HC Deb 19 July 1961 vol 644 c1290

Lords Amendment: In page 23, line 8, at end insert: with the exception of the following colleges of the University of Durham, that is to say, the College of the Venerable Bede, St. Chad's College and St. John's College

Mr. Brooke

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

In another place is was brought to the notice of the Government that there were these three colleges of the University of Durham which were really in the same position as the colleges in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, in that they are entirely independent of the receipt of grant from the University Grants Committee. The purpose of the Amendment is to make sure that they are treated like the Oxford and Cambridge Colleges.

Mr. Mitchison

We considered the position of the Oxford and Cambridge colleges in Committee, and if there were any dispute about the matter we should certainly not raise it on the similar treatment of the three colleges in the University of Durham, which appear to be in a similar position.

This, I think, is the sixth or seventh Amendment—I have not kept accurate count—which raises the question of privilege, and I hope that the Government in future will not put quite so much into Lords Amendments. They might have woken up to the position of the University of Durham a little sooner.

Question put and agreed to. [Special Entry.]