HL Deb 25 July 1967 vol 285 cc843-75

10.8 p.m.

LORD MITCHISON rose, to ask Her Majesty's Government what ceilings have been fixed for expenditure by universities on furniture and equipment, including scientific equipment, in the financial years 1966–67 and 1967–68 and subsequently; whether the limitation has led to supplementary applications and, if so, to what total amount; whether the universities, particularly the newer universities and Imperial College are more than usually dissatisfied with the limitation, having regard to previous Government intentions and to their own commitments by way of building, the purchase of equipment and the recruitment of scientific personnel; and whether the Government will reconsider the limitation as regards the present financial year and the future.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, it is late, as I expected it to be. I had to take my chance on that, because I think it right to raise this matter before the Summer break, in the hope that it may not be necessary to revert to it later in the year. I should like to thank all those noble Lords, far more distinguished and more knowledgeable about this kind of thing than myself, who have stayed here this evening. What I have to say comes from two recent letters in the Press to which I shall refer, and from published papers, particularly recent Civil Estimates.

The grants with which the Question is concerned (and I suppose I should formally ask the Question on the Order Paper) are capital grants to provide furniture and equipment for new university buildings or existing buildings adapted to new use. Until recently they were granted, case by case, on applications made by the university concerned, and vetted by the University Grants Committee, with or without assessors. Early in 1965 there began a review of the system conducted by a Joint Treasury Departmental and University Grants Committee. Quite recently, in or about May of this year, a decision was reached and communicated to the universities imposing an overall limit on each univer- sity,in the first place from April, 1967, to August, 1968, and subsequently, I think for the quinquennial periods. I am not concerned with the theoretical merits of this change, but I am concerned with its reception and effect.

Before I come to them, however, a few background facts and figures may be useful. The need for this furniture and equipment arises on the completion of new or existing university buildings which have attracted building grants over the years on construction. These grants are controlled, not by their actual amount but by reference to the total value of the new work to be started, however long it may take. Roughly, therefore, the building programmes represent ultimate intention, and the grants represent progress towards fulfilment.

These building programmes were stated, on January 31 this year, to be £35.1 million in the current year, and £29 million in each of the two years 1968–69 and 1969–70. Those figures represent a slight increase on previous intentions. There has also been a slight increase in the total of furniture and equipment grants, those with which we are concerned to-day. In the 1966–67 Estimates these were estimated at £19 million, but in the 1967–68 Votes they appear for 1966–67 as £21½ million, with £25½ million as the estimated total for the current year, 1967–68. I note, however, that the total of grants estimated for 1967–68, both building and furniture equipment grants, represents not an increase but a decrease on those made for 1966–67. The increase of £4 million in furniture and equipment grants is more than counterbalanced by decreases of about £5 million in building grants and £1½ million in professional fees, presumably in connection with building. I conclude from these figures that the furniture and equipment grants have had to be increased because they were insufficient, but that the increase has been met by decreases in building grants. These represent a slowing up, for the building totals do not show corresponding increases. In the circumstances, I am not too ready to be impressed if the Government say that they cannot afford any further increase in furniture and equipment grants.

Let us see what has happened about the effect and the reception of the changes I have indicated. One finds in the Estimates that the new building in progress, as might be expected, consists of science laboratories and halls of residence for undergraduates. While it is difficult for an outsider to draw detailed conclusions, one would expect two groups, at least, to have special need for furniture and equipment grants. One group is the newer universities, which we are committed to get into operation; another is the special case of Imperial College, which it is intended to develop on what I might call Massachusetts Institute of Technology lines, and which, in addition to other works, has a special building programme of its own amounting to £17½ million.

Let us begin with the newer universities. On July 9 this year the education reporter of the Observer appears to have made a round of the newer universities, and I quote some, but not all, of his conclusions. The heading is: University crisis over paying for equipment". He says: The new universities are particularly hard hit. Sussex has no money to equip buildings where third-year biology students are due to be taught. Lancaster, East Anglia and York are said to be in similar straits. At Liverpool"— perhaps hardly a new university, and I see the Chancellor here— there is a new Nuffield building for medical genetics, but no money with which to equip it. As one Sussex professor put it: 'Everywhere new buildings and programmes have been stopped because the money promised has been cut off and the money which has been given takes no account of new requirements or existing commitments'. For third-year biology students alone, Sussex is £40,000 short. 'We will obviously have to try to teach them somehow,' said the professor, 'but standards will just have to be dropped and they will not get what they came to Sussex for. Instead of giving a fine, up-to-date degree course in biology, we shall virtually have to stick to looking at flies in bottles'. I should think the grants will cover the bottles. Mr. David Allen, Bursar of the University of York, said: 'We are being hit very hard indeed'. As a new university, York has new buildings coming into use all the time. The scientists, said Mr. Allen, will be £100,000 short in the money they need for equipment.

So the story goes on, and they then refer to the difficulty of the rather complicated change I mentioned about the grants system. They say: So a ceiling had to be fixed:"— I think they have the figures wrong at this point— for 1967–68 it was £22½ million"— I think the right figure is £25½ million— £1 million more than for 1966–67. As I have already explained, the apparent increase was more than met by the slowing up of the building programme itself. No doubt the furniture and equipment grants were seen to be insufficient. But I turn from the newer universities to the special case of Imperial College.

The Times used to be called "The Thunderer", and on July 17 there appeared a special peal of thunder, signed by six distinguished scientists and one distinguished engineer. The first name on the list was that of Dr. Hinshelwood, who is an ex-President of the Royal Society, a Nobel Laureate, the holder of the Order of Merit, and one of the most distinguished scientists in the country. The other five were, in their way, just as distinguished, and one cannot really neglect the views expressed by gentlemen of this learning and distinction in the field to which they have, after all, committed their lives.

