any operation.

The right hon. Lady spoke too about the independence of the Council. This worried the Sub-Committee a great deal. All those who have spoken today have mentioned it and it is getting a little out of proportion. We felt that this should be cleared up and that the Council should be independent. Both the Council and the Foreign Office contended that they were independent, but we found this difficult to believe, and the speeches today seemed to confirm that the Council is not independent. The German services are run by the German Foreign Office, and the impression I had was that the people in Germany would not believe us when we said that the British Council was independent.

Either we carry on and forget the whole thing, or admit that the British Council is not independent, or else we make it independent. Those are the choices, and possibly as a result of today's debate we have got this a little out of proportion. It might be better to drop it and leave matters where they are.

I add my tribute to those of other hon. Members to the hon. Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones) who was the Chairman of the Sub-Committee. He was a friendly, efficient and impartial Chairman and it was pleasant to serve under him. I endorse what he said about how impressed the Sub-Committee was by the work of the British Council. Apart from the evidence that we took in London, we visited Bonn, Cologne and Munich and saw what was virtually the sophisticated part of the work of the Council. Then we visited Nigeria and Ethiopia, which was the unsophisticated end. It was a pity, having gone to so much trouble and expense, that we could not have had more time and money and gone to South America or some similar place in an intermediate stage of development.

In the last 22 years there have been considerable changes of emphasis in the Council and in its priorities. In 1947 the emphasis was on a liberated Europe. From about 1954 onwards it has been on the developing countries, and I am certain that this is right. On the other hand, with our entry into Europe the Council may have to re-think its priorities and place more emphasis upon Europe. If it does it is essential that the Government provide extra funds so that money is not taken away to the detriment of valuable work being done elsewhere.

There are two facets to the work of the Council. There is the demonstration of British culture through the arts, literature, music and exchange visits, and there is the teaching of English as a tool for further advancement in developing countries. We saw that the libraries in Germany were not being used to the full. My impression was that the Germans were treating English as the first foreign language in their schools and universities. They had adequate English libraries, and the British Council library seems to be used mainly by British expatriates and was perhaps slanted for their benefit.

The university in Nigeria provided an excellent English library. There is no doubt that the Council's library was very much used, but it is true to say that it was also misused. A large number of students were using not books provided by the British Council Library but books from the university library or their own books which they had brought in. They were, clearly, using the British Council library because they had nowhere else to study. The university was not providing adequate accommodation, and, obviously, the students' homes were unsuitable. They were using the Council library not as a library but as a study room. Perhaps some steps can be taken to prevent misuse.

I turn to the reference to cultural "manifestations". I thought that was rather an unhappy choice of words because for me it always conjures up the Demon King coming through the stage at the pantomime. The Council can be criticised for some cultural activities, plays and so on, in that they did not mirror contemporary British life, which is what they should do if the British Council is to put across British culture. Some of the plays seemed to be slanted for the benefit of British expatriates rather than the local people, who I thought would not understand them.

In Europe we ought to concentrate more on youth exchanges, not only of students but also of apprentices and in- dustrial workers, to give them a new approach to things. The contacts with the British Council tend to be very much on an academic level, and it should extend those contacts to all classes of the community—industrialists, trade unionists and so on. In the developing countries we were told how effective the use of a travelling film van had been. They could set up projectors in villages and the drivers did the projecting. We thought that should be encouraged. It would need very little expense or effort in making a very worthwhile contribution, just as the mass media techniques developed in Ethiopia should be expanded.

There is no doubt that in the developing countries there is a great demand and need for English—for English as a tool. I support my hon. Friend in saying that possibly there should be more interest in and activity about the use of basic English, because the people in those countries need English as a tool. All air and all shipping movements are in English; virtually all science and all technical publications are in English. They cannot progress without English. The British Council has been most successful in teaching local teachers to teach English, but the problem is—and it is serious—that, having trained those teachers in English, having taught them to teach English, they leave teaching and go into industry, or the law, or Government service or politics, where they find they are more remuneratively employed. This is a problem to which apparently at the moment there is not an answer.

It is also important that more students in science should be trained. At the present moment there is a vicious circle. There are not enough science jobs to absorb the science graduates; there will not be those jobs till there are the science graduates to fill them. How one gets over a deadlock like that I do not know, but certainly it is a problem, which is recognised, and perhaps the British Council, which, I know, is doing its best, will find some means of helping.

