§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Sainsbury.]
§ 12.1 am
§ Mr. Ernie Ross (Dundee, West)I welcome the opportunity to speak on behalf of universities in Scotland and students who will not have places in universities as a result of the University Grants Committee's decisions on funding. I take the opportunity to raise, on their behalf, some of the matters causing grave concern. I should like the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science, in his response, to tell not only hon. Members but those who attend universities and those responsible for their adminstration what extra information the UGC used or called on. How did it calculate the resource factor when it decided on the funding of universities, especially those in Scotland?
I welcome the stand taken by the principal of Dundee university, Adam Neville, against the funding cuts by the UGC. In the face of a wholesale attack on universities by the Government, the principal of Dundee has at last spoken out against the Government's policies. He is determined that there will be no redundancies in academic and non-academic staff. He is determined to hold on to all kinds of disciplines. He sees Dundee university as part of the city and part of the region. The university needs their support just as they need the university.
In the local press recently, the principal called for a long-term funding strategy to safeguard the future of universities. He reminded the Government that universities are long-term providers of graduates, research and co-operation with industry. He reminded the Government that to achieve that they need long-term support and enough money to operate and develop.
The UGC has recognised only the obvious areas of research excellence in Dundee — pharmacology, mathematics, biological sciences, biochemistry, anatomy and physiology, clinical medicine, psychology, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, law, and philosophy. Even though some of those were rated as outstanding by international standards, no extra funds are to be provided for research. Worse than that, in the UGC's rush, it has ignored many others. There are departments, research groups within departments and individuals with high national and international reputations who have been completely passed over.
Worse still, the UGC has looked only to the past and not to the future. Research assessments were based on work that had its origins five, 10 or even 15 years ago. The UGC has not recognised new developments, many of which are at Dundee. University research is about change, innovation and development. The UGC, with its blinkered vision—forced on it by the Government—failed to see the obvious. It claimed to have carried out a peer review. Many would suggest that it resembled an "end of the pier" review.
Dundee has a fine record of working with industry. That co-operation has gone on for many years. The traditional strengths are in medicine, science and engineering, but the university is now working on new areas — biotechnology, robotics and computer science. Recently, the university entered into an agreement with a major pharmaceutical company. It has set up two companies of its own to carry out clinical research and 1173 produce diagnostic kits. At the local level, there is a range of consultancy and advisory work that is done by departments such as chemistry, physics, geology, civil engineering and psychology. There is tremendous potential at national and local level.
Dundee university also produces graduates. They leave with the benefits of a Scottish university education—four years of study in a broad range of subjects. They are not committed to courses that were selected too early in school. They can find out about new subjects and can change direction. They have a better chance of discovering their true potential. Students may specialise or follow combinations of subjects that are best suited to their future careers. In the arts and social science faculty that flexibility has been fine-tuned to achieve the maximum range from available resources. All come out with a far greater range of skills than when they went in.
The courses developed at Dundee produce those graduates that business and industry need. Derek Hornby, chairman of Rank Xerox (UK) Ltd., made that point at a conference on the role of arts and social science graduates in society held in Dundee last year. He said:
there was a pressing need in industry for specialized graduates such as electronics engineers, but that industry also needs good honours graduates, regardless of their discipline. These generalists who have flexibility, inquiring minds, and skills at communication have an advantage over specialists whose knowledge rapidly becomes obsolete.The same message came from Bill Hughes, chairman of Grampian Holdings and the CBI Scotland Education and Training Committee. His advice to the universities was "You educate. We'll train." Fortunately, Dundee university has listened to that advice and its graduates' employment prospects are good. The university is high, and always has been, on the league table of graduate employment. It has listened to what business and industry have to say and has got it right. The UGC does not appear to have listened and has got it wrong.Dundee university has made a point of being part of the region and the city by developing opportunities for continuing education and part-time degrees. The newly formed Centre for Continuing Education runs its extramural courses for more than 4,000 people. They offer a chance for those who have missed out in their education or who want to learn for the pleasure and fulfilment that comes from study. A recent development is the programme of vocational education aimed at local industry. With support from the Manpower Services Commission and the Scottish Development Agency, several schemes are under way, including one for training in languages with a large local company. There are part-time degrees, such as the master of education, which is a valuable conversion course for local teachers. An innovation is the part-time degree run by the faculty of arts and social sciences. In its first year, there were so many applications that people had to be turned away.
