HC Deb 28 October 1986 vol 103 cc158-9
9. Mr. Dalyell

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science, pursuant to the answer of 8 July, Official Report, column 161, what information he has about the effects on each university of the means used to determine the resources allocated to teaching and research purposes, respectively.

Mr. Walden

The universities most affected by the introduction of the UGC's new resource allocation arrangements were notified by the committee of the main factors leading to an increase or a reduction in their grant relative to the average. Copies of these letters are in the Library.

Mr. Dalyell

What prompted Sir David Hancock and Mr. F. E. R. Butler, the second secretary to the Treasury, to ask their own accounting advisers to make a report on the future of the universities? Why was that necessary?

Mr. Walden

The hon. Gentleman must realise that the position of universities is constantly kept under review.

Mr. Forsyth

I welcome my hon. Friend's recent statement about the future of Stirling university being secure. Nevertheless, will he accept that the formula method of funding used by the UGC is prejudicial to small universities such as Stirling and St. Andrew's, which have always had high standards of quality and excellence?

Mr. Walden

I would not question for a moment the standards of excellence of Scottish universities, and I naturally regret the perturbations through which the universities are going but it must be remembered that a number of small universities are perhaps trying to do rather too much in too many departments, and so difficult changes have to be made.

Dr. Bray

Is it not pathetic for the Government to have reduced the Royal Society and the Advisory Board for the Research Councils to painstakingly tracing the decline in British basic research? Are the Government aware that by their intransigent attitude to the claims made for science in the universities and research councils they are destroying the industrial future of the country?

Mr. Walden

The Government place enormous importance on basic research. I wish that the hon. Gentleman would remember that in the longer term the ability of this country to carry out the fundamental research to which both he and I attach importance will be conditioned largely by its prosperity as a nation.