HC Deb 16 July 1987 vol 119 cc1382-90

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

10.27 pm
Mr. Malcolm Bruce (Gordon)

I am very glad to have the opportunity at last to debate the issue of the funding of universities. This matter has caused me considerable concern. It has also caused many hon. Members concern and was a major issue in the general election in Scotland. It probably cost one Conservative Member his seat and nearly cost a then Government Minister his seat also, a fact that he has acknowledged.

Dealing with the body responsible for the universities—the University Grants Committee—is rather like grappling with warm blancmange. Nevertheless, the more we get involved with the funding of universities the clearer it becomes that the funding provided by the Government for any real constructive future for the universities is woefully inadequate. The universities are not merely being pressurised to change direction in ways about which they are unconvinced—as the Government would have us believe; they are effectively being asked whether they want to cut off their hands or their feet. Whatever decision they take, they will be crippled.

Matters get worse. When the universities appeal to Minsters or when I appeal on their behalf—and I hope that tonight will be the exception that tests this rule—for clarification whether the Government are aware that decisions are leading to wholesale destruction of areas of value and achievement, devastation of morale and quite definite brain drain, the standard response is that these matters are delegated to the University Grants Committee to which it appears that there is no appeal.

There are some general matters of importance that I wish to raise before I turn to examples from the Scottish universities, for which I have most concern and which, in my view, seem to demonstrate the inadequacy and inconsistency of the present system of funding universities. First, I shall quote the Prime Minister, or, as she was at the time of the letter to a prospective constituent, the parliamentary candidate for Finchley. She wrote: One of the main tasks of the universities in London, as elsewhere, is to carry out research. It is therefore important to ensure that university staff do not bear too great a load of teaching. Recognising this, the Government have taken action to ensure that the contraction in the numbers of academics has been matched by a comparable contraction in student numbers. I suppose that that is clear and that we should be grateful for that, but that is not something that is appreciated widely outside the House. If it were, I think that it would be challenged.

I am concerned about the Government's determination to put a measurable price tag on everything. In the context of university education, that means that we are looking for the cheapest degrees rather than the best, even though British universities by any independent standard are already extremely cost effective. It means also that pure research will be sacrificed in favour of applied research by contract. The consequent underfunding of research will drive away the brightest and the best, not because they are badly paid but because they cannot get the support and the facilities that they need and that other countries are likely to offer them. That is already the experience. The overseas staff that we are getting in exchange, without denigrating the value that they contribute, are not of the same level of achievement or record.

There is widespread concern at the latest suggestion that universities should be divided into three tiers, with only the top 10 being designated as full-blown research centres. If the suggestion is implemented, it will be a devastating blow to many fine, well-established centres of learning and research. It will be bitterly resented in Scotland, which had four established universities when England had only two. I ask the Minister to tell us whether the proposal is supported by his Department. Or will he state clearly that, whatever changes may be made, Britain needs at leat approximatley its present number of universities, and that to be universities they must offer a mixture of research, undergraduate and postgraduate learning?

Will the Minister explain also why Government policy is to see the number of university students declining over the next few years and into the next decade instead of increasing as the lower birth rate offers the opportunity to a larger proportion of the population to secure access to a university education? When we read the glossy publication that masquerades as a White Paper, it is difficult to get at the facts. There are many pretty charts, but the figures that are needed to make a fair analysis are not spelt out clearly. Perhaps that is because the Government are not proud of them.

The system of finance that is applied by the UGC is having an effect in the sense that it is diverting energy, effort, time and academic brain power to the drafting and redrafting of academic plans, which most of those involved know savage the best of our university system and lead to the worst kind of academic infighting. Hon. Members who have been involved in university politics know that they are capable of reaching depths that we only play at in this institution. The worry is that that diverts the attention of the dons, the students and the public from the fundamental philistinism of the Government's attack on university education, which is substantially going by default.

I do not think that anyone denies that universities need to change, and nor is it denied that outside bodies need to apply pressure to bring about that change. I have been critical of my local university of Aberdeen for its failure to respond in a sufficiently ambitious way to the oil industry.

However, the proposal to replace the inadequate UGC, which has been dominated too much by academics, with a new body that will be dominated by business men leaves many open but important questions. The fundamental point to which the Minister should address himself is that universities have to be more than short-term responders to commercial pressures. Scottish universities are suffering much more from the system of funding and from a committee that does not seem to understand the Scottish tradition and system and the pivotal role that education and the universities play in the life of Scotland.