People in Dundee care about education, and the university is trying to make education more accessible. The Government believe, or say they do, in the value of retraining, but the UGC does not seem to have yet got the message or to understand. It is not giving enough support to vocational continuing education and severe cuts look inevitable. The Government and the UGC must accept 1174 that continuing education in Scotland depends on home-based study. If courses in Dundee are cut, the students cannot go elsewhere.
All these achievements at Dundee have been made despite a cut in funding since 1980 of more than 15 per cent. In 1983, the Prime Minister promised to hold university funding at a steady level in real terms after 1984–85. The university is now being told to cut its expenditure by a further 20 per cent.—so much for the Prime Minister's promises.
What has Dundee university done to deserve this? What has it done wrong? No one is saying. But it is certain that, if action is not taken immediately, all these achievements will be threatened. What is to be lost? What achievement do the Government and the UGC want Dundee to throw away? Is it the initiatives with the local industries? What advantage to Dundee can there be if these are cut? Is it the quality of teaching? This is bound to suffer if there are further losses in academic and non-academic staff.
The Secretary of State recently received a letter from the dean of students at Dundee university that said:
Secondly, academics in Arts and Social Sciences are most unwilling to see their interests divided, by Government and U.G.C. policy, from those of their colleagues in the Sciences. As a recent delegation from the Standing Conference of Arts and Social Sciences in Universities explained some months ago to your predecessor, Sir Keith Joseph, there are many Arts-based academics who are already working to make broader higher education opportunities available to those who can profit by them…The irony of the situation is that efforts to make the curriculum more flexible while at the same time maintaining high standards of excellence, which Sir Keith on that occasion wholeheartedly professed to support, are precisely what the U.G.C.'s present strategies in redistributing resources arc bringing to a halt.How can teaching be improved if there is less money to be spent on books, services and equipment? How will a reduction in the number of students at Dundee benefit industry and business, which are calling out for more of these graduates? Do the UGC and the Government expect Dundee university to throw away its record on graduate employment? Fewer courses on offer will obviously reduce the opportunities for graduates. This will hurt Dundee because over half the Scottish students at the university are local, coming from the area around Dundee, Perth and Angus. Far more Scottish students go to their home university than do students in England. They do this for good reasons. They leave school at an earlier stage, which reduces the burdens on parents supporting their children for a four-year degree. Does the UGC want Dundee to throw away its new innovations in research and damage its solid base?What about the effects on the local economy? The university is the second largest employer in the region with a budget for expenditure of £26 million. Every £100,000 that is cut from the university results in an estimated loss of £140,000 from the local economy. With the deficit expected to reach about £1.6 million next year, this means a loss to the region of Tayside of about £2.2 million—hardly the little economy that the Prime Minister seems to think it will be. It could be described as a catastrophe.
Most of the money spent by the university goes into the region and helps the people there. Universities are about people, the people who work and study in them and those who live alongside them and share the benefits. The principal of Dundee got it right when he said that Scotland needs universities in smaller cities such as Dundee. Small universities, by their very nature, must be somewhat more 1175 expensive per student than large ones. To cover a discipline one needs a library, computers and expensive equipment, and one cannot have half of each for a small university. He has explained this to the UGC, but it does not seem to have listened, or it has not been allowed to listen.
The trouble with the UGC is that its members are the old-fashioned academics who talk about the role of the universities in the economy, but, in real practical terms, this means the local economy, a point that they do not understand. Many in the university system believe that the further away one is from London, Oxford and Cambridge, the more likely it is that the UGC decides to cut one's budget even further. It would be interesting to hear what the Minister has to say about that.
The Government and the UGC have bungled the job. They have not listened to those who know best—the business men, the industrialists, the students, the universities and the local communities. They do not seem to know about the special needs of Scottish universities within the framework of the Scottish education system. They are part of a system that sees as part of its strength the capacity to teach across a broad reach of subjects. Children in school are not forced to specialise too early, and they get a chance to select their subject during the two introductory years of a four-year degree. The system is more efficient because time is not wasted upon teaching students in wrong courses. It is also a system that can respond immediately to change.
An essential feature of the Scottish system is the four-year degree. It is not just a question of an extra year at university. The whole structure of secondary education is different from that in England. It is geared to the four-year university degree. Students enter universities in Scotland one year earlier than they do in England. Any attempt to change the four-year degree must be seen as an attack on the whole system of education. This is not a special case argument. It is an argument for a completely different system that cannot be funded along the same lines as the English system.
