HC Deb 06 March 1967 vol 742 cc967-83

10.34 a.m.

Mr. Paul Bryan (Howden)

I was not one of the pioneering enthusiasts for morning sittings, but my right hon. and hon. Friends and I are pleased to use this one occasion to initiate this debate—a very important one from Yorkshire's point of view—about agricultural education in Yorkshire. I have given notice to the Government that the particular incident of Yorkshire education on which we want to concentrate the Minister's attention is the delicately termed "invitation" received by the Vice-Chancellor of Leeds University from the University Grants Committee to discontinue undergraduate teaching of agriculture at Leeds University. I fancy that on the back of that invitation in not too invisible ink is a note not to bother too much about the R.S.V.P. because anyway no more money will be coming from the U.G.C. for the teaching of agriculture at the university.

I expect that the Minsiter has been surprised at the strength of the storm of protest which has blown up in the North since this proposition became known last November. I hope, also, that he has been impressed by the quality of that storm. The Yorkshire Agriculture Society with its 11,000 members led by Sir John Dunnington-Jefferson, the biggest society of its kind in the country, the society responsible for the famous Yorkshire Show which is so largely imitated by other counties; the N.F.U. from all three Ridings; the Leeds University Agriculture Society; the Yorkshire Agriculture Adventurers, a unique type of club of progressive farmers; many individual farmers, many distinguished individuals, such as Lord Netherthorpe, all have had their say, and a very deeply concerned and well informed say it has been.

These are not people who are irresponsibly signing some petition against the closing of a service which they never use. These are bodies of professionals or knowledgeable and dedicated amateurs who know. They know what the Department of Agriculture has done for Yorkshire farming, and they know what the remarkable variety and quality of Yorkshire farming has done for the Department of Agriculture.

The proposal to reduce the number of universities giving first-degree courses in agriculture originates from the Bosanquet Report, and the relevant quotation reads: We would not think it contrary to the national interest if one or two universities with small schools of agriculture were to decide to close them down. This recommendation—though it is in such half-hearted terms that one does not know whether it is in fact a recommendation at all—may be wrong. In fact, the Bosanquet Committee in its Report, looking back at its predecessor, the Loveday Committee of 1945, looked back with sympathy and pointed out how that Committee proved to be wrong, and in an understanding way it said that the revolution in agriculture has been so vast and so fast that it was impossible for the Loveday Committee to foresee the future needs accurately. But the Bosanquet Committee also says that this revolution is continuing at an increasing tempo. Its Report therefore can be out of date before very long, though I think it is correct in its forecast that a greater total number of graduates in agriculture will be wanted.

If the U.G.C. accepts the Bosanquet Report, and is determined to reduce the number of universities teaching agriculture, may we be told by the Minister of State by what criteria the Committee chooses the University Departments to be expunged? I suggest that to justify its continued existence a Department of Agriculture should show evidence of three things. It should show that it is wanted, it should show that it is good, and it should also show that it is placed in a farming, academic, and industrial environment favourable to its work.

I answer the first question—is it wanted?—by reciting the following bald statistics: Yorkshire and Lancashire together constitute about one-eighth of England and Wales, and have nine universities. Leeds is the only one with an agricultural department. In 1966, 42 students completed first degrees, and 10 completed training in post-graduate diplomas and higher degrees. The annual output of graduates in agriculture has doubled since 1962. For admission to first degrees in October, 1967, 625 applications have been received from U.C.C.A. Compared with 1966, applications are up by 33 per cent. in agriculture, and 20 per cent. in agricultural sciences. Currently there are 30 candidates for higher degrees and diplomas. The number has doubled in the last five years. I need say no more to show that the demand is there and is increasing.

My next question—is the Department good? The very statistics that I have just given are probably the best guide in that direction. But there are other telling facts. In this session the Department holds 13 research contracts and grants with an annual value of £28,000. Six grants, to the value of £13,700, are in agriculture, compared with three worth £4,600 per annum in 1962. The university farm, consisting of about 640 acres, yields a gross annual turnover of between £55,000 and £60,000—a large turnover for this type of semi-experimental farm. The balance of income over expenditure in the training account has averaged £9,800.

The farm is run in a practical manner. Since 1955 no less than £80,000 of income from the farm has been spent on or allocated to the provision of research equipment and the development of farming enterprises. In the same period the farm received £15,000 from the University Grants Committee. Again, the contribution of the university to help itself in this practical way has been extremely impressive.