Having said that, I must admit at once that the letter reads to me like a letter of someone who is exceedingly angry. It was headed, "Promises that are not kept". I do not know who was responsible for the heading, but the letter begins as follows: The recent decision to limit university expenditure on equipment grants during the financial year from April 1, 1967, only reached universities during May, when orders had already been placed against grants previously awarded. Moreover, this retrospective instruction to limit expenditure applies both to items ordered since April 1, and to those on long delivery covered by orders placed well before April 1, and for which delivery—and therefore payment—is due during the year in question. Many universities find themselves in the alarming position of having commitments far exceeding the severe limitations now imposed on them; even more restrictive is the case of those who have new buildings now becoming available and no chance of equipping them. As financial plans revolve, one promise after another made by the Government is not kept.

It is the next sentence that made me feel that somebody was in a temper: Numerous unfilled commitments are covered up by the lure of fresh targets, with little apparent discomfort to our vote-triggered government administration. It has a peculiar lucidity of its own. I know what the man means. The letter continues: But, Sir, the long term damage is rather more serious when firm arrangements to pay are not met. Public attention must be drawn to at least one instance.

My Lords, I think the one instance relates to Imperial College itself, and perhaps at this hour of the night I need not go into it in any detail. The general point is clear enough. Later on the letter says: Appropriate new appointments have been decided and in many cases have been made. And now, by what seems an extraordinary decision, financial outlays fully agreed on both sides are annulled retrospectively. This letter is signed by seven very distinguished people. I daresay we shall be told they are all wrong, but I think we should like a little further explanation and possibly a little reconsideration. The letter then says: In scientific research time does not stand still. … The consequences of scrapping fully pledged capital and human commitments of this kind can be far more disastrous than cuts in current expenditure. Experienced scientists may withstand the lure of the brain-drain when only their own relative affluence is at stake. But they cannot as readily accept rigidity and ineptitude in dealing with financial provisions for creative research. In Britain, the smog of administrative disincentives for science and technology is spreading. Seen in perspective, the relevant claims on current public expenditure are quite moderate. My Lords, the universities do not want nearly as much as the generals do. We feel that uninspired and narrowly framed appraisals of this kind of outlay are beginning to team up with administrative disrespect for the old-fashioned virtue of honouring firm pledges. Truly the damage can be severe and lasting.

My Lords, that is very strongly put indeed. I do not know whether, if I knew the facts more thoroughly than I do, I should support it all. But I do ask your Lordships to bear in mind this is not a letter of a single person; not a letter of an irresponsible person. This is a letter by seven extremely distinguished scientists, and, however it is expressed, it sounds to me as if there were something, in fact a great deal, in it. It was when I read that letter that I said to myself "We must get the answer to this, if we can, before the summer break" and that is why I am rising to put my Question so late this evening.

I turn back for a minute—and I have nearly finished. That letter is headed "Promises that are not kept". I do not know how far that particular comment may be justified, but I should like your Lordships to remember that my Part, at any rate, are fully committed to the importance of science and to the consequent support that it ought to be given. On October 1, 1963, before the Election which returned a Labour Administration (the one before this), the present Prime Minister proposed a statement of policy called Labour and the Scientific Revolution, and in doing so he said—and he was referring to Lord Taylor's Working Party: They propose and we accept a tremendous building programme of new universities. He said that one cause of the brain-drain was the failure to provide adequate research facilities and equipment, and added: Britain is not so rich in facilities for training scientists and technologists that we can let this brain drain continue.

I am not here to argue about the brain-drain tonight. I simply say that I heard that speech. I am perfectly certain it was absolutely sincere, and I see no reason why this particular comparatively small matter should be allowed to be a hindrance in the way of the ideal that was thus expressed, and in the Policy Statement that was then presented to remedy this situation. Let noble Lords opposite get above themselves. The situation was described as Tory stop-go attitudes to university grants". We must make certain that the "Stop-Go" is not catching. The Policy Statement said: to help the brain-drain the first and overriding need is for a major expansion in our universities. They are there, starting now; some of them, indeed, started. The pamphlet continues: The Government must make firm decisions at least to double the number of university places in the decade 1965–75: to create, that is, an additional 150,000 places as a minimum programme … and to provide simultaneously the new senior appointments, post-graduate facilities, equipment and building necessary to maintain the quality of scientific research.

Those were good words. They were perfectly sincere, I believe, just as the Prime Minister's speech was. But the moment has now come to consider whether this particular matter that I am raising in my Question is not impeding the progress that was expected.

What is one to say to a man whom one tries to bring back from America to teach in a new university, or to do research work there, and who is told that there are some fine buildings but no chairs and no test tubes; or to someone who, after all, is asked to undertake research work for the universities and is drawn perhaps from some other sphere? We want all the scientists in this country we can get, provided that they are committed men, intent to search for that improvement in natural knowledge to which I think the Royal Society commits its Fellows. These are fine men. They are, I believe, the greatest hope of this country. We heard tonight about the need for international connections. They are certainly needed. This is a widespread field of scientific research, an international field. Are we to slip behind in the race?—we, a country whose achievements in pure science and applied science have ennobled the name of Britain. Are we now, for lack of equipment and furniture, to slip behind? It is ludicrous, I think.

I do not for a moment suggest that there is nothing to be said on the other side about this problem. I am sure that mistakes have been committed. There was the question at one stage of putting in too many applications. There are things of that sort. It will be said that, "The Government have not done so badly". But on a matter of this kind surely the opinion of those who have got to do the job is well worth hearing.

I beg the Government not to dig their toes in over this; to look again to find out what really has happened, and to consider whether the claim I am making tonight is not one that ought to have a high, I would say a final, priority. At this time of the year everyone asks for money—it always happens. But the pursuit of truth, the struggle of a man against the perils and the difficulties of his environment, is surely a noble thing, something which was recognised by my Party, by the noble element in it, in the pamphlet that I read out. I trust that we are not going to hear that the matter has been fully considered by the Department, that it has been considered finally, that we have not got the whole story, and that there is no more to be done.

10.30 p.m.

THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH

My Lords, we on this side of the House are most grateful to the noble Lord for having put down this Question. His tremendously moving sincerity on this matter, and indeed I would say his courage, must command our respect from every part of the House, and it makes one feel that this must not be a debate on Party political lines. I liked what he said about the pursuit of truth, for I also have been trying to get at the truth; and if I am just a shade Party political at the end I hope that the noble Lord will forgive me.