We shall all be worse off in the long run if there are fewer people in the work force with the advanced qualifications that are needed to maintain an efficient economy and a competitive industry. Already the proportion of the British population with a degree is only half the figure for Japan or America. When he spoke last week to university teachers at their rally, my right hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Mr. Kinnock) said that the Labour party is committed to adequate and consistent funding of higher education, to a proper career structure for all those who work in higher education, and to access for all those who can profit by it and who want to pursue higher education. If the UGC proposals for Dundee university were to he accepted, it would take us back to the failed, elitist structures of yesterday that demonstrably have failed the majority of our young people.
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. George Walden)"Wholly a blessed time when jargon might abate and here and there some genuine speech begin." I quote, of course, Thomas Carlyle, an illustrious countryman of the hon. Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Ross). I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is as devoted to him as I am. 1176 I respect the hon. Gentleman's committment to his constituency and to Scottish concerns that has led him to initiate this debate, but it is rather a shame that he does not seem to have recognised another essential truth propagated by Thomas Carlyle, to the effect that there is a noble conservatism, as well as an ignoble one.
I am very much aware of the position that universities and other institutions of higher education occupy in their local communities. That applies not only in Scotland but to universities in any part of the United Kingdom. This contribution to employment, as well as the contribution to the educational life of the area in question, is one of the major reasons why the funding of universities is of concern to many local communities.
Nevertheless, I cannot accept the main burden of the hon. Gentleman's argument, and in reply I should like to make a series of points. The hon. Gentleman made no acknowledgement whatsoever in his speech of the statement by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph) on 20 May. The Government have already made it clear that in order to maintain the policy of selectivity and rationalisation in universities on which the UGC is embarked they are prepared to consider the possibility of extra cash for the universities for the 1987–88 and subsequent financial years, provided that in discussion with the UGC and the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals it is possible to reach agreement on a programme of work that will maintain and develop the policy of selectivity and rationalisation, better management, including in particular better financial management, and a drive to improve the quality of teaching, including the development of provision for the training and appraisal of academic staff. This is a serious proposal. I hope very much that the universities will take it seriously. The Department is already engaged in discussions with the UGC and the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals.
The hon. Gentleman, like so many Opposition Members, seeks to perpetuate a myth about the contraction of higher education. It is very tiresome for grown-up people to have to go over the same ground so often, but I am afraid that we shall have to cover it yet again. Since 1979, Conservative Governments presided over a massive expansion in higher education. In Great Britain as a whole there are 128,000 more full-time and part-time students now than there were in 1979, including nearly 80,000 more full-time students. In Scotland the number of students in full-time higher education has risen from under 69,000 in 1979–80 to around 79,000 in the current academic year, which is an increase of about 15 per cent.
The proportion of young people who enter higher education in Scotland is traditionally higher than for the rest of the United Kingdom. Despite the increase in the size of the 17 and 18-year-old population, the proportion of that population entering higher education has grown over the period from 17 per cent. in 1979 to 19 per cent. in 1984–85, and is projected to continue to rise. So we have achieved an increasing proportion entering higher education out of a much greater total population.
To suggest that there is any systematic prejudice against Scotland — I feared that the hon. Gentleman might suggest it and unfortunately my fears Were well founded — in the allocation of grant by the UGC is simply nonsense. The UGC has this year for the first time moved to a much greater openness in its allocation of grant and 1177 to a much more systematic and publicly articulated methodology. Provision for teaching in all subjects has been made on the basis of a common allocation per student in each subject for every university. So there is no possibility of prejudice there. Provision for research has been calculated on the basis of four main factors, three quantitative and one qualitative.
§ Mr. WaldenI want to continue, as I do not have much time.
They are, first, the numbers of academic staff and of research students; secondly, income from the research councils and from medical and other research charities; thirdly, research contract income from industry and from Government Departments; and, fourthly, the UGC's evaluation of the quality of research in each departmental cost centre, having regard to universities' own research statements, and to the views of the research councils and other bodies and individuals. These judgments were reached by the subject sub-committees of the UGC, so that over 120 academics and others were involved.
This obviously represents a much wider cross-section of the academic community than the main committee of the UGC. I would like to stress that powerful representation from Scotland was present on those committees.
Historically, the Scottish universities have been relatively generously funded compared with the rest of the United Kingdom. The move to a fairer distribution of grant based on a common unit of funding per student in each subject has therefore been the main reason for the funding changes in the majority of Scottish universities. Two universities—
§ Mr. WaldenI am sorry. I have only a matter of minutes.
Two universities gained from this, but five lost. Four Scottish universities also lost because of the judgment that was made of the quality of their research, but so did many other universities in different parts of the United Kingdom.