Apart from this commendable present performance, over the years the Depart- ment has produced a steady stream of distinguished scholars—names such as Woodman and Crowther, highly regarded in the field of animal nutrition, and Professors Tyler and Holdsworth. One does not have to argue about the quality of the department at Leeds; its reputation is high and has remained high, because there has always been a striving to improve and innovate.

My third qualification was a favourable environment. This factor was seriously underplayed in the Bosanquet Report. The practical contact of a university with a wide variety of farming experience is all-important. How does a student learn about crop production without seeing crops of every kind being produced? How does he study animal nutrition without contact with a far wider experience of farming than is produced by a university farm? In this respect, Yorkshire is unrivalled. It has everything. It has every type of soil, at every height, from blowaway sand to the heaviest of clay, together with wold and warp and moorland. With a variety of soils goes a variety of crops and a variety of livestock of quality.

In farm organisation we have great estates like Warier, Garrowby, Sledmore, large world farms, with 80 or 90-acre fields in East Yorkshire, right down to the small, part-time dairy and poultry farms of the industrial West Riding. We have highly developed horticulture down by the Humber. No area has a record of scientific poultry breeding comparable with the Calder Valley. Supporting this great farming complex are the great industries of the West Riding—chemical fertiliser plants, machinery and tractor makers, such as David Brown, and the great grain port of Hull. At Selby we have the main compound foodstuffs manufacturers, including B.O.C.M., with its experimental farms.

This marvellous broad agricultural background, plus the fact that an agricultural student at Leeds is a member of a large university, with faculties in subjects allied to agriculture, gives him a unique advantage. He lives in a big and stimulating world. I pity the poor agricultural student at London University marooned out at Wye in a close agricultural community. I believe that the student at Nottingham is in much the same plight. The importance of a natural and advantageous alliance between the Department of Agriculture and its environment cannot be overstated.

Yorkshire has been not only angry but puzzled at this threat, and I hope that the Minister of State can tell the House the reason that gave rise to this incomprehensible proposal. I hope that he will tell the House that, after all, the University Grants Committee has realised that it has made a gigantic blunder and will rectify its bad judgment.

For more than 60 years Leeds University has given splendid service to the farming industry of Yorkshire. Indeed, until 1946, when the National Agricultural Advisory Service was created, the University, in conjunction with a Joint Committee of the three county councils of Yorkshire, provided and developed a system of agricultural education at all levels in this county which was the envy of many other areas in England. The creation of the N.A.A.S. and the consequent dissolution of the Yorkshire Council for Agricultural Education not only had the regrettable result of divorcing the two services of agricultural teaching and advisory work, but weakened the direct contact between Leeds University and the farmer.

If the agricultural degree courses at Leeds were withdrawn, it is no exaggeration to say that this contact would virtually cease. This would be nothing short of a catastrophe.

10.46 a.m.

Mr. James Ramsden (Harrogate)

My hon. Friend the Member for Howden (Mr. Bryan) has done a service in raising this topic. I want to say a few words in support and possibly in amplification of the case that he has made out. The purpose of the debate is to discover from the Minister the exact nature of the proposal concerning the Agricultural Department of Leeds University. Fairly well substantiated rumours have been circulating to the effect that the Department is to close down, but nobody knows what the exact proposals are, or their extent, or when they may be implemented, or even whether a firm decision has been taken. I hope that the Minister can enlighten us about the present position.

What are the present proposals? Is it true that the Department of Agriculture is to close down, and that degrees in agriculture will no longer be obtainable at Leeds University? If it is true, will any of the courses allied to agriculture remain within the ambit of the university? If all the rumours are true, what alternative arrangement is it proposed to make in Yorkshire and elsewhere?

I have no doubt that a great deal of thought and study has been given to this problem. I do not claim to be an expert in this matter, but it would seem to me that the study of the problem must have fallen broadly within two contexts; the national context of the future demand for graduates in agriculture, which was, broadly speaking, the field covered by the Bosanquet Committee, and the specific Yorkshire context—which is of most concern to my hon. Friends and me—the value to agriculture in Yorkshire of the continuance of the facilities which now exist at Leeds University.

The conclusions of the Bosanquet Committee as to the national problem of a future demand for graduates of agriculture were quite unequivocal. The Committee drew a distinction between the need for graduates in agriculture and the demand for such graduates, which I took to mean that with the prospect of a world food shortage and the need for under-developed countries to develop their agricultural resources, there was an undoubted need for people qualified in agriculture both in this country and for service overseas.

