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Finance (No. 2) Bill

Indeed. We are at the cutting edge internationally in many other engineering processes. It is important that we consolidate and build on those industries. At the heart of my argument—in other circumstances, I would have been prepared to make it more briefly—is the belief that we must exploit new opportunities. Education is a strong export for this country. It is fashionable to say so, but I am not a newcomer to that view, as I have held it for a long time. I have close links with the university of Newcastle, as well as Strathclyde university in Glasgow, and I have discussed the issue with academics and others. Education offers us a major export opportunity. Some people say that we should not engage too much in the international educational market, because foreign students whom we educate will go back home and undercut us when they start in business. I do not believe that that is the case. If we are ahead of the game, that issue does not matter, because other people and their sons and daughters will come here. It is a strength of the British Council that it is more likely that those who have benefited from education and gone out into the bigger world will maintain any educational links they have had. There might be what we could call an international old boys’ network. Such links are very important. People like to do business with people in whom they have confidence. If people have been in the same educational institution or nearby institutions, they will be given confidence in each other, even if they did not know each other previously.