John Baron MP and letter signatories raise British Council closures

MP: Government should avoid making a bad decision

As a further step in the campaign to persuade the Government to avert the need to close some of its overseas offices by closing the £10 million shortfall in the British Council’s finances, today Mr Speaker granted John Baron MP an Urgent Question.

In the Chamber, John said,

“The Government has stepped forward with financial support, but it is still around £10 million short of what the British Council needs to maintain both its international network of offices and programmes. This could result in the largest single set of closures in the British Council’s near 90-year history, unless the Government now changes its mind. It has gone too far now to fall at the final fence.”

John said,

“I am very grateful to Mr Speaker for granting the question, and also for the excellent support for averting these damaging closures from the other MPs who took part in the session – very many of whom had also signed our letter to the Prime Minister yesterday.”

“£10 million would avoid the need for these office closures, which will hurt our soft power, dimmish our global standing and leave the way open to other countries – some of whom may be no friends of the UK or the West in general.”

“As the Minister stressed today, no official announcement of the sites required to close has been made. There therefore remains some scope for the Government to avoid making a bad decision, which we hope they will take.”

Notes to Editors:

• The Times published an article on the closures by John this morning, online at: https://bit.ly/2T9WhFc.

• For more information, please see John’s press releases of 7th June (https://pressreleases.johnbaron.co.uk/archives/4319) and 27th May (https://pressreleases.johnbaron.co.uk/archives/4311).