With regard to the demand, which I assume to be the actual jobs offered to people so qualified, the Committee reached the conclusion that the demand certainly would not diminish and that within 10 years or so it was likely to approximate much more closely to the need. In other words, more people qualified by degrees in agriculture would certainly be required to fill posts which might be offered. That emerges from the conclusions at page 35 of the Bosanquet Report.

If that is true and if the Leeds faculty is to close, the question then arises of where, how and when the existing facilities for this type of academic instruction will be replaced. Where will the expansion take place elsewhere if Leeds is to go? How will it be done, and when can it be done? If Leeds is to go, will there be a time lag before suitable alternative provision can be made elsewhere? Those are the questions which the Minister should try to answer for us in what I call the national context of this problem.

Turning to the Yorkshire context, I was particularly impressed when my hon. Friend the Member for Howden stressed the link which has always existed between Leeds University and practical agriculture and the activities of practical farmers throughout the county. I have seen a letter from Sir John Dunnington-Jefferson, who knows what he is talking about in this context, in which he says that the environment provided in Yorkshire for this type of interchange between the practical man and the academic is unrivalled. Nobody would dispute that.

It is interesting to note that the Bosanquet Committee emphasises at page 20 of its Report the value to agricultural studies of that kind of relationship with the world of practical farming. I quote: Agriculture will benefit if these interactions are intimate and helpful and if there is an all-pervading attitude of realism fostered by continuous contact with the practice of farming for profit. It was the main burden of my hon. Friend's case that such continuous contact had existed in Yorkshire because of the existence of the faculty at Leeds for a number of years and that it would be a loss to farming in Yorkshire—and, one would think, to the world of academic studies—if this were to cease.

I would like the Minister to be fairly specific and to tell us which of the courses at Leeds are likely to go and which will remain. I see from pages 50 and 51 of the Bosanquet Report that Leeds provides diplomas in agricultural botany, plant pathology, agricultural chemistry, agricultural zoology and, I think, agricultural bacteriology. These are distinct from the general agricultural course. Are these to go, or will they remain?

Within the ambit of the general agricultural course there are the Diploma in Agricultural Economics and the Diploma in Agriculture (Farm Management). Is it these two courses which it is proposed should go as a result of these changes? If so, it would be unfortunate, particularly in the case of the farm management diploma, unless the Minister can assure us that adequate alternative facilities will be provided.

I say that for this reason. Leeds was the pioneer of farm management studies. There are a large number of farmers throughout the county who, at least until recently—and, I think, still—submitted their accounts to Leeds University for analysis and comment and as a practical background to the development of studies in farm management. It would be a great pity if it were no longer possible for this to be done.

Farm management is, to use current jargon, a growth point. Comparatively recently, there has been established a National Institute of Farm Management. Obviously, the development of these studies is of great economic importance to the country and to agriculture generally. It would be a great tragedy and a great blow to the development of those studies if the opportunity for pursuing them in Yorkshire were lost.

It may be that those concerned have in mind other avenues for their pursuit and that they contemplate linking them with the Yorkshire Institute of Agriculture at Askham Bryan, or that they can be developed in some other way. We ought to be told. There is concern about this among farmers and members of the National Farmers' Union in all three Ridings.

It is important that these questions should be cleared up and that those concerned in Yorkshire should know where they stand in relation to this decision, which at the moment has the status of rumour although it is a fairly strong rumour. I have no doubt that great thought has been given to the matter. One knows all those concerned to be people of wide experience, great wisdom and common sense. There may well be something to be said on the other side of the question, but we want to know what it is and we want an opportunity of judging.

I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure us. I certainly assure him that the future handling of this problem deeply concerns all those who are interested in agriculture and in the academic side of agriculture as well as the practical in Yorkshire.

10.58 a.m.

Mr. Michael Alison (Barkston Ash)

I would like to join briefly in supporting my right hon. and hon. Friends on this topic and to declare a constituency interest, because the Barkston Ash constituency includes the Leeds University experimental farm. I would like to add two or three relevant points to the plea that we are making to retain the agricultural degree course at Leeds. The first two are general points and the third relates to some facts which I have extracted from various Government publications on the subject.

