That is the view of a group of MPs and peers, who have urged all political parties to make general election manifesto commitments to boost language learning.

Officially launched today, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Modern Languages¡¯ Manifesto for Languages is supported by over 50 leading businesses, organisations and universities and has already been presented to the main party leaders.

¡°The UK economy is already losing around ?50 billion a year in lost contracts because of lack of language skills in the workforce,¡± said the group¡¯s chair, Baroness Coussins.

¡°The next government will need to take clear, urgent and coherent action to upgrade the UK¡¯s foreign language skills. Otherwise our young people will continue to fall behind their European and global peers in education and employability; our export growth will be stunted;?our international reputation will suffer; and our security, defence and diplomacy needs will be compromised.¡±

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Alongside a major decline at A level and failures earlier in the educational pipeline, the Manifesto notes that ¡°44 universities have scrapped language degrees since 2000¡±.

It therefore calls for all parties to sign up to a framework which includes ¡°a long-term commitment to transforming the reputation of UK citizens as poor linguists¡±, ¡°high-quality language learning for all children throughout the UK from age 7¡± and ¡°a commitment to maintaining and developing UK expertise in modern languages and cultures in university language departments¡±.

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Central to the last of these is ¡°maintain[ing] the status of languages as ¡®strategically important and vulnerable¡¯ subjects and continued support for the Year Abroad¡±.

In a parallel development, the University Council of Modern Languages has issued a letter calling on all universities to contribute to the development of the ¡°global graduates¡± the country urgently needs by ¡°mak[ing] a GCSE A*-C grade or equivalent in a modern foreign language a pre-requisite for admission to undergraduate programmes in any discipline¡±.

It also argues that ¡°more young people who speak a language other than English in the home should be encouraged to validate this skill academically by taking a GCSE or equivalent qualification¡±.

Such qualifications in ¡°home languages¡± should ¡°equally be recognised by university admissions departments as contributing positively to the educational profile of their applicants¡±.

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matthew.reisz@tsleducation.com