The BBC Arabic language service continues to operate. Through its digital and TV services it reaches an audience of 35 million across the Middle East and North Africa. The emergency radio service for Gaza reaches approximately 700,000 people a week.

The BBC are operationally and editorially independent and decide the most appropriate way to deliver the World Service, therefore the closure of BBC Arabic radio service in 2023 was a decision for them.

The Government is providing a funding uplift of £32.6 million in 2025/26 to ensure the World Service continues operating in all 42 languages.

Future Government funding for the World Service will be determined through the Spending Review process.

Since coming into office, the Government have suspended arms export licences to Israel; rolled over on the International Criminal Court, with nothing new against Hamas terrorists; and poured cash into the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, despite concerns over a significant number of its staff double-hatting with Hamas. Many of those things have been published in Arabic on the UK Government’s website. Who decides what should be published in Arabic? Why are they being published in Arabic? As they relate to Israel, why is nothing being published in Hebrew?

The art of diplomacy is speaking to foreign leaders and foreign nations as best we can in the UK’s national interest. That does sometimes involve foreign languages, which is why, for example, we support the BBC World Service. It was a slightly bizarre question.

The Home Office does not hold information relating to the proportion of budgets spent on translation services for police forces.

Decisions on how to use funding and resources are an operational matter for Chief Constables. Police and Crime Commissioners are best placed to make resourcing decisions within their communities based on their local knowledge and experience.

We have deemed language specialist to be a service person holding an in date formal MOD language assessment of Level 2 and above (even if not actively using the language day to day), and any civil servant (Burnham Lecturer) or military person employed in teaching languages to defence personnel on an ongoing permanent basis or supporting operations.

Detailed historical data on those personnel ‘in date’ before 2018 is unavailable, we only know the number of exams that were passed in the respective years going back to 2012. We have not included those for the purposes of this answer. The information available is in the following table:

The government continuously assesses threats posed to the UK. As a matter of longstanding policy, the department is unable to release information regarding threat assessments on the grounds of national security.

The government is clear that any challenges to its core values, whatever their origin, will not be tolerated.

If there is a concern that a school is not fulfilling its legal duties, complaints procedure should be followed. Where the department is made aware that schools are not fulfilling their legal duties, it will investigate.

The Department does not receive funding from Qatar Foundation International (QFI) for curriculum programmes that support the teaching of religious education (RE) or Arabic in schools in England. We are aware that QFI partner with primary and secondary schools in the UK, the British Council, and other philanthropic organisations. In their partnership with the British Council, they offer grants to schools to introduce, improve or expand provision for Arabic.

When accepting funds from third party individuals or organisations, we expect schools to follow the guidance of the local authority or the academy trust handbook.

Independent schools, like all private businesses, are required to abide by all relevant legislation.

The department does not receive any funding from Qatar Foundation International (QFI) for curriculum programmes that support the teaching of religious education (RE) or Arabic in schools in England. Therefore, no assessment has been made on the potential effects of this.

The government understands the importance of all languages for the UK’s economic and diplomatic interests, as well as the many personal and social benefits learning another language can bring. This is why the study of languages is a statutory part of the national curriculum for pupils in key stages 2 and 3.

French, Spanish and German remain the most popular languages for pupils to study at school. The government provides resources and professional development for teachers in these languages through the Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) Hub programme, run by the National Centre for Excellence in Language Pedagogy.

An increasing number of pupils now choose to study Mandarin, and the government supports many of these pupils through the £12 million Mandarin Excellence Programme (MEP). The MEP is the department’s flagship programme for the study of Mandarin, with the aim of providing a pipeline of fluent Mandarin speakers to meet the UK’s future economic and diplomatic needs. We are currently considering what steps might be taken to provide greater support for the study of other languages, including Arabic and Urdu.

Schools are free to offer any language which they feel best meets the needs of their pupils and the wider community. GCSEs and A levels are available in Arabic, Mandarin, Russian, Turkish and Urdu. All these languages count towards the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) school performance measure, ensuring that most young people study a core of academic subjects at GCSE. The provision of these qualifications is ultimately a decision for awarding organisations. However, the department is supportive of ongoing opportunities to study these languages, signifying Britain's role as an outward-facing, vibrant country, enriched by the diversity of its people.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and unique circumstances in 2021, the government made a grant available to support exam centres to meet costs associated with the additional demands of assessment for private candidates, including those taking community and heritage languages. The claims window opened on 29 November 2021 and closed on 10 January 2022. The department subsequently carried out quality assurance checks on the evidence provided by centres to ensure the accuracy of claims and payment allocations. The assurance checks that needed to be carried out always meant that payments would be made to centres at the end of the 2021/22 financial year. Centres that supplied the evidence required in the claims were due to be paid on 31 March 2022. This included a payment to the Community Language Examination Centre.

The grant was only available for teacher assessed grades produced in summer 2021, not to any other assessment period, due to the unique circumstances in 2021. It has helped centres to meet costs and will not have led to any exam entry reductions.

We have no plans to raise this issue with the Israeli authorities.

Arabic is an official language of the State of Israel.

The Department for International Trade does not currently hold central data on the language skills of its workforce. Nevertheless, its workforce of over 3400 people operates successfully in over 108 markets. This requires a range of linguistic skills and abilities, especially in our overseas posts, which form part of the UK mission to that country.

Officials in the Ministry of Defence's Operations Directorate work with a network of staff in wider Defence teams, other government departments, and staff in our Embassies to identify reports of potential international humanitarian law violations from a broad range of English and Arabic language press and social media sources. This network includes staff with Arabic language skills.

Officials in the Ministry of Defence's Operations Directorate work with a network of staff in wider Defence teams, other government departments, and staff in our Embassies to identify reports of potential international humanitarian law violations from a broad range of English and Arabic language press and social media sources. This network includes staff with Arabic language skills.

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) regularly reviews its requirements for linguists and trains its personnel accordingly. The level of Arabic language proficiency in the MOD is sufficient to meet current Defence needs.

I refer the noble Lord to the answer I gave to the noble Viscount Waverley on 28 April 2016 (HL7839), namely that, in the Middle East and North Africa region approximately 95 per cent of our Heads of Mission speak Arabic or other local languages (e.g. French or Hebrew).

In the Middle East and North Africa region approximately 95 per cent of our Heads of Mission speak Arabic or other local languages (e.g. French or Hebrew).

There is no mandatory requirement for staff employed by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to have fluency in a language. We do not hold the information requested broken down by year, but the latest information on our personnel database shows that we have 131 staff with registered skills in Arabic at varying levels. Staff appointed to jobs where proficiency in the local language is essential for their role are offered fulltime language training and many of our locally engaged staff in our Posts overseas are native speakers or are fluent in the local language.