HC Deb 20 March 1984 vol 56 cc1022-30

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. David Hunt.]

11.42 pm
Lord James Douglas-Hamilton (Edinburgh, West)

I wish tonight to raise the issue of the future of the oldest pharmacy department in the United Kingdom, founded in 1776. Edinburgh has had an unbroken tradition of teaching pharmacy for more than 200 years. The school of pharmacy owed its origins to the royal public dispensary, the first to be founded in Britain. Not only is the tradition of a learned profession to be much respected, but Edinburgh, and particularly this department, has become a centre of medical excellence and research.

Edinburgh is rightly known as the Athens of the north, being the capital of Scotland. It is one of the greatest centres of medical learning in the Western world.

Mr. John Maxton (Glasgow, Cathcart)

What about Glasgow?

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton

Glasgow is a distinguished city and the university there has a pharmaceutical department. The two cities are not in competition over this. Edinburgh is also the home of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, the medicines testing laboratory, the pharmaceutical division of the Scottish Home and Health Department and the Pharmaceutical General Council of Scotland. As the Edinburgh Royal infirmary confirms, Edinburgh is such a centre of pharmacy that the lack of a school of pharmacy would be a serious matter. It is necessary to have such a department in a city with the medical standing of Edinburgh.

The allegation has been made that the research at this Department is modest, but there are already signs of growth. Much collaborative work has been undertaken and that is increasing. There are at least 12, if not more, projects with hospitals, industry and university departments. One of the ways in which a small department can build up its strength is by having links with other universities and institutions.

At the site at Riccarton there would be scope for development and such research would increase. Lothian health board has stated that the department of pharmacy is now realising its research potential in what are considered exciting and profitable areas. I am glad to say that this view is supported by the chairman of the Scottish Development Agency, who has written that the department has a substantial role in underpinning the pharmaceutical industry. After all, if there is to be considerable growth in biotechnology this is a development in which pharmacists would be ideally employed.

The matter goes deeper and involves the whole issue of health care. The closure of this department would have an adverse effect on health care since research facilities would no longer be available in the south-east of Scotland. Additional expertise would be lost to a centre of medical excellence. The expertise for continuing professional education would go, and the academic and professional back-up in both hospital pharmacy and community pharmacy would disappear. This would place pharmacy at a serious disadvantage in maintaining an effective health care service in south-east Scotland.

Of course, the standards of training in this department are excellent; 90.5 per cent. of the students get first or second class honours degrees and in the past five years virtually all the students who have qualified have obtained employment. The Minister has not yet published the figures from other departments throughout Britain, but none of them can possibly excel the record of Heriot-Watt and no doubt a great many of them will not come near to equalling it.

In any case, the demand in the east and central belt of Scotland is immense. In 1983, under pressure from the University Grants Committee, the university reduced its intake to 22 students out of 620 applicants. As Boots the chemists confirm, the quality of students produced has been second to none and they are invariably well motivated and trained to meet all their professional responsibilities. Of course, the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) happens to be one of the graduates. The message from hospitals, medical schools, community pharmacists and industry has been that the pharmacy graduates are of the highest quality. This is proved by the fact that they all go on to jobs.

There is a Scottish dimension to this in that 54 per cent. of all graduates are employed in the south-east and central belt of Scotland and 72 per cent. in Scotland as a whole. If the school closes, the Scottish students will be at a disadvantage when applying for Chelsea and Nottingham, as the Scottish educational system does not have A-level certificates. This would seriously reduce the opportunity for Scottish students in south-east Scotland acquiring a university pharmacy education.

The manpower needs of health care industries in southeast Scotland are being actively promoted by the Scottish Development Agency and the role of the department in this part of Scotland complements the departments in Glasgow and Aberdeen. On 17 March 1982, in response to a debate in the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Fletcher) said: The UGC has assured Heriot-Watt university that it will be given every encouragement to concentrate its activities at Riccarton and to move out of the city centre."—[Official Report, 17 March, 1982; Vol. 20, c. 404.] It should also be mentioned that there would be a relative increase in the cost of the brewing and biological sciences building at Riccarton if pharmacy were not to move into the same building. Because the accommodation would be shared between two faculties instead of three, the relative cost would go up. Closing this department would turn out be a false economy. In any case, approximately 70 per cent of the students in the pharmacy department are women and the vast majority of the students in the other departments are men, so the inclusion of this department on the site at Riccarton would help to get an appropriate balance between men and women. Sometimes it is suggested that women do not work outside the home all their working lives.