This was a most extensive inquiry and I think that it is a most exhaustive report, if not an exhausting one. A number of the recommendations which we have made are practical recommendations, of which, I am sure, the British Council will adopt many. We were certainly most impressed by the work of the Council. We congratulate it on its work and we wish it well.

7.42 p.m.

Mr. Stratton Mills (Belfast, North)

By this late stage of the debate many of the points have been covered, and I will not detain the House overlong by a Cook's tour type speech on the activities of the British Council.

I join in saying how much I enjoyed working with the hon. Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones), who was an excellent chairman; and in saying what a happy Committee it was. It was one of the most interesting of which I have been a member, trying to involve oneself over an extended period in getting the feel of the work of an immensely interesting body. One felt a certain humility in being one of a group of Members of Parliament examining in detail the work of an organisation like this operating in 75 different countries, each having different problems and different methods of working. One hoped one was doing a useful job in pin-pointing deficiencies and matters which should he looked at further. I hope that our work has been a help to the British Council in holding a mirror, perhaps a rather crude mirror, to enable the Council to look at its activities. I hope it will be useful to the House in giving an opportunity to hear again a little of the detail of the work of the Council through the eyes of Members of the House.

One thing which strikes me as worth mentioning is this. I was in three countries and I was immensely impressed by the representatives in each of them. Each was an entirely different type of individual. One would not say that they were in the same kind of British Council mould. They were very different types of men. I was impressed by their skill, their hard work, their suitability for their posts, their adaptability, and also their ability to fire the imagination of those working with them. It is right to put that on record.

I refer specifically, following on from this, to recommendation (iii) in which we underline very strongly the importance of having an overseas inspection unit. I am glad to see that the British Council, in its reply, has broadly accepted this idea. I felt there was an inspection gap, since the British Council is working in 75 different countries, every community having different problems. I felt that the people from whom we took evidence in these countries had not had an interrogation-in-depth examination as to their methods of working. We all know that sometimes when one is doing a job one cannot stand back from it as often as perhaps one should to see how it is going and what the problems are and whether one is going in the right direction. I hope it may be thought that this would be useful, and I am glad to see that it is being accepted.

A fair amount of discussion has taken place here today on one of the central themes of our report—the usefulness of the British Council's work in under-developed countries such as Nigeria and Ethiopia. Other hon. Members have described it in detail and there is no need for me to repeat it. This is something to which the House could point a finger so that perhaps the British Council can re-examine its "geographical and functional" priorities. We used such a phrase in our report. Which of the countries are most important? Which countries in the developing world have priority over others? What type of activity should have the greater priority? I feel, on reflection, that not enough of this self-questioning has taken place. I hope our report may spur activity in that direction.

Refence has been made to "overseas manifestations". I do not want to repeat what has been said about that, but there is one small point which came to my notice recently and I mention it for the record, but I do not expect a reply to it at this stage. Perhaps my hon. Friend would ask the British Council to look at it. The National Youth Orchestra has done a great deal of work with the British Council overseas and it has made a particularly unique contribution. The orchestra has always been immensely popular overseas. However, I understand that it has not been abroad for the British Council since 1965 and is anxious to continue participation. Perhaps that matter could be looked at.

My hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Pink) voiced something with which I particularly agree, the slight feeling one has that the British Council is over-academically oriented. It obviously is a gross generalisation to put it like that, but, nevertheless, one has this residual feeling that it was over-academically oriented, and we might, perhaps, see in the years ahead more concentration—for example on a wider spread of activity; for example, young apprentices and trade unionists, I am sure it would be right.

Another minor point which arose in our discussions and was mentioned today by the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) is the importance of sending out to the overseas posts for a limited period of a year or two people distinguished in the academic and teaching world. The suggestion was to give them a period of secondment. We had in mind particularly people of a high level in their own fields. The British Council is keen on this, and I am sure it is right.

On finance, the Duncan Committee pointed in the same direction as we did. I hope that our recommendations (i) and (ii) will be of help to the British Council in dealing with Government Departments and establishing a continuing level of financial expenditure over the next few years. I was encouraged by the tone of the Government's reply on this point. Hon. Members have emphasised that the contribution compared with France, Germany and the United States is on the lowish side, but the level of success and effectiveness of the Council's work is a matter of some pride.