One of the most fruitful results of technology and industry since the war has been its marriage to the agriculture industry. There is no doubt that the flourishing productivity of British agriculture, with its high degree of mechanisation and the fact that it continues to supply our needs to a greater extent in spite of an enormous manpower drain, has been due to the marriage between agriculture and technology and science since the war. This marriage has been peculiarly fostered and encouraged by the cohabitation of science, technology and engineering with agriculture at the University of Leeds. It has proved to be a singularly fruitful marriage, and it would be a tragedy if it were dissolved. Leeds has a great tradition in engineering, and the co-existence of the two departments in Leeds has been one of the reasons for the way in which British agriculture has gone ahead in the use of machinery and scientific methods since the war.

My second general proposition is that Leeds is fast becoming one of the greatest centres of our traffic and road network system in the whole country. We are just about to become the great national cross-roads for England in the trunk road system. The Minister will be aware that we are about to have the M1 brought right into Leeds, where it will impinge directly on a huge trans-Pennine east-west road, which will in due course be extended eastward into Howdenshire and will link up with East Anglia through the new Humberside road network and the Great North Road to the North from Leeds.

These road developments will put Leeds strategically in a remarkable position. There will be access to the mountainous Pennine areas of Britain east and west from Leeds. There will be a splendid trunk road running from Leeds to London and the South in the M1. When the M62 is extended eastward towards East Anglia, linking with the Humberside road network of which we have just had notice, there will be direct and rapid access by road from Leeds to all northern East Anglia, and the dual carriageway Great North Road will be the northern segment of this road communication system.

This all emphasises the strategic character of Leeds as a university centre, particularly for agriculture. It will be splendidly accessible to all the main types of agricultural ground production areas and so on in the whole of the British Isles.

I want the Minister to bear those two major factors in mind—the fruitful marriage of agriculture and technology exemplified by the cohabitation of the two departments in Leeds University, and the rapid access to all parts of the country which will soon be a peculiar feature of Leeds as an industrial and educational centre.

I conclude with a few references to some hard statistical facts. I have been looking at the figure provided by Cmnd.3106, the returns from the universities and university colleges of the numbers of full-time students in agriculture. It is evident that Leeds does not do at all badly at present. We are, I think, No.5. As far as I can see, only London, Newcastle, Nottingham and Reading are ahead of Leeds in terms of full-time students. In my view, one can straight away knock out Reading and London as serious rivals to Leeds in this matter because, although they have very many more full-time students in agriculture, their catchment area is much further south and they cater for a type of student for whom Leeds could not hope to cater. The comparison must be made between universities lying, broadly, to the north, and here the serious rivals to Leeds in terms of numbers must be Nottingham and Newcastle.

Although Nottingham and Newcastle at present have marginally more students of agriculture than Leeds, there are two major disadvantages or liability factors to be set against both as competitors of the Leeds department of agriculture. In the first place, Nottingham and Newcastle are not so well placed in road traffic and communication terms as Leeds is, as I have tried to show. Nottingham is very much out on a limb, and Newcastle is at the end of the trunk road system rather than in the middle.

Perhaps more telling is the cost per student. The cost per student at Newcastle is about £934, according to the latest figures given on 2nd March by the Parliamentary Secretary, and Nottingham at £770 is almost on a par with Leeds at £781. Thus, the real competitors in terms of numbers are Leeds and Nottingham, with roughly the same cost per student, though with Leeds being immeasurably better placed in terms of its link with a great engineering tradition and its remarkable strategic positioning from the point of view of road communications.

On that basis, it is indisputable that Leeds remains a centre of agriculture of great significance favoured by remarkable natural advantages. I urge the Minister, therefore, to hasten slowly in any proposals to discourage the continuance of the Department of Agriculture at Leeds University. It is well placed. It is stimulated by the local environment. It is readily accessible to other agricultural areas. Its cost per student is one of the lowest in the country. There is everything to encourage the continuance of this traditional and highly prosperous department in the university, with its associations with Yorkshire agriculture.

11.5 a.m

The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mr. Goronwy Roberts)

I have greatly appreciated the spirit and content of the speeches we have heard. The leading speech, by the hon. Member for Howden (Mr. Bryan), covered the ground with great fairness and cogency, and the contributions of the right hon. Member for Harrogate (Mr. Ramsden) and his hon. Friend the Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison) added to the rational discussion of this important matter.

My task this morning is to try to answer some of the Questions which have rightly been raised. There are, of course, some questions which touch on the relationship of my Department with the University Grants Committee which, I am sure the House will understand, cannot be dealt with here, much as one might be tempted to enter into an amic- able discussion of how these matters are assessed and decided.