It should not be forgotten that women who have had children or are pregnant often work as locums in pharmacies.

Today the hon. Member for Clackmannan (Mr. O'Neill) took a deputation—I was glad to go with him, along with the hon. Member for Falkirk, West (Mr. Canavan), the hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman), who has taught at Heriot-Watt university, and the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire who, as I said, is a graduate—to see the chairman of the UGC. We hope that the Minister will pass on to the chairman the further details that will be mentioned in this debate.

In summary, the essence of the matter is that the UGC is in danger of striking at the heart of the Scottish education system. Since time immemorial, more Scots have gone to university than is the case with their contemporaries in England. They see education as being vitally important, because it touches on the aspirations that men and women have for their children. Napoleon used to say that every French soldier had a field marshal's baton in his rucksack. In much the same way, every Scots student knows that he has the opportunity to attain fulfilment, because he or she has access to the best education institutions in the land. The loss of a centre of excellence would be a thoroughly retrograde step. I believe that it would be worse than a mistake; it would be a blunder.

11.50 pm
Mr. Martin J. O'Neill (Clackmannan)

It is relatively unusual to have a shared Adjournment debate, but it is part of the all-party nature of the campaign that has been waged in defence of the pharmacy department of Heriot-Watt. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton) said that today—almost uniquely in perhaps the most warring of all parts of the United Kingdom politically—an all-party deputation went to see the chairman of the UGC. We were unanimous in the view that we put to him, which was that the contribution made by the pharmacy department of Heriot-Watt was not to be seen in a regional sense, which was what the chairman endeavoured to convey to us, saying that his part of England did not have a pharmacy department.

We argue that the pharmacy department of Heriot-Watt not only makes a major contribution to National Health Service provision in east-central Scotland—or the Forth estuary, to put it in its widest geographical context—but is an integral part of the unique contribution that Edinburgh and the east of Scotland make to the whole medical profession and the academic standing of the United Kingdom medical profession throughout the world. Without the pharmacy department, that contribution would be greatly debased.

It is not the students' fault that the numbers are now such that the chairman of the UCC can say, according to the economics of scale, that the pharmacy department is beginning to become an uneconomic unit. In 1981, the UGC recommended that the student intake figures should fall from 60 to 48. Moreover, the pharmacy panel of the UGC—not the most unbiased of bodies, in that it represents a vested interest within the pharmacy business, for want of a better expression—came to the conclusion that perhaps the research side was deficient, as compared with the research dimension of other pharmacy departments.

We would argue that the position of Heriot-Watt has been improving considerably over the past five to six years, that its transition to an institution of higher learning and a university has meant that the emphasis on teaching has taken precedence and that the quality of the teaching is evidenced by the degree performance, which bears comparison with that of any other institution in the United Kingdom. There are dual responsibilities in a department such as pharmacy concerning research and vocational training. On the vocational training side Heriot-Watt has acquitted itself in such a way that it has been defended across the whole spectrum of the pharmaceutical world, including business, the Health Service and academic institutions; all have been forthcoming and willing to provide the maximum degree of support for the sustaining of this institution.

I do not take the opportunity this evening to knock the Government because at the moment the Government have still to say what they have to say. We have not chased them. It is the University Grants Committee and, in many respects, the internal workings of the UGC that has produced this report. We think that it is wrong. We think that the support of the Department of Education and Science should be placed behind this institution, based not simply on the needs of the Health Service or the pharmaceutical industry but, more than anything else, on the name of Scottish education and the Scottish contribution to medicine, which goes far beyond the confines of the House or the party debates in which we normally participate.