I emphasise the nonsense of paying top rents for houses and offices in leading towns and cities. I am appalled by the rents being paid for private houses for staff. It was felt by representatives on the ground that it would have made greater sense economically to have purchased property five or ten years ago.

My hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, South was right in saying that the question whether the British Council would be more effective if it were independent of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office had got a little out of proportion. The arguments are finely balanced, but the British Council cannot have it both ways. One sees the fine cords over and over again coming back to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and it is, therefore, a mistake for the Council to oversell the point of independence, as it so often does.

I was surprised that hon. Members who are members of or associated with the Council were so totally horrified by our idea. We might have said something which was intellectually obscene. The arguments put forward by the Foreign Secretary in his letter to the chairman were reasonable and, I thought, put the other side fairly. After spending a long time on this issue and seeing many aspects of the work, we came down on the other side and the arguments are in our report.

I hope that the discussions have been useful and will serve to set people thinking. This aspect may be reported on by another committee on some future occasion. We all enjoyed looking at the British Council, and I hope that to the people it serves and the people who work for it this will have been a valuable and useful exercise.

7.53 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Anthony Kershaw)

The House is very much in the debt of my right hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann) for having moved the Motion this afternoon, and also of the Committee and the Chairman for having done their work in presenting the report to us. The work comes to us from the 1969–70 Session of the last Parliament, and it was appropriate that it should have been considered then. The British Council has not been inspected in this way for 21 years and during that time there have been many changes in the scale and character of its work.

The British Council was incorporated by Royal Charter in 1940. It has a small revenue of its own. The overwhelming bulk of its funds come by grant from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. This year that grant amounts to £14.7 million, of which £5.6 million comes from the Overseas Development Administration. Thus, although the Council is independent in many senses—and Her Majesty's Government attach importance to this—its expenditure is properly the concern of the Government and the House.

The report contains 16 specific recommendations and three general observations. Some of the recommendations the Government regard as matters for the Council, and it is in the Government's interest that the Council should consider them and in the light of its own expertise evaluate them and, where desirable, put them into practice. When the Council has evaluated them it is proper for the Government to transmit the conclusions to the House, which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has done in the document which is before the House entitled "Departmental observations", printed on 11th November. From this document it will be seen that the Council is taking action on the recommendations of the Committee. Some of the recommendations concern the Foreign and Commonwealth Office more closely than others, and I will first turn to them.

First, the Committee felt concern about the relationship of the Council with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Right through the debate, starting with the hon. Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones), there have been references to this point. The Committee wholeheartedly endorses the opinion of the Duncan Committee that the British Council should be manifestly independent of the Government of the day, although it recognises that, as the Government provide the funds, the British Council cannot enjoy absolute independence. My hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Sir Gilbert Longden) and my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, South (Sir R. Thompson) also drew attention to this financial dependence which the British Council must have.

Perhaps one can get an idea of the relationships which should prevail between Her Majesty's Government and the Council by setting out what the British Council seeks to do. The Council has grown to a large organisation with a budget of about £15 million a year. It also administers overseas, on behalf of the O.D.A., educational and training schemes costing a further £8 million. It employs some 2,000 London-appointed staff of whom 450 are serving overseas in 75 different countries, where they are supported by a further 2,000 locally-engaged staff.

The aims of the Council, as defined in its Charter, are to promote a wider knowledge of Britain and the English language abroad and to develop closer cultural relations between this and other countries. The activities undertaken in pursuit of this general aim are manifold and vary from country to country: but broadly speaking they fall into five groups.

First, there is the promotion of English language teaching, whether directly or by provision of expert advice to education authorities overseas, and advice on all aspects of education. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Eye (Sir H. Harrison) mentioned this.

Second, there is the promotion of British books and periodicals through maintenance of libraries, book display centres, exhibitions and text book schemes, as well as advice to overseas authorities in establishing and maintaining their own libraries. This work is important in three respects, since books are a valuable British export, a means of access to British intellectual and scientific achievements and a tool of educational aid.

Third, there is the exchange of persons, through both inward and outward visits of varying duration.

Fourth, and partly overlapping with this, there is the dissemination of information about British development in science, technology and medicine and promotion of contacts between British workers in these fields and their colleagues abroad, and, in particular, aid to science teaching in Commonwealth countries through the secondment of scientifically qualified Council staff.

