Speeches by Harding.

“Thank you for joining us, Minister. Last time we saw you, you confirmed that funding for Sudan would not be cut, yet in the annual report and accounts we see an 18% reduction for Sudan and a 23% reduction for South Sudan. Can you explain those cuts in light of your previous comments?”

“I have one on the back of Dan’s question. Following on from what you said, Scott, has there been a loss of influence or reputation for the UK as a result of British Council closures so far, or would there be were there more?”

“To return to the Soft Power Council question, this has been set up at a time when the British Council is losing funding. That seems contradictory to me. What is your take on that?”

“So presumably, looking for the next opportunity for British soft power, for example, is on hold.”

“So instead of expansion, you are looking at keeping the offices you have. Is there no room for expansion under current budgets?”

“You said that a funding uplift would allow you to reverse closures in Europe and the USA, and expand into Francophone and Lusophone Africa. Why those places specifically?”

“On the back of that, I was taken by what you said about the work that you did with the integrated security fund, which has been cut and therefore you are not able to do your work. You talked about the structural problems of your financing. Is it the case that the British Council has almost been a victim of its own succ…”

“In your conversations with the FCDO, you obviously have the mitigation of the loan and what to do with the loan. Why is there an obstacle to sorting that out? What is it that the Foreign Office is not getting about the work of the British Council?”

“So it would almost halve your presence overseas.”

“How many countries were you open in before covid?”

“How many countries will the British Council remain open in after the second restructuring? That is without the debt.”

“Have the cuts to the ISF meant you have had to cut back on the work in the Baltic countries specifically?”

“I have a final question. You talked about a lack of political leadership. Why do you think there is a lack of political leadership on this?”

“I want to drill down on the accountability, if I may, and what practical steps we can take, but first I want to return to what you were saying about the blackout and why there is no public consciousness of this. We are receiving information about human rights atrocities; the American Administration under Biden called i…”

“Can you talk to us about the failure of the international and domestic accountability mechanisms to prevent atrocities in Sudan? How are the current efforts to protect civilians and pursue justice evolving on the ground?”

“I did not really understand the point about political feasibility. What does that mean?”

“Very quickly, the British Council tells us, in its second round of restructuring, that its offices will go down to 65, and that is even without it paying off the loan. They will go further down after that. Part of the problem is that it is not winning any development work, because there is no ODA budget for it to win a…”

“Can the Foreign Office and the Government do anything to prepare the public? In that situation, things will go wrong. There needs to be a high risk appetite for projects that are going awry, simply because the checks and balances that go through a multilateral organisation might not be there in a smaller NGO that is wo…”

“I just want to pick up on your comment on migration. My understanding is that the largest number of unaccompanied minors who came to the UK on small boats were from Sudan. These are basically boys under 18 years old. However, and I think this is right, the Integrated Security Fund was not funding Sudan because it was n…”

“The article goes on to say that the UN—”