Well, my Lords, we could all do with a little kindly looking on our amendments. I will speak to Amendment 42A in this group and, like the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, I cannot quite see how it relates to his amendment. Nevertheless, I shall plough on.
This amendment seeks to clarify the language requirements for UK workers wishing to work in another country where English is not the main language and quite possibly not even spoken. We cannot assume that English will be understood by everyone, and those working abroad should have a working knowledge of the professional terms, as well as an ability to speak socially to those with whom they work. I have mentioned before the European Union project LangCred in which I was involved, where we were attempting to create a directory of all work-based qualifications so that people could move seamlessly across the EU. We kept coming against the fact that, however professionally or vocationally qualified they were, if they could not speak the language of the country, they were going to have problems. We can no longer assume that a bunch of Geordie construction workers could make a good living in Germany while speaking only Geordie. I was never sure in the days of “Auf Wiedersehen, Pet” whether that situation was entirely realistic, but I really do not think that it would work today. I rather suspect German law would not allow it.
Years ago, I got a job as a French and English teacher in a German gymnasium—a grammar school equivalent—while speaking only French and Spanish. Herr Direktor loved French and always spoke to me in French very happily, but after a few months he called me in to tell me that Düsseldorf had dictated that they could no longer employ me unless I spoke German. My RAF husband was too young to be officially married, and we were not allowed to live in married quarters, so were living in a German flat. I was surrounded by Germans and German shops, and as a linguist of course I had picked up quite a lot of German at that stage—none of which Herr Direktor had ever heard me speak, but he assured me, in French of course, that he had told them that I was fully competent in German, so I continued in my job. He quite liked me, but I rather suspect that he could not be bothered to recruit another teacher. But these days I certainly would not have been employed.
So it is important that those wishing to work abroad are fully informed that they need to speak Portuguese, Polish, Japanese or Mandarin before they embark on a job for which they may be fully professionally qualified in Portugal, Poland, Japan or China. Our teaching and learning of modern foreign languages have declined woefully in recent years; it really is a cultural deficit in this country that our language speaking is so very poor. Perhaps there might be more enthusiasm and incentive if young people were fully informed of their inability to work abroad unless they had mastery of more languages than English, and this amendment ensures that the advice includes a language component.