I ask the Minister to use what influence he has—and some of us have become somewhat cynical about the influence that the DES has had in recent years over the UGC, at least in respect of the UGC's willingness to participate in cutting the educational budget. Here is a chance for the Minister to prove that the DES, in the context of an arm's length relationship with higher education, with the UGC, can operate contructively and in defence of higher education and of what we think is one of the outstanding academic traditions in this country, the contribution that the Heriot-Watt pharmacy department has made to the medical service and to higher education and learning in our country.

11.56 pm
Mr. Barry Henderson (Fife, North-East)

I declare an interest as a member of the general convocation of the university of Heriot-Watt and as a Member of the House for a constituency in the Forth valley.

That is the first reason why I am very grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton) for having initiated this debate. The interest throughout the area is evidenced by the substantial number of hon. Members in the Chamber at this time of night.

Of the graduates who leave the school of pharmacy at Heriot-Watt, virtually all find jobs, and more than half find jobs in central and southern Scotland, including the Fife region. It will, therefore, be clear that any diminution of the activity of that school will have serious consequences for the provision of pharmacy facilities in the region.

Edinburgh is a centre of excellence in the whole of medicine, whether in teaching, research, practice of medicine or, perhaps not least important, in the industrial activities involved in supplying goods and services to medicine. All these are found in the centre of excellence in Edinburgh and the loss of the pharmacy department of Heriot-Watt would be a loss to that total medical excellence.

The University Grants Committee has a difficult job to do. One sympathises with the problems of the chairman and his committee in having to make finely balanced judgments which will always be very difficult to achieve. Given that situation, there will be times when, at the margin, that judgment must be called in question, and on this occasion I believe that my hon. Friend is right to stress the importance of this department. I believe that with the move to Riccarton there is real scope for the enhancement of its already high reputation, not least in its research facilities. I hope that the UGC, on further consideration, will reprieve this department.

11.58 pm
Mr. Michael Forsyth (Stirling)

I very much appreciate the opportunity to support the initiative taken by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton). Having followed the debate in the newspapers before our debate this evening, I have been struck by the extraordinary way in which the UGC operates its peer review system. It is extraordinary that the committee set up by the UGC should conclude that the three departments represented on the committee were the best in the field and that the department that was not represented was somewhat sub-standard.

I find the UGC's explanation that it always appoints the best people to its committees, and that they come from the best departments, unconvincing to say the least. It is clear that the decision has turned, if it has been made, on the basis of its subjective view of the department. However, graduates from that department are able to find jobs, and there is a shortage of people for the posts in hospitals, possibly because of the low salaries for those posts.

The UGC consistently fails to take into account the special nature of Scottish universities, and particularly of Scottish students, who with their examinations taken at highers, find it relatively more difficult to get into English universities. Therefore, to remove this institution would be far more catastrophic in its impact than a cut in a similar department in England. The insensitivity in the UGC is mirrored in the unrest among the vice-chancellors—unrest that was not there when we had the devolution debate.

Perhaps this decision shows that we should move towards a system in which we can get rid of the UGC in Scotland and have the universities supported more on the basis of student choice, which is what the general council of St. Andrews has suggested. If my hon. Friend wants to quell such radical thoughts in the breasts of people in Scotland, I hope that he can reassure us, because this is a matter of considerable concern. If it is decided to close this department, there will be great disappointment.

12 midnight

The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Peter Brooke)

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton) for raising this matter tonight, and the hon. Member for Clackmannan (Mr. O'Neill) and my hon. Friends the Members for Fife, North-East (Mr. Henderson) and for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth) for joining in this debate. I am conscious of the deep concern of my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West for the future of the department of pharmacy at Heriot-Watt university, situated in his constituency. The debate, as he points out, is timely in that the University Grants Committee is due to make a final decision about its willingness to continue to fund the school at its meeting on Thursday. My hon. Friend has asked me a number of written questions, and I am only sorry that in some instances the relevant information is outside the Government's control, and I have not yet been able to write to him.