The hon. Member for Howden rightly said that the proposal for the discontinuance of undergraduate teaching in the school of agriculture at Leeds stems from the Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on the demand for Agricultural Graduates, the Bosanquet Report, published in 1964. That Report raised a number of important issues, not least the desirability of some rationalisation in the existing pattern of university schools of agriculture and horticulture.

The Government asked the University Grants Committee for advice on these issues. This is the normal and the best procedure. I am sure that the House generally agrees that this is how it should be done. The U.G.C. remitted them in the first instance for examination by its agriculture sub-committee, which, of course, contains within its membership experts in both agricultural education and agriculture itself. The sub-committee reported last summer, after visiting all the schools of agriculture and horticulture—I believe that there are 13—and after making a thorough review and analysis of the situation both nationally and in relation to the individual schools. I can, therefore, give an absolute assurance that there was a full examination on the spot of the factors which hon. and right hon. Members have mentioned in support of the continuance of the Leeds school.

The findings of the sub-committee, which have been accepted by the U.G.C., suggested that there was scope for rationalisation in the faculty of agriculture, which is very expensive. There was scope for perhaps rather more rationalisation in that field than had been indicated in the Bosanquet Report, which stated, in paragraph 72, that it: … would not think it contrary to the national interest if one or two universities with small schools of agriculture were to decide to close them down. I agree that Leeds is not a small school of agriculture. It is of medial size and I made the quotation from the Report with that qualification. After informal consultation with Government Departments concerned with education and agriculture, the U.G.C. is now pursuing specific proposals for such rationalisation. That is referred to in paragraph 31 of the Annual Survey of the U.G.C. for the academic year 1965–66. For example, it has proposed to one university that it should consider arrangements whereby two of its constituent colleges should complement each other's agricultural courses rather than run the risk of duplicating them. Secondly, it has proposed to another university the realignment of its work in horticulture. Those proposals have been accepted in principle by the universities concerned, and the consequential changes are being worked out.

Thirdly, the Committee has proposed to Leeds and other universities that they might consider the discontinuance of undergraduate teaching in agriculture, with the objective of concentrating the teaching of agricultural subjects in fewer and stronger schools. I do not think that that objective is at issue in the House. There have been repeated calls in the House for an effort to concentrate scarce resources and rationalise courses. That policy is proceeding.

What is a matter for discussion is how and where it should be done. Quite fairly, hon. Members have made their case that it should not involve Leeds. Given that policy intention, which I hope we all share, both in higher and further education, the U.G.C. had the difficult and distasteful task of deciding which universities to advise to consider discontinuing their schools of agriculture. The fact that Leeds and other universities were chosen for that type of proposal does not mean that they are academically inferior, but only that taking all factors into consideration it is better to concentrate growth in those which will remain.

It is fair to put forward figures showing that this or that school of agriculture is by no means among the smallest. It is fair to bring forward proof of the academic achievement of a school and all the other arguments which have been most cogently advanced. But the U.G.C. must take those arguments in the round and come to a decision not on any one of them but on their totality, and in relation to the general national pattern of agricultural teaching and research as it sees it developing, and as it thinks that it should develop.

The right hon. Member for Harrogate asked me what was happening and whether anything had been decided. No decision has yet been taken to discontinue undergraduate teaching in agriculture at the University of Leeds. The proposal has been put to the university; it is being considered by it; it will be a matter for the university to decide in the light of all the relevant factors.

Having said that, I must say that the U.G.C. intends to continue urging the university to take the steps necessary to implement its proposal.

Mr. Ramsden

Does the proposal cover all the courses I mentioned, or is it confined to the general agriculture course?

Mr. Roberts

I was about to try to deal with that point, which involves a fair amount of detail.

The right hon. Gentleman asked whether the proposal included the discontinuance of degree and diploma courses and what alternative arrangements would be made If either or both were discontinued. I understand that the proposal covers both types of courses but that the discussion deals with the position likely to arise in relation to such discontinuance and is related to the national position. It is possible that one sector of the teaching now done at the universities might be found to be viable even if another sector were discontinued. If the right hon. Gentleman would like me to obtain more information for him on that I would do so most readily.

There is a need for degree qualification in agriculture. The hon. Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison) indicated certain directions in which the need may develop and grow. There is also a need for what one might call the medial qualification, the diploma type of qualification. I should like to look into that point a little further. That is not to say that I prejudge the issue. It must be a matter for discussion between the U.G.C. and the university, but I am interested in the assertion, which I think we would all agree is proved, that we must be careful about the continuance of adequate provision for medial teaching, for recruiting and properly training the diploma type of agricultural student.