Undoubtedly the predicament of certain engineering and science departments in our universities is serious at this time. The situation in one department of engineering of which I have knowledge (I will not mention any specific universities in my remarks, and I am not even going to refer to that remarkable letter in The Times, but some of the things I am going to say arise out of it) appears to be fairly typical of certain universities whose engineering departments have been rebuilt or extended, and also of the new universities to which the noble Lord referred, where equipment is now being ordered against grants already approved. To meet the growing demands of science and technology, many fine new buildings have been completed; but the carefully planned supply of equipment to use in these buildings has now been cut off, leaving them partly empty.

Relevant capital budgets were scrutinised and fully agreed with the University Grants Committee many months ago. But now these departments have been stopped in mid-stream from obtaining these carefully planned and often unique new facilities. In the case of one department, I understand, they have had to stop equipping new laboratories at the stage when less than three-sevenths of the fully agreed totals have been obtained or supplied; and, worse still, where orders for complicated apparatus for which delivery is slow were placed many months ago, the result of the unforeseen axeing of the agreed budgets has resulted in capital accounts being heavily overdrawn, through no fault of the departments concerned.

I am told that certain departments in several universities have been equally badly hit; that one new university has stated that it has no chairs or desks for the students who will be coming up for the first time in October, and that in another they are at present short of beds. All universities have, I believe, been caught in one way or another, but the new universities (and the noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme, will perhaps confirm this) may be worst hit because they have the major outstanding equipment grants. I gather that the University Grants Committee argue that the demands made on universities this year are much higher than their rate of spending last year, and that the ceilings provided are reasonable for normal purposes. But the implication that universities are having an unreasonable spending spree, and that there can be no hardship in slowing down the rate of acquisition of equipment, should, I think, be challenged.

There are many reasons why there should be a big demand this year. It has taken time for research and teaching programmes to build up, because of the preoccupation with rebuilding and increasing undergraduate numbers. In the case of another department, I know that it is only in the last two or three years that they have had time for the staff to get down to designing test rigs and apparatus for the more sophisticated teaching and research purposes, and all these have hit the order books at about the same time. I believe there is plenty of evidence that this is true in other places, too.

The argument that equipment allocations have been improved to correspond to the completion of building during the past session does not seem to me to be reasonable. This is far too short a time scale; and the more sophisticated and expensive items require the longest gestation and delivery time. There is no question of the universities' demanding more money from public funds than has already been authorised. All requests were carefully scrutinised by outside experts. To quote two examples at another university, a programme fatigue testing machine—a complicated piece of machinery—specified four years ago has only now become available; and a special supersonic wind tunnel is only now being constructed, after several years of waiting. Both of these items come up for payment during the period in question. And I believe that there are a number of other examples.

If the original equipment grants were considered reasonable in order to equip the buildings authorised, surely the individual requests could have been added together and a commitment of that order recognised. I am told, too, that no warnings were given that the moneys should be expended by a certain date, and that it may now be the provident and the frugal, who deliberately aimed at getting the greatest value for money, who will be penalised. As your Lordships know, certain universities were invited to increase their undergraduate intake to meet the post-war bulge in the birthrate, and special grants were made for equipment. It is only during this coming session that the greater numbers reach the final year of the undergraduate course, and apparatus is still coming in and has to be paid for.

I do not think the universities are criticising the new scheme of equipment grants. I believe that this will work well. Their concern is with the retrospective decision to limit the rate of spending to grants already made. The worst aspect is that after July next year unspent balances are to be wiped out, without any indication as yet of the magnitude of the new recurrent grants for equipment. It must be very difficult, if not impossible, to plan ahead on this basis. I shall not trouble your Lordships with further specific examples but I know that in one case a Chair which was recently filled, after more than two years searching for the right man, will now be affected. It took a long time to find this highly qualified man, and it was part of the inducement to him to join that the necessary funds were available. It does not look as though it will now be possible at any foreseeable date to honour the offer to him.

I recognise that the old system of linking equipment grants to new buildings may have been inequitable and tended, perhaps, to make the rich richer; and I think it right that as from August next year equipment grants will be linked not to buildings but to student numbers. But this does not resolve the present predicament of certain departments. Clearly, with the new system coming in some departments may have tended this year to draw more money than they might otherwise have done, and this may be one of the reasons for their present quandary. But I gather that in the future in aggregate—and I am glad to hear this and to have had this assurance, although, as I say, it does not altogether meet the difficulties which I have mentioned—amounts granted will not be less than those granted in the past. I hope that the noble Baroness, when she replies, may be able to confirm this.

I think we all recognise, including the U.G.C., that it is the new universities and the ex-CATS, as we call them, that are most feeling the pinch. Some of the old universities have buffer reserves which may tide them over this difficult period, but the new universities have not. Nor, I think, have some of the old. I hope that the U.G.C. will look at these hard cases as sympathetically as possible, but the U.G.C. cannot themselves promise supplementary grants: that is the responsibility of the Department of Education and Science, and of the Treasury. Indeed, in all that has happened I am not blaming the U.G.C. so much as the Government and the Treasury, who have presumably insisted on these cuts. It is no use crying "Wolf!" (or, rather, "Wolfenden!") in this matter. I believe that Sir John Wolfenden has tried to tackle the problem as best he can. Nevertheless, the present muddle is an unhappy one, and I am afraid that it stems, as in the case of defence, as your Lordships heard earlier this evening, from the total failure of the Government to manage the economy. While I am certainly not blaming the noble Baroness who is to reply for what has happened—I have a great respect and, if I may say so, affection for her—the responsibility lies fairly and squarely on the Government, and I hope that the noble Baroness will accept that. As the Guardian said recently—and this rather confirms one of the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison: The Government is bound to be warned from all quarters of the scientific establishment which the Prime Minister wooed so assiduously before he came to power"— and, I might add, since he took office— that by making these cuts the brain-drain from Britain may well increase.

10.43 p.m.

LORD ANNAN

My Lords, may I entreat the noble Baroness not to listen to any of the blandishments which have just been offered to her by the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough? This is not, at the moment, a case in which the universities are in dispute with the Government. It is a case in which the universities are in dispute with the University Grants Committee. The Secretary of State cannot possibly go against the advice of the University Grants Committee when it informs him that this present crisis has arisen because the universities have got themselves into a financial jam.

THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH

My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord one question? Surely he will agree that the overall cuts were the responsibility of the Government, and that the U.G.C. was told that certain cuts would have to be made.

LORD ANNAN

Perhaps the noble Earl will forgive me if I come to that a, little later in my speech.

THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH

Of course. I beg the noble Lord's pardon.

LORD ANNAN

My Lords, all I think the Secretary of State can do at the moment is to wait until the universities make out a satisfactory case, as I believe they can, to show that the University Grants Committee is in error in some of its calculations.

Perhaps I may begin by saying that this is an extremely complicated issue. Last December the University Grants Committee informed the universities that a new system of allocating grants for furniture and scientific equipment would come into force at the end of 1968. At this late hour I shall not go into that new system. All I shall say is that it is really perfectly agreeable to the universities provided that, in the end, the right price tags are put on the articles.

But it is not the new scheme which is under debate at all. What is under debate is the interim scheme which is tiding over the position until the new scheme comes into force. The U.G.C. told universities that they would be making a final payment under the old scheme this year, but they warned them that the cash ration which they handed out would have to cover not only scientific equipment but furniture as well. And then the bomb dropped. The cash ration which the University Grants Committee handed out bore no relation whatsoever to the expectations of the universities. In global terms, the University Grants Committee expected to meet drawings of £22.5 million. The universities had expected to make drawings of over £41 million.

What is the cause of this extraordinary discrepancy? The U.G.C. maintain, so I understand, that it has been caused by the universities making, as it were, a "run on the pound". Equipment grants were naturally increasing annually, but the increase was in the nature of £4 million to £5 million a year. This year, the U.G.C. expected the increase to be in the order of about £5 million. The universities expected an increase of £20 million. Surely, said the U.G.C., there is something "fishy" here. None of their calculations, which were based (and here, of course, I do not speak from any knowledge) I should have guessed, on theoretical calculations based on the phasing of spending, could possibly justify such a staggering increase.

The U.G.C. therefore deduced—and, I imagine, advised the Secretary of State—that the universities were wilfully anticipating the new scheme for equipment grants. They had been buying forward, hoping to get under the net before the new scheme got under way in the autumn of 1968. So if the universities had got themselves into a mess it was only their own fault.

This is not how the universities see the matter at all. The universities are convinced that the U.G.C. has miscalculated the number of new buildings coming into use this autumn; that they have made theoretical calculations and have not had before them the concrete figures of the cost of equipping and furnishing the new buildings one by one. I do not want to deny or confirm that there has been some forward buying of scientific equipment. We have simply not got any evidence on this point—although the Vice-Chancellors are now trying to provide some—but forward buying in itself could not possibly account for this huge discrepancy. The universities maintain that the U.G.C. has miscalculated the number of buildings coming into use this autumn, buildings which have to be equipped and furnished. The Vice-Chancellors are therefore going to go back over the figures since 1958 in order to show how the annual spending on furniture and scientific equipment relates to buildings coming into use.

The Vice-Chancellors intend to draw distinction between buildings for scientific use and other types of buildings, especially those for student residence because some of us believe that the U.G.C.'s calculations are based on a pattern of spending which may be appropriate to the equipping of laboratories but is not appropriate to the furnishing of residential accommodation. Moreover, if I may put one of my own suspicions forward, I am suspicious that the U.G.C. have related their figures to building starts rather than to building finishes. I believe they may also have overlooked the need to provide all the furniture at once when a residential building is handed over. Whereas the provision of scientific equipment can be phased over a period of months, when a new scientific building comes into effect the residential building needs all the furniture at once. It is no good having a table and no chairs or a wash-stand and no bed.

Furthermore, I wonder whether the U.G.C. may not have overlooked the possibility that a lot of capital money for building may have gone into relatively small schemes of adapting, for the sake of economy, old buildings and that these adaptations throw up a very heavy cost for furniture and equipment compared with a relatively low cost for actual building work. Here, again, I think there may be some possibility of miscalculation. As, regards scientific equipment, I find it almost impossible to explain to professors how it is that equipment whose purchase has been sanctioned by the U.G.C. assessors cannot now be bought because another department of the U.G.C. says that it cannot provide the funds.

My Lords, there is no doubt that many universities are in a desperate plight at present. Promises have been made to new members of staff; foreign visitors have been asked and then have had to have their invitations abrogated. New buildings are going to stand empty. It is said that the teaching of third-year students at Lancaster is in jeopardy and that only those universities who have no new buildings coming into operation are in at all a happy position.

The University of London is particularly hard hit, and all the colleges and schools there are getting only half their needs. For instance my own place, University College, has eight buildings and various minor schemes coming into operation this autumn. Our cash ration we are told, is £400,000. The minimum cost for furniture alone for these buildings is £600,000. In addition, we have been expecting another £350,000 for scientific equipment. All this should be known to the U.G.C.—I do not know whether it is, but it should be known to them in detail. We shall therefore have to "go into the red" to the tune of something like half a million pounds, and when our new chemistry building goes up we shall be in danger of that building being left unequipped and unfurnished until we have paid off this backlog.

My Lords, I started by saying that this situation is not the fault of the Government. I hope that I have not suggested that it is simply the fault of the U.G.C. My guess—and I hasten to say that this is only a guess—is that there has been some forward buying of scientific equipment. I also guess that there has been some miscalculation in the U.G.C. But if good relations are to be preserved between the Government and the U.G.C, on the one hand, and the universities on the other (and I may say that these relations are not, on the whole, very good at the moment) I ask tonight that if the Vice-Chancellors make out their case, they will not be faced with a blank refusal, and will be given the possibility of getting supplementary grants. That is all we ask. If it can be shown that there has been an underestimate of funds needed for furniture and equipment, surely it would be a disastrous act of injustice if the situation were not remedied. The Vice-Chancellors must make out their case. If it is made out, I think it must be met. If it is not met, then indeed I think the Government would be in a case of very serious dispute with the universities.