Examples from my experience reinforce the arguments that I have been making. I do not normally quote my direct connections, but in this case they are relevant and may even amount to a declaration of interest. I am a graduate of both St. Andrew's university and Strathclyde university. I am the elected rector of the University of Dundee, and co-chairman of the university defence committee for Aberdeen, along with three parliamentary colleagues representing the National, Conservative and Labour parties.

Dundee is a small university which gained its independence from St. Andrew's just 20 years ago. It has fought hard and successfully to build up a reputation and attract students. It has done well and gained a well-earned reputation. I spoke to the university finance officer today. With the threatened removal of the safety net, the university faces nothing less than insolvency in about two to three years time. To avoid that, it would have to make devastating cuts, which would restrict its ability to attract students and leave it open to further cuts.

Already, the proposal to move the modern languages department to St. Andrew's—it was to be Exeter, so that is an improvement—has caused an understandable outcry. How can a university which can justifiably say that it is responding positively to the UGC's constraints, in expanding its already successful business department, do that in a modern European Community when it does not have the facility to teach modern languages such as German and French? It is an absurd situation. I know that the response is that there will be some residual teaching outside the modern languages department, but the university will lose the staff that built up that reputation for teaching French and German. That will be damaging to the future of the university.

The Minister will not be surprised to hear me come closer to home. The situation in Aberdeen is becoming a cause célèbre. The Minister may say that he is not here to reply on behalf of a specific university, but what I shall say about Aberdeen is a criticism of the whole system of funding universities. I have had first-hand and detailed experience of this, and I do not like what I see.

What is happening at Aberdeen is an abuse of the system. As many people will know, the principal of the university, Professor George McNicol, produced what he described as a radical plan to end the four-year honours degree course in favour of what I would describe as a crammer approach for a 40-week year, three-year course. Many of us would agree that such an approach may benefit some students in some subjects, but it will undoubtedly damage and undermine others, many of whom would not be able to take that intensity of study. They would not get the full benefit of the new course, which would change the character of the honours degree course and have implications for schools.

The Government have asked universities and others to listen and respond to the market. Market research in this case has shown that, far from attracting more students to the University, the new course would put off many who would seek to go elsewhere where they could get a more traditional degree. The chairman of the UGC, Sir Peter Swinnerton-Dyer, said early on that he would fund the plan, in spite of the subsequent representations. The principal, having seen his plan pasted by almost everyone within the university, described it as being "in intensive care" and said that he would not the one to resuscitate it. But Sir Peter, in collusion with the principal, is trying to be the one who does. It is no less than a conspiracy, because every alternative plan that has been put forward is being rejected out of hand without any consideration—by return of post so far—by the chairman of the UGC. It is clear that he is trying to put pressure on the university to accept something which the university has discussed in detail and has decided is very damaging to its interests. It is a devastatingly destructive plan, and the university is right to resist it.

It goes further than that, because the collusion has been watched closely by other Scottish universities, which know perfectly well that this is not just an argument over one academic plan. It is a matter of picking one university and leaning on it so heavily that it will capitulate. If that happens, the dam will have been breached for the crammer degree to have been imposed on the other seven Scottish universities. It will not be acceptable for the Minister to say tonight that this is a matter entirely for the UGC. I think that it is a matter of deep concern and a matter for all those concerned with Scottish universities. I have no doubt that similar practices are being applied in different directions to English universities, but of that I have no direct experience.

There is little understanding of the Scottish system or the Scottish tradition or the implications of such changes. There is a total refusal to recognise Aberdeen"s role, which I remind the Minister has been carried out for 500 years, as the university for the north of Scotland—an area covering about one fifth of Britain. They fail to recognise that students have come to expect a fair range of subject choices within their regional university. They know that they cannot get everything; they know that there should be change; but they do not believe that if we lose research and too many of the options, the university will offer enough attractions to continue as the regional university. Worse, it will be even harder for the university to attract students from further south. It is, after all, the northernmost university in Britain. All of these matters could seriously undermine its viability in the future. The system of university finance is not changing our universities; it is potentially destroying them.

Can the Minister give me an assurance that Aberdeen university will celebrate its quincentennial in seven years' time as a full-status university carrying out research and offering postgraduate and undergraduate courses fully comparable to the best available anywhere in Scotland? If he cannot or will not do that, my case is made; and I do not believe that saying that it is a matter for the UGC is good enough. When every other country is expanding its universities, the vandals in his Department are trying to contract and destroy our universities. That is unacceptable.