I listened very carefully to the objections to the proposal. It is not for me to argue the case for the University Grants Committee. The points raised this morning are most certainly points which the Committee has considered carefully and will continue to consider with great care. There is the continuing need for agriculture graduates and the argument that this will not be met by closing down courses. The Committee, however, has made it perfectly clear that it is not considering any reduction in the total number of university students of agriculture. It believes that rationalisation of university provision for agriculture would lead to stronger though fewer schools with benefit both to education of students and to research and that the remaining schools should not only accommodate the present total number of students, but could if required cope with a considerable increase.

Mention was made today of the schools' contribution to developing countries. The Ministry of Overseas Development has been kept informed of this proposal and it has quite rightly made clear that it regards the structure of British education in the higher field, as in other fields, as one which must be governed in all essentials by the needs of the country. It does not, therefore, question the rightness of the policy for rationalisation and it does not feel inclined to examine any particular proposals. I think that absolutely right. But it is convinced that it should still be within the capacity of British universities as a whole to make available the number of good young agriculture graduates in each year that it needs for immediate overseas appointments or for postgraduate study.

I have dealt with the question about the school's size and viability. I repeat that although size and viability are important factors and were taken into account by the University Grants Committee, they are not the only factors of significance. I have every sympathy with the point made by the hon. Member for Howden about special services provided by educational establishments to local farming communities. This is one of the factors which the University of Leeds will he taking into account in its reaction to the proposals. Of course, local farmers in Yorkshire and elsewhere have other sources of advice besides the University's school of agriculture. The National Agricultural Advisory Service is one.

Mr. Bryan

I asked this question in no aggressive sense. If the indication invitation sent to Leeds University is turned down and the university decides to go on with its agricultural degree, what happens then? Is it to be cut off from the money or what is to be the outcome?

Mr. Roberts

I believe I said earlier that the University Grants Committee proposes to urge this course upon the University of Leeds.

The relationship between the U.G.C. and the universities are delicate, as the hon. Member mentioned, and also effective. I hope that he will not try to draw me on the ultimates of this relationship particularly in regard to Leeds. What is happening and what will continue is a consideration of an informed proposal by the U.G.C. to Leeds University. The university may be reacting, commenting, possibly—I do not know—objecting, arguing, proposing alternatives—I could not say. I think it would be helpful if the hon. Member and I left it at that.

The N.A.A.S. is a major source of advice to local farmers and there are many other sources to draw upon. The service keeps in touch with the university departments of agriculture in general, not only with the local school of agriculture in the local university, but with university research throughout the country and with the research results coming from the many research institutes wholly or partly financed by the Agricultural Research Council.

This is how it should be. The National Agricultural Advisory Service should continue to draw its own advice and help which it can then channel to farmers everywhere, not only locally, but from national institutions whether they be universities rearch institutes operating under the Research Council. I think the right hon. Member for Harrogate specifically raised the point about—I do not want to misquote him—whether there could be a gap between a course's discontinuance if that were decided upon and the operation of alternative facilities in other centres. I understand that the effects of closure on staff and students have been fully taken into account by the University Grants Committee in making its proposal and, of course, that is being considered as an important aspect of these proposals by the University of Leeds itself. It is envisaged that in any event arrangements would be made for existing students to complete their courses. Most of the courses are of three to four years depending on the nature of the qualification, whether it is an ordinary pass degree or an honours degree, so those entering this year will certainly be taken care of academically if the decision goes a certain way. There would not therefore be a gap and it is clear that there would be ample time to make the proper arrangements for alternative facilities whether they were confined to degree courses or extended, as the right hon. Gentleman mentioned, to diploma courses.

The provision of undergraduate teaching is an educational matter on which the Secretary of State is advised by the University Grants Committee. On this occasion the Committee had first-hand information about the work carried on at each university department of agriculture and it is understood that they took fully into account all the relevant factors before putting their rationalisation proposals to the universities. These and the comments made in today's debate will no doubt also be taken into account by those concerned in the University of Leeds when considering the proposal which has been put to it.

This is a matter of academic judgment for the university and the University Grants Committee and it is not one in which the Secretary of State intervenes. I emphasise, however, that this is precisely the sort of carefully considered rationalising process carried through by the Committee, in full consultation with the universities themselves, for which Parliament generally has often pressed. I think that the University Grants Committee deserves credit for the thorough and objective manner in which it has tackled this question. I have no doubt that the University of Leeds, under its very able leadership will consider the proposals made to it in a similarly objective manner.