May I remind the noble Baroness who is to reply on behalf of the Government that this is the third occasion this year when the Government have been in dispute with the universities. The first was on overseas students' fees; the second, I suspect—of course I do not know—will occur in a few days time when we in the universities rather expect that the Government may announce that unversities will be subject to inspection by the Public Accounts Committee. If I may say so on my own behalf, I do not regard this as a major tragedy by any manner of means. But here is this third case, and I think it should be taken awfully seriously.

My Lords, I have just come this evening from a most agreeable occasion in another part of your Lordships' House, a dinner given in memory and honour of the poet Horace. Horace, of course, put the case for the Vice-Chancellors most admirably. He said: Grammatici certant et adhuc sub iudice lis est". If I may translate solely for my own benefit:— Scholars"— that is to say, the U.G.C. and the universities— dispute, and the case is still before the courts". The case is still before the courts, and I ask the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, to give us an assurance tonight that it is not prejudged. If the universities make out their case, and if then the case is not granted that will be bitterly resented and will be regarded as a betrayal.

10.54 p.m.

LORD JAMES OF RUSHOLME

My Lords, I know that I am speaking for a very large number of those who work in universities when I thank the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, for raising this question. I would emphasise that some of the universities are faced with a quite new situation—a situation that may well create a dangerous climate of bewilderment and disillusionment. This is not a normal, natural complaint that we bring from time to time, that we have not got as much money as we wanted. This is something rather different from that.

To some extent the situation in which we find ourselves arises from a new method of budgeting for scientific equipment which comes into force next year. This is a scheme which may well be admirable for large and established institutions, though perhaps not for all of these. Nevertheless, I think that as the years pass it will be admirable, because it will make it possible for obsolescence to be taken into account. But for a number of rapidly expanding institutions, as matters now stand, its impact can be simply disastrous. The subject is a complicated one and it is easy to get bogged down in figures and details in trying to stretch the neck too wide. Therefore I think that the right line for me is to explain as simply and as shortly as I can what is happening at my own University of York, as a kind of case study. I am sure that what I say will be more or less true of a number of other growing universities.

During the course of the year we have finished, or we shall shortly finish, the following buildings: a large physics laboratory, a computer centre, a language-teaching centre, a large main hall and two colleges which, with us, not only are residential but also have substantial and essential teaching and social areas. Every one of these buildings has been approved to the last pound by the U.G.C. Every one of these buildings has a date of completion which has been known to the U.G.C. for many months. There are the buildings: we have been very fortunate to get them, and we are grateful for the co-operation of the U.G.C. I think it is perhaps the speed with which some of us have been able to build, with new techniques and decent architects, that may have misled those who are responsible for the extrapolations based on previous years' draws of money.

The sum that we have calculated as needed for furnishing and equipping the buildings and completing the courses of our first intake of chemists and biologists, as well as of the physicists now about to start on their third year, is £900,000. By far the greater part of this sum, between 90 and 100 per cent., has been scrutinised and approved by the U.G.C. without reservation of any kind, and in some cases years ago. With that assurance, as only prudent administrators would do, we ordered most of the furnishing and equipment months ago; and the furniture, I am delighted to say, is beginning to arrive. The bill for furnishing the buildings which we have been allowed to build is £900,000. The sum we have been given to meet the bill is £545,000. Perhaps, on the whole, my feelings for the U.G.C. are a little warmer than those of the noble Lord, Lord Annan, because I was a member of it for ten years, and for me it can do no wrong—yet. At any rate, I think that the U.G.C. has done its best. But the position, as I say, is that we have £545,000 to meet bills of £900,000 incurred with the knowledge and approval of the U.G.C.

How do we meet this gap. This is a gap, mark you, not between what we are getting and what in our wildest dreams we hoped to get, but a gap between what we are getting and what we have been promised as reasonable to get by the U.G.C. Faced with this gap, I very much hope that the noble Baroness, when she answers this debate will tell us what she thinks we ought to do. We are, in fact, cutting our plans for further equipment of every kind; and since the point from which we start is the expenditure limits of the U.G.C., this means that in our crowded premises we shall have to fight hard if we are not to produce in some ways a sub-standard university. It means, for example, that it will be more difficult to make our teaching in the sciences as effective as we hope—though I believe that my colleagues will do it. It means, for example, a cut in our programme on working computation. Let me repeat that this is not because we are getting less than was approved for our particular need. It was not a question of hope; it was not guesswork: it was a promise. But cut as we will, delay every demand that we legitimately can, we are still faced with a gap of £140,000. I want the noble lady in her reply, if she will be so good, to say in very simple terms what a new university should do in this position so that I may report it to my colleagues.

There are three alternatives. One can write to some students already accepted and say: "We cannot have you, after all. The accommodation in which you would have learned, slept and eaten is there, but cannot be furnished. Nor shall we have sufficient apparatus for your needs." The buildings are there, but they must be partially empty. The second alternative would, I suppose, be simply not to pay our bills and to wait and see what happened. Neither of these, I think, can we call a practical solution. I am not having empty buildings in our university while there are students who want to be there. We will do something.

But this drives us to the third alternative, which is to try to increase our overdraft. No doubt the noble Baroness will tell us that this is exactly what we should do, as, indeed, it is the only course left. But is it really rational, on any grounds, that money intended for academic purposes—that is, out of current grant—should be used to pay interest on a loan, incurred inevitably, not because we have made a mess of it, but because we have been allowed to build buildings which there is apparently insufficient money to furnish? Is it really the wish of the Government that money intended for education should be spent like this? If it is not, then they really must do something about it. Frankly, I think there are four things that are necessary to prevent the situation from becoming still more chaotic and still more disillusioning over the next few years. The first is a supplementary grant—I know that those words are like a nail, but this is a very difficult situation—to meet the immediate and inescapable needs of rapidly expanding universities; that is, to redeem promises already made. Secondly, we must have an assurance that between April 1 and July 31 next year sufficient money will be forthcoming to meet the inescapable commitments that we are deferring now. We must pay those bills some time.