I conclude by quoting from a partisan article that forcefully expresses my point written by Michael Dummett in The Tablet. The point that he makes summarises what many people feel about what is being done. If the Minister does not believe that that is the case, or believes that it is unfair, his Department must do a great deal to change people's view. He says: The three relevant Thatcherite dogmas are: people do things only in response to financial incentives; human beings are commodities like other commodities; what matters is not quality but cost-effectiveness. Crammer degrees are not what the Scottish system wants, and cut-price degrees are no substitute for the best degrees available. The course that the UGC is adopting is taking us downhill in every sense of the word. Change is welcome; destruction is not acceptable.

10.47 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Robert Jackson)

I congratulate the hon. Member for Gordon (Mr. Bruce) on his luck in the draw, and on the cogency and commitment with which he put his case. I also pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine and Deeside (Mr. Buchanan-Smith), who is unable to be here tonight but who telephoned me today to discuss the important issues that are the subject of this debate.

I begin with a few remarks on the broad theme of the hon. Gentleman's debate, which concerns the general question of the funding of universities. In the light of the hon. Gentleman's remarks—and his quotation from my good friend, Professor Michael Dummett—about Philistinism, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be pleased to hear that one of the books that I have re-read in preparation for my present job is Matthew Arnold's "Culture and Anarchy". Arnold would have seen the question raised by the hon. Gentleman as a mere matter of machinery. But in this he would have been wrong. Indeed, it is striking that Arnold failed altogether to understand the bearing of machinery on values. But in my first speech from the Dispatch Box on educational matters I should like to make a profession of Arnoldian faith; I hope that no one standing in this place will ever lose sight of the wider and higher purposes which all the machinery and all the apparatus of the universities are intended, if not designed, to serve.

Before I plunge straight into these questions of machinery I shall recite a few facts—that should never be lost to sight in the welter of polemic and special-pleading that tends to surround these matters.

Between 1979 and 1985 the number of students in higher education increased by 160,000. The share of the 18 to 21 age group that graduates in Britain is one of the highest in the Western world and the highest in the European Community. And in answer to a direct question from the hon. Member for Gordon let me remind him of the Government's clear commitment to a further increase of 50,000 in the numbers of them in higher education by 1990. University funding has increased by more than 10 per cent. in 1987–88. The very substantial increases in public expenditure that were announced last November were accompanied by letters from the UGC and the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals outlining a forward-looking and ambitious programme of action for maintaining and improving academic standards and strengthening management. The first fruits of that programme are beginning to appear. By this autumn we shall have, for example, comparative information about university costs in the form of a range of performance indicators. The universities are to be congratulated on the progress that they have already made in this and other areas. As they know, the additional funds that we have undertaken to provide will remain conditional upon continued progress.

Mr. Alex Salmond (Banff and Buchan)

Is the Minister aware that in the three years 1986–87 to 1989–90 there has been a 10.6 per cent. increase in terms of the average to English universities from UGC distribution grant? However, in terms of the average to Scottish universities there has been an increase of 6.1 per cent. Surely those figures support the argument of the hon. Member for Gordon (Mr. Bruce) that the UGC simply does not understand the Scottish university system.

Mr. Jackson

The hon. Gentleman is being impatient. Later in my speech I shall be dealing with the question of the allocation of resources between universities, especially with regard to the Scottish universities.

I should like to highlight two points relating to the broad theme of this debate. First, management. It is now over two years since the Jarratt committee reported. It concluded that throughout the university system there was scope for improvements in management to ensure that full value could be obtained from the large sums of public money that are expended. It also reommended that there was scope for improvements to make the university system more flexible and responsive; above all, I would say, to realise more effectively the ideas and values for which it stands. The Jarratt committee made important recommendations about the need for management structures that would clearly define the levels of decision making and responsibility. There is encouraging evidence that many universities have taken the Jarratt recommendations to heart and introduced important and far-reaching reforms. I look forward to receiving shortly the UGC's report and commentary on what has been achieved.

Secondly, there is the matter of teaching quality. I recognise that judgments in that area are both controversial and technically complex. However, we cannot get away from the central importance of the quality of teaching for the success of higher education. Our universities must hold fast, some would say recover, their teaching vocation. As Newman reminds us, that vocation is at the heart of the idea of a university. The committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals has undertaken to produce two pieces of work—a report on university practices in maintaining and monitoring academic standards, and guidelines on the appraisal of the performance of academic and academically-related staff. Those reports will be of key importance.

I have made it clear that, over the past year, the Government have shown their commitment to make increased resources available to the universities. I have also emphasised the areas in which we are looking for progress. Let me now consider the distribution of resources between individual universities.

