Students Charter (Hansard, 31 October 1984)

§ Mrs. Edwina Currie (Derbyshire, South)
I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make membership of and subscription to the National Union of Students voluntary for all students in places of further and higher education; and for connected purposes. First, I should explain the relationship between student unions in this country and the National Union of Students. In the United Kingdom today there are 44 universities, 31 polytechnics and 576 colleges of further education. In each university and polytechnic and in most colleges of further education there is a students' union of which membership is compulsory for any student intended to study at that institution. That is laid down by law in the statutes or Orders in Council establishing those institutions. Student union membership is thus a closed shop, outdated and iniquitous. Students who do not wish to join their union or the National Union of Students and who do not wish to pay the union fee can be expelled from their college and their course terminated.
Until 1980, student unions were financed by students paying approximately £40 a year to the student union from their grants. As membership was compulsory, a Department of Education and Science circular instructed local authorities to pay the fee directly to the institution, which would then pass the money to the student union. Therefore, the money never touched the students' bank accounts, and this is one reason why the system has endured for so long. The amount of money that is involved is substantial. Student unions receive well over £20 million of public money over the year.
A change in the system was introduced by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warrington, South (Mr. Carlisle). In February 1980, it was announced that the money for the student unions was to come out of the institution's recurring funds. In other words, the money now comes from the University Grants Committee and not from the local authorities. This means that student unions have to negotiate their money directly from the university or college authorities, in competition with academic departments, libraries, swimming pools and the like. At least now the university authorities have a direct interest in the amount of money that the union claims, and it is said that sometimes they hang on to it instead of handing it over.
For the individual student, all this makes no difference, as he still has no say in whether he joins the student union or not, and he has no control over the money being spent on his behalf by the UGC. Many student unions do an excellent job, and much of the work of the NUS is commendable.
Students should join their union and take part in its activities. If the moderates do not like the leadership or the policies of their union, they have only themselves to blame. If they fail to take part, they cannot expect to like the results. However, they cannot vote with their feet.
The NUS has two groups of membership. There is individual membership, or the much more common block membership of all the members of an individual student union to the NUS. Therefore, if the student union decides to affiliate with the NUS, all members of the student union become members of the NUS. That is how the NUS achieves its claim of representing 1.2 million students. 1302 Some 40 universities and 31 polytechnics and a large number of colleges have unions that belong to the NUS, but the universities of St. Andrews, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Heriot-Watt and Dundee, and King's college, London, and Imperial college, London, have all, at one time or another, decided to disaffiliate from the NUS, as a protest at what they regarded as its extreme nature. However, one of the major factors causing disaffiliation from the NUS is the cost of membership, which comes out of the public purse to a total of over £1 million a year. Thus, not only are students compulsory members of their university or college student union but, by virtue of the fact that most unions belong to the NUS, they are also compulsory members of the NUS.
I make no comment about what the NUS and some of the student unions get up to. They have been challenged in the courts and by my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General in his capacity as overseer of charitable trusts, and that is the way that some of the more dubious activities of these organisations can be tackled. My concern is to end the closed shop and thus to re-establish the principle that a student may join a union if he wishes to, but if he does not choose to be does not have to.
There has been much discussion about the method by which voluntary membership can be achieved. In Australia, major legislation was passed in 1978 and 1981, but it is all too easy to create complex legislation and then to find, as the Australians did, that one does not achieve one's objective. The most simple way, and the purpose of the Bill, would be to require the students' written consent for money paid over on his behalf by a college or university to a student union and thence to the NUS. That consent should be administered by the college or university; it must be renewed every year, and thus the student union membership and membership of the NUS would become voluntary.
This system could apply to all students, including those not on a grant, to full-time, part-time and sandwich course students and could be extended to all payments to a student union for whatever purpose. If the student did not wish to belong to the student union, he would not have to, and if he did not want to belong to the NUS, even if his student union wished to, he would not have to belong. I commend this system to the House as simple, workable and equitable.
We are talking about both principle and practice. In principle, it is wrong that anyone should be made to join a students' union or the NUS. In a free society, that should be a matter of choice. In practice, unions which do not have a closed shop enforceable by law will have to go out and recruit members. They will have to persuade people to join. Such unions are much more likely to be responsive to what the students want, and accountability to those students will become a reality. If the students want politics, so be it. I think that they are more likely to want a service for the students, leaving politics to individual choice and action. Anyone who wishes to maintain the present system needs to prove why it is both necessary and desirable for the iniquitous practice of public funds financing compulsory membership of the NUS to continue. I commend the Bill to the House.

§ Mr. Speaker
Second Reading what day?

§ Mrs. Currie
Tomorrow.

§ Mr. Speaker
That would be a bit difficult. Today?

§ Mr. Jack Straw (Blackburn)
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. As you have just said, it would be difficult to have the Second Reading tomorrow. In case members of the public may be misled by this mischievous publicity stunt—which, like all the hon. Lady's other stunts, has backfired—would you confirm that, if the Bill were to progress, it would have to go through Second Reading, Committee stage, Report stage, Third Reading and all the procedures in the other place in five hours, and that in practice the Bill stands no chance of reaching the statute book?

§ Mr. Speaker
The hon. Gentleman's point of order gives me an opportunity to correct something which I inadvertently found myself saying. Of course, the hon. Lady was correct in saying that she wished the Second Reading to be tomorrow.
As to what the hon. Gentleman has said, I believe that it is fairly common knowledge.