Thirdly (and this is essential) we must have an assurance that we shall not find ourselves in an exactly similar position next year, when we, for example, shall have yet another college and another large laboratory—this time for biology—buildings which are already rising from the ground, to equip. Sometimes I wonder whether these extrapolations are not based on those archaic universities that still build in stone, and the less archaic ones that still build in brick, and take no account of those of us who have discovered industrialised building. Fourthly, we need an assurance that during the first years of the new system for equipment grants special provision will be made for the items of equipment essential for new laboratories, for which approval has already been given but the purchase of which has been prudently delayed. It would be intolerable if we lost those sums simply because we have not rushed to spend them.

My Lords, let me assure you once again that I am not making a fuss about distasteful economies. It is not primarily economies that we are discussing, for it can scarcely be called an economy to let a building stand half vacant because one cannot furnish it. We are talking about something which I regard as much more important than economies. We are talking about a situation which, if it continues, will simply destroy the relationship of partnership and trust between the Government, the U.G.C. and the universities; and it is on that foundation of trust and confidence alone that we can build the economical, the ordered, the creative academic progress that we all desire.

11.7 p.m.

LORD STAMP

My Lords, as a university professor, I feel I must express my deep concern at the consequences of the Government's decision and its effect on the scientific staff of universities throughout the country. I shall be brief in view of the lateness of the hour and the fact that most of my points have been taken up by previous speakers. There is, first, the chaos that has resulted in many university schools from not knowing where the money is to come from for much of the equipment already ordered. I have heard it suggested that the only solution will be to resort to hire-purchase agreements, with the additional expense this must involve. I wonder how the Government would react to this proposal.

There is, secondly, the frustration at being prevented from ordering equipment for which permission has already been obtained, as I know from personal experience. Long-term plans for research have been drawn up and courses of instruction arranged that now have to be delayed indefinitely. Thirdly, there is the unfairness—and I speak from bitter experience—of penalising those who have delayed ordering equipment in order to make sure that it was the most suitable and represented the best value for money, and who now find this equipment denied them. This applies especially to the purchase of the more valuable items, over which particular care has had to be taken. Fourthly, there is the uncertainty as to how the universities will fare, particularly those institutes concerned with higher education and research, under the proposed new method for allocating grants for equipment, with the suggestion, I have heard, that this may be based on student numbers. In my view, this may well have precipitated the flood of supplementary claims that have been put forward. I should like the assurance of Her Majesty's Government that there is no truth in this suggestion.

Lastly, there is the sheer waste involved in building laboratories which must stand empty for lack of equipment, to which other noble Lords have referred and of which I have personal experience. There is in fact another medical school in the building in which I work, on the floor immediately below me, of nearly 9,000 square feet, which has been empty for a year. I feel that if those responsible for this decision were to see some of these laboratories for themselves, they would realise that this simply must not be allowed to happen. Do Her Majesty's Government realise that for many scientists in this country this crippling limitation on the purchase of equipment is really the last straw? How can they reconcile this decision with their stated intention when they took office that there would be a new deal for the scientist, and their oft-repeated concern about the brain drain, to which the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, has so eloquently referred?

The effects of this decision are being felt particularly by those centres of higher education which have undergone rapid expansion in recent years and are in the forefront in their contribution to the scientific future of this country. Imperial College, to which the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, referred, and the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, with both of which I am personally associated, are cases in point. However great may be the need for cuts and economies in public expenditure at the present time, there are certain priorities that must not be allowed to suffer as a result, and technological and medical research and teaching in our universities are among them. My Lords, I feel that scientists throughout the country will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, for having put down this Question, and will await with the deepest anxiety the Government's response.

11.12 p.m.

LORD BALERNO

My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, for raising this matter before Parliament goes into Recess. He has dealt faithfully and vigorously with the matter as it has affected Imperial College. The noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme, has dealt with it as regards the newer universities, and I should like to direct your attention to the technological universities—that is, the new universities stressing the technological side—and perhaps I may also make some reference to the position in Scotland, for I happen to be a member of the Court of both Edinburgh University and the Heriot-Watt University.

As regards the technological side, I should like to draw the attention of the Government to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Snow, when he was in office, regarding the utter importance to this country of getting ahead with our technology and how far behind we were. He made this remark in one of his speeches: If Britain had put one-tenth of the effort into engineering as into the Indian Empire it would now be a very prosperous country: individually more prosperous than Sweden and able to look American technology in the face. We cannot look American technology in the face yet, but we were hopeful that the dawn was coming, whereby we should get our young men trained and able eventually to look American technology in the face, and get our own industry moving and away from our present somewhat stagnant economy. But that is not to be.

The cuts which have come to Scotland seem to be much more severe than those which have been imposed in England. For Edinburgh University, the sum for which permission to spend had been given by the U.G.C. was well over £1 million, and it has been cut to about a third. In the Heriot-Watt University our needs were well over £500,000. The initial cut reduced that sum to £45,000. Going on our knees we got that generously increased, making a total of somewhere about £140,000. I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Annan, "Lucky you London colleges that are getting half your needs".

The noble Earl, Lord Bessborough made reference to the residences for students which have been built, and, as the noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme has said, there is no furniture or equipment for them. This is indeed a serious matter. In the Heriot-Watt University we have two new residences coming in and 100 students already accepted for them. Are we to spend money that we have not got on furniture that we need?

The noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme, spoke about overdrafts. Overdrafts, as I see it, are the only possible solution unless the Government take action, and take action very soon. Pruning all possible expenditure and reducing our allowed amounts from the U.G.C., as regards both Edinburgh University and Heriot-Watt, we might be able to postpone in each case somewhere about one-third of our allowance; but, even so, if we are to do justice to our students and to the equipment of our laboratories we should both have to draw fairly heavy overdrafts. It is reckoned that the amount which the University of Edinburgh will have to spend on interest on the overdraft will be of the magnitude of something substantially over £30,000 a year, and Heriot-Watt, a small emergent technical university, will be saddled with an extra expenditure of £12,000 a year. As the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, said, the universities simply have not got these resources. Some of them have certain resources, but a new, young technical university never has any resources to draw upon.

