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Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 11 November 2025

Debate

British Council

Contribution

My Lords, last week, Scott McDonald, the chief executive of the British Council, told MPs that the council was going to sell all its assets and close 40 country programmes unless the Government reschedule a £197 million loan costing £12 million to £15 million in interest. The council has already sold its English language business in India and its school in Madrid, and is withdrawing from the frontier Baltic states. Why, given the crucial role of the British Council as a key instrument of soft power which is technically close to insolvency, has there been no resolution of the loan and grant in aid at all? Why is there—to quote its chief executive—a “complete unwillingness” to help? With these cuts in aid, to the BBC World Service and to the British Council, are the Government just managing the decline of Britain’s soft power from its former position of pre-eminence?

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