It is important to recognise that the allocations that have been made by the UGC are not set in concrete. I want to stress that strongly. If a university gets more from the research councils or from industry, it will automatically get more from the UGC by the operation of the sophisticated formula that has been put in place. So there is every incentive to universities to build upon their strengths and to try to improve their relative position. Later, I shall mention the particular strengths of Dundee.
I have recently visited two universities in Scotland, Aberdeen and St. Andrew's, and I look forward to visiting as many more as I can. In that and other ways I have become aware of the many links between Scottish universities and industry. The growth of high technology industry is one of the signs of the changing structure of the Scottish economy. As elsewhere in the United Kingdom, some traditional industries such as shipbuilding and steel are declining in importance, largely due to worldwide changes in demand, but there are also exciting developments in, for example, high technology such as electronics and biotechnology, and in the service sector. I 1178 was particularly glad to note that the applied mathematics and biochemistry sectors in Dundee university were rated as outstanding nationally. I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman did not show more pride in that.
The Government recognise that some areas are particularly affected by the decline of traditional manufacturing industry, and our regional policy will continue to make an important contribution. Since May 1979 offers of regional selective assistance made in Scotland have totalled £368.7 million, the projects creating or safeguarding nearly 140,000 jobs. In 1984–85 alone, expenditure on regional development grant is estimated to have been £109 million.
The hon. Gentleman will be familiar, from his own knowledge of Dundee, with the scope of Government support. Apart from regional assistance, Dundee's development area status gives it access to European Community loans at favourable rates. Maximum support is available from Government and European Community sources for local initiatives such as the Tayside enterprise zone and the Dundee project. I understand that one of the zone sites is a technology park which provides Dundee with the opportunity to become a major centre for high technology industry. All of this is positive and encouraging.
As I began by saying, the Government are prepared to consider the provision of additional resources for the universities generally, from which the universities in Scotland can expect to benefit, but it is necessary to emphasise the continued need to restrain the growth in public expenditure in the interest of the economy as a whole. If we want universities in Scotland to continue to be as outstanding in international terms as they are, we have to continue to generate the wealth to pay for those universities.
Universities do not pay for themselves but are paid for out of the pockets of the taxpayers in the hon. Gentleman's constituency and the taxpayers in my constituency. We can fund our universities more generously only if we are a wealthier nation. Wealth is created not by the Government, but by individuals and firms throughout the country.
Under our economic policies the rate of inflation has now come down to 2.8 per cent. in the year to May 1986. In that connection I draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to the fact that a decade or so ago the inflation rate for our universities was about 30 per cent. Let us keep some sense of proportion by looking back at the sort of policies that the hon. Gentleman's party pursued. Those policies caused the rate of inflation for university costs to reach the astronomical and rather absurd figure of 30 per cent.
Wage inflation is now running at 7–5 per cent. By contrast, some of our major European competitors, and in particular West Germany, have succeeded in achieving negative inflation and falling wage costs per unit of output. I mention all this because it is important background information in this debate, as it would be in any debate on public expenditure.
The UGC's policies of selectivity and rationalisation are brave and courageous and are to be applauded, but I understand that they may have caused disappointment in some departments. I say some departments because I must not brand universities in any part of Britain by judging them by specific departmemts. The judgment of one's peers can often seem harsh. Some universities may have been trying to do too much on a limited base and it is 1179 important in such cases to build on the strengths that have been identified by the UGC. This is one such area, and I am convinced that in the longer term this whole new exercise of selectivity will be a major gain for the entire university system. In the long-term interests of the health of the system it can only be a plus to be reminded publicly of where one's strengths and weaknesses lie.
As is frequently the case with the Opposition, the hon. Gentleman fails to recognise that there is an essential interconnection between the economy as a whole and higher education. Frankly, I was mildly shocked, or I would have been had I not become so hardened to this even in so short a time, by the hon. Gentleman's reference to the recent labour rally at which higher education was discussed. He knows as well as I do of the rather embarrassing recent exchange between the Opposition spokesman on education and the spokesman on economic affairs. One pulled the rug from under the feet of the other as fast as the other was dishing out Mickey Mouse money to universities. 1180 It was wrong for the hon. Gentleman consistently to ignore in his speech the implications for the economy of the funding of universities, just as it was wrong for him to ignore the important statement made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East, the former Secretary of State for Education and Science. My right hon. Friend said clearly to the House only a few weeks ago that he was perfectly well aware of the strains that were developing in some universities, and that provided some understanding could be reached about efficiency, selectivity and improvement in teaching in those universities, the Government would give sympathetic consideration to the possibility of finding further funding for the universities in the United Kingdom. That also means in Scotland.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at half-past Twelve o'clock.