Fifth, there is the promotion of overseas tours by British theatre, ballet and opera companies, orchestras and soloists, and of displays of the visual arts.

In developing countries the first four of these categories form an important element in the programme of aid provided by Her Majesty's Government. All are important in developed countries as a means of promoting greater understanding between the British people and the peoples of these countries, and as a stimulus to private contacts and exchanges which also contribute to this understanding.

The Council is the main instrument at the Government's disposal for the cultivation of good relations with Commonwealth and foreign countries through these means. During the last 20 years the emphasis of its work has been placed on the Commonwealth and other developing countries. I am confident that it will have an equally important rôle to play when we enter the enlarged European Community.

The right hon. Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) was disturbed by a fear that there might be some slurring between the amounts funded by the O.D.A. and the F.C.O. now that the organisations are under the same head. I can assure her that the obligations will be kept strictly apart, and indeed are now being kept apart. By a re-assessment of the relative duties between the F.C.O. and the O.D.A., the proportion to be given to the O.D.A. has been slightly increased. This means some 65 per cent. for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for activities which we might broadly call information and 35 per cent. for the O.D.A. in respect of activities which we broadly call aid.

It is clear from this recital of objects and methods that the implementation of policy must be in the hands of the British Council, but the Government must be able to ensure that the money is spent correctly and efficiently. I believe that foreign countries understand this relationship and do not think any the less of the British Council for it. Indeed, an example was given by the right hon. Member for Kettering (Sir G. de Freitas), whose successor in Ghana was flung out when the British Council was allowed to stay. Sudan was a similar case and Iraq at present falls into the same category.

Lord Fulton said in his evidence, set out on page 176 of the report, that foreign Governments have no difficulty in recognising the British Council as an independent body. The hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Ted Fletcher) said that if the British Council were independent, then it should show its independence. On the whole I believe that this has happened. The fact that the British Council can do things which diplomats sometimes cannot do shows that the British Council personnel are regarded as quite different personnel by foreign Governments. Foreign Governments have a much closer relationship between their cultural representation and the Government. Nobody pretends that the French and German cultural activities are not part of the activities of their embassies.

The Sub-Committee pursued this line of thought in objecting to the fact that the Foreign Secretary should have to approve the appointment of the Director-General and that ambassadors abroad should be consulted about local representation on the British Council. The right hon. Member for Kettering and my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge (Mr. Hornby) have both had close experience in these matters and have found it quite satisfactory, not that the ambassador should have a veto, but that he should be consulted in a friendly way to see whether he will be able to work with the man who is proposed for the job. The small number of cases which fall into the category where it is considered that the appointment would not work is a measure of the light rein which has been used. Therefore I cannot agree with that criticism.

There is another difficulty. In about a quarter of the countries the British Council representative is a cultural attaché of the Embassy. This is not our wish or that of the British Council, but depends on the country concerned. There would be difficulties in respect of diplomatic immunity in some of the Eastern countries, and in other countries, so that this duty must come within the responsibility of the cultural attaché and therefore the head of mission must be asked. Broadly speaking, the responsibility of the Secretary of State and the Ambassador is that if the Commonwealth Government or foreign government wish to make representations about the British Council, whether justified or not, they can do so only to Her Majesty's Government or to the ambassador en poste. It is necessary that they should have some kind of say in how they discharge their responsibilities.

On the same line of thought, the Committee wanted the process of choosing the Director-General to be revised to ensure that the permanent staff had a chance of obtaining the post. I am afraid that I am unable to follow the Committee's anxieties on this matter. On the last occasion when the present Director-General was appointed a large selection of names was obtained. The list contained the names of members of the permanent staff and a number were on the short final list. At present, as the hon. Member for Thurrock (Mr. Delargy) said, the post is being advertised and anybody, including staff, is eligible. All will be considered on their merits.

In recommendation (vi) the Committee wishes to see the method of election to the Executive Committee reviewed on the grounded that the Executive Committee may tend to become a self-perpetuating body. It is difficult to see how this thought could usefully be implemented. One alternative would be to give to outside bodies the right to nominate to the Executive Committee, but this would limit the field from which people could be drawn; otherwise the members should be nominated by the Government, as is the Arts Council. However, that would hardly be compatible with the independent status which we wish to emphasise.