Several noble Lords have touched upon how this is going to affect the staffs at the universities. There is one very well known scientist of this country who some years ago was appointed professor to a university in the Midlands. He was able to stick for one year the lack of equipment which had been promised, and he is now the head of a department in Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I understand we have sent a team to the United States to try to wean our scientists and technologists back to this country. I wonder whether that team is going to tell the scientists it is trying to wean back the truth, and the whole truth. It can tell them about the fine new buildings, the wonderful new buildings, that have gone up, a million pounds spent on one of them—and a million pounds may be spent on one university department. But will it go on and tell them the whole truth? —that there is no equipment in the buildings, no tables, no typewriters, no secretary, because the interest on the overdraft has to be paid; therefore there will not be any money to pay for administration.

The noble Lord, Lord Annan, said that this was an extremely complicated situation. I would suggest that one of the faults underlying the situation is the fact that a little technology needs to be directed into the administration of these university grants. With respect to the noble Lord, Lord Annan, I would make a further quotation from the noble Lord, Lord Snow, from the same speech from which I have already quoted: In the nineteenth century administrators studied Latin and Greek, not for intellectual interest but because that was the accepted training". I suggest that administrators should now be brought up in the technologies. If that were done, there would not be the gross miscalculation of perameters that has occurred.

Our promises are out to accept students. Are those promises to be honoured in September and October next? We have made promises to pay manufacturers for equipment and furnishings. Are those bills to be honoured or are the orders to be cancelled? The legal position is still that we should have to pay. We have promised to provide adequate scientific equipment for the new departments and for the new professors who are coming to the universities. Are these to be honoured? They can be honoured only by the universities going head over heels into debt. We must incur overdraft if we are to do our job properly and do our duty by the young men and women, and by the nation as a whole. The question that I should like to ask the Government at this moment is, who pays for them? Will they be added to our expenses in the future? Both Edinburgh University and the Heriot-Watt University have approached the same bank. We are both hoping to get generous treatment from that bank. We hope that we shall "rub the nose" of the Government in regard to this most difficult problem. We are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, for giving us the opportunity to draw your Lordship's attention to this point, which is felt, I would say not just in Edinburgh Univesity, but equally in all the Scottish universities.

11.22 p.m.

BARONESS PHILLIPS

My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, for putting down this Question, and I apologise to noble Lords that it is so late in the evening before we have had an opportunity of dealing with it, and in what I may suggest a sense of anti-climax after the weighty matters of defence. I am most conscious of the fact, that, as Lord Mitchison said, those of your Lordships who have taken part in this debate are distinguished and knowledgeable. I am equally conscious of the fact that I have been told even before I have given the Answer, that few of your Lordships will like it. I would merely suggest, just as those of your Lordships who have contributed to the discussion have done so sincerely, that equally sincerely I shall make my case on behalf of the Government.

If we were really a vote-triggered Administration—and I must say that this is a new one—it seems unlikely that we should fly in the face of these various irate university dons, staffs and students. Certainly I should have thought that a vote-triggered Administration would have been only too happy to hand out any money that anybody requested of them at any time; so there seems to be some slight conflict of comment there.

I have been asked for explanation. I have been asked for reconsideration. I have been asked for a pursuit of truth. Therefore I am afraid that I must go in some detail into the existing system and the change-over, partly because some of your Lordships have dealt with some parts of it and some with other parts. I learned to my cost, when I attempted to cut a speech which was rather long on a recent occasion, that the Government were accused of evading. So I shall never make that mistake again, even though it be one o'clock in the morning.

Several words have been thrown about, and had they come from anybody but the academic profession I should have said that they were emotional. We have heard talk of "cuts", of "economies", of "drastic reductions", and of "failure to accept commitments". I should like to remind your Lordships that under the existing system universities may apply to the University Grants Committee for non-recurrent capital grants to buy furniture and equipment only in the case of additional accommodation. As your Lordships may well know, this accommodation may take the form of a new building, or it may be an existing building which is being converted to a new use. But the grants must be related specifically to additional accommodation. They are not available for replacing or renewing or augmenting the furniture and equipment in existing accommodation: to meet those requirements universities must use their ordinary income.

The procedure broadly is this. At the time when a building project is being planned a university applies to the Committee for a grant to cover the cost of the fixed and loose furniture required for the building and a grant to cover the cost of the teaching and research equipment. The Committee, on the advice of panels of assessors, decides the amount of grant which it would be reasonable to make in each case, and notifies the university accordingly. At that stage, the sums of money assessed for furniture and for equipment are not grants in the sense that money is then and there paid to the university. They are authorisations to spend up to a given amount. That amount then stands against the name of the particular university department concerned in the books of the University Grants Committee. The department then draws the money as and when it actually spends money on furniture and equipment for that particular building. It has not been the practice of the Committee to place any limit on the rate at which money may be drawn against a particular authorisation, or on the amount which may be drawn at any one time. The only requirement has been that the university must certify that they have spent a given sum before they apply for reimbursement, and that they must not exceed the total authorisation for each project.

This system has two serious disadvantages so far as equipment is concerned. The first and most obvious one is the restriction of capital grants for equipment to additional accommodation, as several noble Lords have mentioned. This has meant that departments which are not moving into new accommodation have had to rely on the allocations which the university has been able to make from its ordinary recurrent income; and when a university has to meet many other expenses, such as salaries and wages and running costs, from the same source, it may be impossible to make proper provision for renewing the equipment in existing buildings. So the present system tends to lead to disparities between universities which have had a number of new buildings and those which have not, and between those departments in a university which have been fortunate enough to secure a new building, and those which have not. As a consequence, departments which have remained in the same accommodation over a period of years tend to suffer from obsolete equipment. It was to meet this problem that the University Grants Committee announced early this year a special distribution of grant, to the value of £3 million, which universities could spend specifically on teaching and research equipment for those departments which were not moving into new accommodation. This was a palliative only, and it did not remove the fundamental defect in the present system.