It is, of course, central to our philosophy of academic self-government that this is a matter in which Government should not be too directly involved—hence, the importance of the UGC. In 1986–87 the UGC introduced new machinery for resource allocation. This has two distinctive features. It distributes the teaching component of grant on the basis of a standard cost per student per subject; and it introduces into the allocation of that part of the grant attributable to research a new element of explicit selectivity, based on universities' success in attracting outside income for research and on judgments about quality. The Government welcome the UGC's new approach. It has a somewhat egalitarian cast, but it is more rational and objective, and it rewards success—which is how it should be in these matters.

The Government believe that in particular the UGC was right to introduce measures to provide more support for high-quality research. Much academic discourse turns on the judgment of quality. I cannot see why it should ever have been thought that such an approach was inappropriate. Public funding for research is not a matter of entitlement; it has to be merited.

Of course, there is debate about particular ratings—it would be surprising if that were not so. But the UGC has begun well and it is, of course, clear that no rating is cast in stone for all time. There will be continuing review, which will have to take account of shifts in the quality of research performance, both improvement and, dare I say, deterioration.

Selectivity in research will inevitably and rightly lead to increased concentration on areas of strength. It means giving extra support to high-quality work and taking a hard look at what is below par. In institutions with a vocation for excellence none of this should be controversial. The UGC is encouraging the rationalisation of small departments. Its grounds for doing so are maximum academic effectiveness as well as the best use of resources. It has the Government's full support. Aspirations to universality, perhaps never very realistic, may have to be abated. But, without becoming too narrowly focused, universities which concentrate on building on their strengths will be healthier in the long run.

The position in Scotland is the special concern of the hon. Member for Gordon and my right hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine and Deeside. I do not think that I need say that the UGC's funding formula is blind to geography. Standard criteria are applied to all universities on a national basis. At the same time, the special and valued characteristics of university provision in Scotland have not gone unrecognised. The UGC's grants fully reflect the fact that most honours degree courses in Scotland last for four years. Consequently, the universities north of the border receive roughly 30 per cent. more funding per honours graduate than do their English and Welsh counterparts. Meanwhile, however, the impact of the UGC's new and more rational approach to funding inevitably differs in individual cases, depending on the institution's previous level of funding and on the quality of its research efforts. On that basis, in 1987–88 three of the eight Scottish universities received above average increase of basic recurrent grant.

The hon. Member for Gordon referred specifically to Aberdeen university. Its initial allocation of basic recurrent grant in 1987–88 was no more than 0.7 per cent. higher than the comparable figure for the previous year. That was a consequence of the application in this case of the UGC's general policy of supporting research strength and external research income. At Aberdeen, these were both some way below the national average. That is not to say that there is no high-quality research at Aberdeen. On the contrary, the UGC assessed research in three subject areas of that university as being of above average quality in United Kingdom terms, and geography and French were considered to be outstanding by international standards. But those judgments, I am afraid, were counterbalanced by below average ratings in 10 other subject groupings.

The university is in discussion with the UGC about the careful planning which is needed for a transition to a new funding level, and I must obviously not comment on the delicate negotiations which are going on. I wish merely to stress that there is no question of any discrimination against Aberdeen or of any conspiracy—such as the hon. Member for Gordon has fancifully alleged—and that, with regard to the future of the four-year degree course, the UGC has deliberately stated that it has no view either way upon the academic aspects of this matter.

Returning to the future of the university funding system, the Government have announced their intention to legislate to reform the UGC along the lines recommended by the Croham committee. This will give a firm legal foundation for the universities' funding and it will clarify responsibilities for the large sums of public money that they receive. The new university funding council will be smaller than the present UGC and will have a stronger non-academic element. I noted what the hon. Member for Gordon had to say about that.

With regard to the general position of Scotland within the new arrangements, the Government consider that the university system should be planned on a United Kingdom-wide basis, and I believe that that is the view of most Scottish academics.

Mr. Salmond

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Jackson

I am coming to the end of my time.

We accept that there is a need to improve the planning of higher education in Scotland generally. The intended Scottish committee of the Universities Funding Council will provide an appropriate means of achieving that. Precisely how that committee operates will be a matter for the new council. The Government see their primary task as being that of advising the UFC on the needs of the Scottish universities in relation to their particular circumstances—including, I would expect, their special history, their special ethos, to which the hon. Gentleman referred and, of course, their geographical distribution.

To conclude, I do not think that it is necessary to stress that the Government attach great importance to our universities. They are institutions that embody and transmit values that are central to our civilisation, and they are critical centres for the development and creation of new values. In addition, they continue to make a vital contribution to the nation's economic development. The thrust of all our policies can be simply summed up; it is to strengthen the ability of Britain's universities to fulfil their historic vocations with increasing rigour, drive arid effectiveness.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at four minutes to Eleven o'clock.