At present there are eight ex-officio members appointed; up to 22 others are selected, four retiring each year. I do not regard it as a self-perpetuating body since five new people have been appointed in the last two years. By an informal convention, four hon. Members are on the Executive Committee. I think it was my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge who explained that further thought is being given to how the process of choosing people could be made more elastic and better than it is at the moment in order to meet this fear on the part of the Committee.

Other recommendations which have been made include recommendation (i) to provide that all possible steps should be taken to ensure that the Council should not be forced for any financial reasons to withdraw existing representations from overseas countries. Recommndation (ii) asks that the Council should be afforded some guarantee that its budget should not fall below a certain level during the period reviewed by the White Paper on Public Expenditure. Recommendation (xvi) refers to the possibility of borrowing overseas to help with the Council's capital programme and suggested that this should be examined.

As my right hon. Friend has observed in a document, we are fully conscious of the unfortunate consequences which withdrawal can have for the Council and generally for British relations with the country from which its representation is withdrawn. The Council's work is essentially long term in nature. A representation once established takes time to make its effect felt, and withdrawal means abandonment of an investment in good will and co-operation which takes many years to rebuild.

We also recognise the need of the Council to rely for planning purposes and for continuity of its activities upon some assurance of budgetary stability from one year to another. This is the kind of problem which arises elsewhere in public expenditure and which has to be taken into consideration by the Government when deciding the allocation of budgetary resources. Unfortunately, these resources are not unlimited. In the past there have been times when overall reduction in public expenditure has had to be achieved, and no one could rule out a similar necessity in the future.

On such occasions sacrifices have to be made and it would be difficult to select the British Council for exemption. Nevertheless, we hope that the general level of the Council's work will be maintained during the coming years, although in changing circumstances some variation may need to be made to ensure the most effective use of resources.

The Sub-Committee in its conclusions stressed the need for establishment of correct geographical and functional priorities as an essential pre-condition for effective work by the Council, and hon. Members have drawn attention to the importance of this point. These priorities necessarily change as time goes on. New demands for action by the Council arise, such as will be presented in the context of our accession to the E.E.C.

This means that, however much the Council tries to establish a pattern of work for a reasonable period ahead—and planning for the long term is essential for the Council which has to be given time to produce results—there will be variable factors of which account must be taken. I can only assure the House that the closest contact will be maintained between the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Council to resolve all these factors and to ensure that, so far as possible, the Council is given that assurance of stability which it needs if it is to do its job effectively.

As for overseas borrowing, this suggestion was considered in the context of the idea of an Overseas Diplomatic Estates Board. The Government, however, decided not to pursue that idea, as my right hon. Friend the Minister of State told the House on 11th November. The capital needs of the Council are fully recognised. Hitherto, though figures have varied from year to year, the average amount provided for this purpose has been about £450,000, excluding provision for assistance for hostel building under the Overseas Student Welfare Expansion Programme. It is recognised that the Council is an organisation which has to maintain a satisfactory image of itself overseas as part of the representation there of this country. The Government will naturally give as sympathetic consideration as they can to the need to improve the accommodation abroad of the Council in future years.

I noted with particular interest the very great emphasis on the value of teaching English and of the English language generally by hon. Members on all sides of the House. As I have related, that is one of the objects of the British Council. It is nowadays becoming more and more important that this should be done.

Perhaps I can make some kind of answer to other observations that have been made. Some were rather particular and for the British Council to answer in detail, but because hon. Members have been good enough to raise these points I should like to speak on some of them.

Two points were mentioned several times. The first was the question of libraries—whether libraries in developing countries were worthwhile and what should be done to improve them generally. First of all, the rôle of libraries in the developed and the developing world is often very different. The library service in the developing world, where it is often minimal, differs fundamentally from what it should be in Europe. In Europe the movement towards providing information about books, particularly those on science and technology, the promotion of books, and information retrieval rather than direct book provision may make European libraries appear rather less busy than in developing countries, such as that in Lagos.