I shall first say a little about the relationship between the Government and the University Grants Committee. Since the UGC was founded in 1919, it has been a fundamental principle that judgments relating to relative quality and the allocation of resources between individual institutions were matters for peer review by a body composed mainly of academics, rather than matters for decision by Ministers and civil servants. This principle has been upheld by successive Governments.

While pharmacy provision in the universities has only recently come to the fore following the UGC's recommendation to the principal of Heriot-Watt that pharmacy teaching at the university should be discon- tinued, the UGC has been monitoring the number of students studying pharmacy for some time. In 1977, following a report by the advisory panel on pharmacy established by the UGC, the then chairman, Sir Frederick Dainton, wrote to all universities explaining that it was the panel's view that expansion in pharmacy was not required.

In December 1980 the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain published the report of its manpower committee, which concluded that the need to reduce the entry to British schools of pharmacy is clearly indicated". Based partly on the report's conclusion, the chairman of the UGC, in his letter of 1 July 1981 to all universities announcing grant for 1981–82 and giving guidance for succeeding years, said The Committee proposes a reduction of about one-quarter in the number of places available for subjects allied to medicine, much of the reduction falling upon pharmacy". In his specific advice to Heriot-Watt university the chairman recommended a substantial reduction in Pharmacy numbers and said that: the Committee would wish to discuss with the university the possibility of discontinuing Pharmacy". The UGC's general advice drew criticism from, among others, the university schools of pharmacy and the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, the latter explaining that its survey had been based on figures for 1969 and contending that a reduction of only 10 per cent. was required in the overall entry to pharmacy courses. In September 1981, the UGC established a panel on studies allied to medicine to inquire into and advise the committee on the scale and nature of provision in universities required to meet national needs for education, training and employment in these subjects. Because of the controversy that had arisen over manpower requirements for pharmacy, the panel decided to deal first with the output of university pharmacy graduates in relation to national requirements, taking account also of the nature and academic standard of pharmaceutical education in the courses and the ability of individual schools of pharmacy to make adequate provision.

During the course of its inquiries, the panel held a meeting which was attended by representatives of the NAB pharmacy group, which was undertaking a similar inquiry into pharmacy provision in higher education institutions in the local authority sector, in England and Wales, with the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain and with the Department of Health and Social Security.

Among the issues discussed at that meeting were manpower demand, overall intake levels to schools of pharmacy and the minimum viable size of a school of pharmacy. The meeting estimated that the pharmaceutical profession needed the equivalent of 650 to 700 new full-time pharmacists each year, which the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain considered was consistent with its target of 900 new registrations per annum for the United Kingdom. Given that approximately 82 per cent. of entrants to pharmacy courses achieved professional registration, the panel estimated that there would be a need for an annual home and European Community student intake to schools of pharmacy across all sectors of higher education of about 1,000 in the United Kingdom. In arriving at this figure the panel took into account that approximately. 100 overseas students had entered the university and public sector schools annually over the past four years.

As the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britian supported the continuation of the broad historic balance of two-thirds of the pharmacy student population in the university sector and one-third in the public sector, the panel concluded that overall intakes to university schools of pharmacy should be reduced to 655–34 less than in 1982 and 137 less than in 1979. Together with the national advisory body pharmacy group recommendation for a reduced intake of 350 in 1984–85 and the increase in the entry to Robert Gordon's Institute of Technology course in 1983 to 54, the total intake of home and Community pharmacy students across all sectors of higher education will be 1,059 in 1984–85—an overall reduction of 12.4 per cent. from the 1979 intake.

Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow)

rose—

Mr. Brooke

I am very pressed for time.