Two hon. Members mentioned the British library in Cologne. I understand that when they were there it was officially closed and what the American student was doing there I do not know. Perhaps he was left over from a previous visit. But it has 6,000 members and I understand that issues in 1970 exceeded 35,000, so it is not entirely useless. A number of hon. Members made observations about how drama should be used by the British Council. This work of the British Council is a matter for the British Council itself and if it wishes to put on "Hair" in Calcutta or "Oh! Calcutta!" somewhere else, no one can complain. The Council has an independent drama advisory committee from which it takes advice, as it does also from its overseas representatives. One play, Edward Bond's "Saved", which was much criticised by the Sub-Committee, was strangely enough, asked for by the theatre authorities in Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia and it won the second prize at the Belgrade International Theatre Festival where eight other countries were represented. I do not know whether the Sub-Committee saw it.

Mr. Carter-Jones

It so happened that I was in Warsaw at the time they were coming through and the response in the British Embassy was, "It seemed very good but we do not know what it was all about".

Mr. Kershaw

Part of the fascination of going to an intellectual play is that one does not know what it is all about, which is perhaps why they asked for it. But they tend to go that way in Eastern Europe, anyway, do they not?

The question of buildings was mentioned by the right hon. Member for Kettering, the hon. Member for Darlington and my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. More). One realises that some buildings are not up to par, but it should be realised that this is a question of money. I can assure them that this matter is kept very much in mind. It is a matter of great satisfaction that some of our new buildings are extremely good.

The hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh), my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Eye and my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Stratton Mills) all said most encouraging and agreeable words about the staff of the British Council, which I am sure the staff will read with great satisfaction. My hon. Friend the Member for Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers), who had to leave the Chamber on another duty in the service of the House, made a number of valuable points and one in particular about exchanges between students which is being actively studied at present. The hon. Member for Dearne Valley (Mr. Wainwright) thought unsold copies of magazines might be sent out rather more than is done at present. This has not been overlooked but, unlike the United States publishers, the frugal publishers of magazines in Britain print fewer so that fewer unsold copies are available.

I was impressed by the speed of the visit paid to Addis Ababa. I do not know how hon. Members knew whether they were in Addis Ababa or Timbuctoo, being there for so few hours.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ton-bridge and my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, North, called attention to the difficulty in choosing between buying and renting. This is very important also in the Diplomatic Service. It requires money. The principle certainly is accepted, but money is the difficulty. It is very much in the minds of those responsible for finding premises both for the British Council and for others. The hon. Member for Darlington spoke of the mass media. He may be interested to know that a special study is being made by the O.D.A. at present and an expert is leaving for Addis Ababa next week to make an assessment of its value and what can be done. Of course, the wishes of the country have to be borne in mind. This will be a valuable development in the future.

My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, South, who has also had to leave the House, was very interested in basic English. I am afraid that I know nothing about basic English, but no doubt the British Council will study his words with interest. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ludlow said that in the work of the Council the wishes of the receiving countries are very important. Perhaps the hon. Member for Portsmouth, West who made some most interesting and eloquent remarks on education, would wish to bear that in mind, because I agree with his right hon. Friend the Member for Lanark that it is not primarily or solely for the British Council to say where the weight of its effort in the educational sphere should be placed in any particular country, though naturally it will give advice on that.

Mr. Judd

Would the hon. Gentleman not agree that if the British Council, on behalf of the British taxpayer, is participating in an operation in partnership with the Government on the spot, it should have something to say about priorities for the expenditure made possible by its own contribution?

Mr. Kershaw

I entirely agree with that, but one should not give the impression that one is trying to be didactic about this. Obviously that ought to be considered when our money is to be spent.

My hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Pink) was interested in the youth programme. I can tell him that this is being closely looked at at present and I hope that we shall be able to expand it before very long. My hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, North, asked about inspections of posts abroad. The Council is exploring means of doing this rather more than it has in the past and in particular co-opting persons from outside Government to help with it. In particular, the Council has given attention to the possibility of programme analysis and review methods and an expert in this field is to go to Europe this month to make a preliminary study of what can be done. I am sure that the British Council will note what he said about the National Youth Orchestra.

I know that the British Council will be much encouraged by this debate. Those who have spoken, whether members of the Committee or not, have all been experts; and the British Council will be able to feel that this House is behind it in the work that it does. If there has been any criticism it has been of the Government for not giving the British Council enough resources to improve its activities. But I am sure that its work will continue to be as excellent, as it has in the past, and with the support and enthusiasm of this House behind it, will improve in the future.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved, That this House takes note of the First Report from the Select Committee on Expenditure in Session 1970–71 and of the related Special Report.