In the light of the panel's assessment of the academic quality of the Heriot-Watt department of pharmacy, the level of intake to the department, and the fact that it would cost approximately £800,000 to transfer the department to the university's new site at Riccarton, the panel recommended that the provision of pharmacy courses at Heriot-Watt University should be discontinued and that the students entering:n 1984–85 should be the final intake. It is appreciated that the closure of the department of pharmacy at Heriot-Watt would result in reduction in pharmacy provision in Scotland. There are however, two other departments or schools of pharmacy in Scotland—

Mr. Robin Cook (Livingston)

rose—

Mr. Brooke

—at Strathclyde University, where it is recommended by the UGC panel that the intake should increase, and at Robert Gordon's Institute of Technology, Aberdeen, a central institution which, with the agreement of the Scottish Education Departments, the panel visited and which increased its intake for October 1983 to 60, including six overseas students. The increased intake for Strathclyde recommended by the UGC panel and the increased intake to Robert Gordon's institute will provide Scotland, which has approximately 9 per cent. of the population of Great Britain, with between 12 and 13 per cent. of both the total and university pharmacy places.

Of course, I also appreciate that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West has pointed out, Scottish students possess Scottish higher qualifications, and not A-levels. I understand, however, that Scottish higher qualifications are accepted by all English universities as general entrance qualifications, although I faculties might have their own additional requirements.

The UGC recognised that its recommendation had significant implications both for the university and for the staff of the school, whose interests the committee appreciated would need to be considered. The committee therefore invited the principal to discuss the matter further, and a meeting with senior representatives of the university and its school of pharmacy took place last month. I understand that at that meeting the principal set out the university's case for the continuation of the school. More recently he submitted to the committee a dossier of information relating to the case for the retention of the department of pharmacy at Heriot-Watt entitled "The Future of Pharmacy", a copy of which he has also sent to me and to my right hon. Friend. The dossier has also been considered by the panel on studies allied to medicine and the UGC medical sub-committee. Representatives of the UGC also met last month representatives of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain.

I can assure my hon. Friend that the UGC is fully aware of the arguments that have been put forward for the retention of the Heriot-Watt department of pharmacy, including the regard in which its graduates are held by the employers of pharmacists, the admirable record its graduates have in obtaining employment, its working relationship with local health services and its long tradition. These facts and others have been put to the committee by the university and the Pharmaceutical society and many other interested bodies. They will all be taken into account by the committee when it reaches its decision about the future of the department of pharmacy.

That said, it is important that the House does not lose sight of the UGC's reasons for recommending the closure of the department in the first place. It is generally agreed that there is a need to limit the number of those entering the profession in order to avoid the prospect of unemployment within the profession. Taxpayers' money spent on educating more pharmacists than are likely to find employment would not be money wisely spent. The UGC panel was aware when considering how best it might respond to the need to limit the overall output of graduates that closure of a school or department was one option and that there would be no volunteers for such a closure. There never are on such occasions. An assessment of relative quality and a judgment on future provision had therefore to be made. The UGC did not make its recommendation lightly or without regard to the implications of the decision for the university. It knew that its recommendation would be unpopular, but, to its credit, it did not because of that shrink from its responsibility or from making its decision. I shall, of course, ensure that the chairman of the UGC is informed of the debate in advance of Thursday's decision.

Mr. Dalyell

The Minister used the phrase "generally agreed"—generally agreed by whom? When he talks about the numbers of graduates that may be needed, what about the demand of British industry? There is a considerable demand within industry for pharmacy graduates. Does the Minister's reply mean that the Government will never see an expansion in science-based industry? Is that what he is saying? Will the Minister answer the question?

Mr. Brooke

That question has arisen in the dialogue which the UGC has had both with the institution and with others. The UGC has made it clear that there is no logic in the expansion of pharmacy education if there are others in other disciplines who would be appropriate to industry's needs. The exercise involved a decision on what were the UGC's pharmacy requirements.

Mr. Robin Cook

Before the Minister reaches a final view, will he consult the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland with responsibility for Scottish industry, the hon. Member for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart)? He will find that one of the priorities of his Administration and the SDA is to promote the health-care industries for the central belt of Scotland, many of them being in my constituency adjacent to the Riccarton campus. From where are these industries to get the trained pharmacists if we lose the pharmacy department at Heriot-Watt, the one university that is oriented towards business, industry and commerce in Scotland?

Mr. Brooke

To be fair, I gave up time of my own in the debate to allow the maximum number of contributors—

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, MR. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at twelve minutes past Twelve o'clock.