The system has another disadvantage also; namely, the difficulty of estimating the annual cash flow. Since a department may draw grant against its authorisation for a particular building at whatever rate it chooses, the Committee have the difficult task of advising the Department of Education and Science on the actual cash sum which will be required in any given year to meet the drawings of universities. I would say here that, having worked at a much lower level, it has come as a complete surprise to me, because I feel that this may well be unique in the pattern of drawings against such authorisation. An estimate has to be made, of course, in order that Parliament may vote a sum of money for the purpose. The only way in which this can be done is to look at authorisations as they arose in past years and to project this forward. From records kept by the Committee it can be shown that the sum authorised for furniture and equipment tends to be on average a certain proportion of the cost of the building project to which it relates, and that universities have tended, on average, to spread their drawings over a period of some six years, starting from the year when the building project itself starts. From such considerations an estimate can be made of the toal amount of drawings likely to fall in a given year. These projections of total drawings have proved reasonably accurate overall in the past, though of course the method provides no guide to what a particular university will actually draw in a particular year.

Increasing dissatisfaction with the present system led the Committee, very early in 1966, to propose to the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals a completely different system of grant aiding the purchase of teaching and research equipment based on the recommendations of a Working Party from the Department, the University Grants Committee and the Treasury which had examined the whole question in the previous year. No change was proposed in the procedure relating to furniture grants. For equipment it was proposed in the future to discontinue the system of making grants linked to particular buildings, and instead provide each university with an annual sum of money, related in the main—and this will reply to several noble Lords—to the number of students in that university, weighted to allow for differences in the balance of subjects, and the balance between undergraduate and post-graduate students, with supplementary amounts to take care of those cases where, as for example in new universities, the need for equipment to some extent precedes the build-up of the student body. The idea is that universities should have full discretion to spend their grants as they wished, provided only that they were used for the purchase of equipment. The grants would be fixed for a period of years in advance, and universities would be free to allocate money to new buildings or to old as they thought best, and to carry money over from year to year.

Discussions with the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals began in January, 1966. There were, of course, many points of detail to consider, but it became clear that the Vice-Chancellors fully appreciated the reasons why the proposed change was desirable. They accepted the new scheme in principle, subject to assurances about the way the annual capital grants were to be calculated and about the total amount of money which would thus be made available to universities. I emphasise "the total amount of money". It was, of course, impossible for the U.G.C. to give a categorical assurance about the total amount of money, but they said that it was their aim that the amount of the annual sums should be no less than the total amounts which would have been spent by universities year by year under the old system, taking together expenditure out of equipment grants for new buildings and expenditure on equipment from recurrent grant.

Throughout these discussions, both sides were aware that there was one particularly difficult problem arising from the transition from the old system to the new. This had to do with the authorisations already given to universities under the old system, which would not be exhausted by the time the new one came into operation. This brings us to the heart of the matter raised by the noble Lord. As I have said above, it has been the observed practice of universities in the past to spread the drawing of grants against a particular authorisation over an average of six years. Some grants are drawn more quickly, especially if they relate to furniture; and others much more slowly. It therefore stands to reason that at whatever point in time a change in the system was introduced, inevitably there would be a number of authorisations outstanding which had not been drawn in full. Indeed, with the spreading of the drawings over a period as long as six years, it has been the case that the total amount of authorisations still undrawn at any time has far exceeded the amount drawn in any given year. The view taken by the U.G.C. was that this undrawn balance had resulted from a pattern of spending freely adopted by the universities themselves; and that there was no need to envisage a different pattern merely because departments would in future be drawing their money from a fund held by the university and fed by annual grants from the U.G.C. rather than direct from the U.G.C. itself. Each university could in the future under the new system continue the spending pattern established under the old system. Presumably, therefore, a particular department would be able to look to the university's central administration for sums of money to clear off its authorisation. This would be a matter for each university to settle.

At the same time, it seemed only reasonable to suppose that there might be a tendency on the part of departments to draw on their authorisations more quickly, if they knew that the present system was coming to an end—and they are only human. The possibility of a change in the system had been widely discussed in the course of the U.G.C.'s visitations all round the universities in 1966, and it seemed only prudent to expect that some universities might accelerate their rate of drawing. With over £30 millions worth of undrawn authorisations, an acceleration could have a marked effect on expenditure, and might cause it to outrun by a large margin the funds voted by Parliament. It was with this in mind that the Chairman of the University Grants Committee, writing to universities on December 16 last year, included the following: As you will know, we have, after consultations with the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals, framed a new system for equipment grants, which will cover both new buildings and departments which are not moving into new buildings. There will be problems in connection with the changeover from the present system to the new one. One of these will be the need to ensure that the prospective introduction of the new system does not cause expenditure under the present scheme to get out of hand in the period between 1st April next and the date when the new scheme is introduced. In other words, in this interim period drawings against approved grants must be kept broadly in line with the pattern of expenditure assumed for Estimates purposes. And I am therefore serving notice now that we are working on a procedure for controlling drawings in 1967–8, so that the transition from the current system to the new one may be as smooth as possible. That was eight months ago.

THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH

My Lords, it has not been very smooth.

BARONESS PHILLIPS

No, my Lords; but these are not cuts. I think that word has been used several times, and that is why I am emphasising this point. The date for the introduction of the new system had been fixed as August 1, 1968, and the Committee's staff were at work on a memorandum for the purpose of explaining the interim procedures which would be in force in 1967–68 and the first four months of 1968–69. This memorandum was sent for comment to the Vice-Chancellors' Committee on January 26, 1967. Again, I am emphasising this because it appears to me, from the outside looking in, that perhaps the lines of communication within the universities are not quite as good as they might be. This memorandum was circulated to universities on March 30. It explained that in order to keep drawings against existing authorisations in accordance with the past pattern of expenditure and the provision made in Parliamentary Estimates, it would be necessary to set a limit on the drawings of each individual university in 1967–68. And each university was at the same time told what its provisional drawing limit was.

I come now to the questions raised by the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison. The total sum of money voted by Parliament in 1967–68 for the purpose of meeting drawings on furniture and equipment grant was £22.5 million. I believe the noble Lord gave that figure himself. This is the highest sum ever voted for this purchase. In 1966–67 the sum was £21.5 million; in 1965–66 it was £17 million. The estimate of £22.5 million was based on the assumption that universities would continue the pattern of spending established in the past. The total amount of unexpended authorisations at the beginning of 1967–68 was £38 million, but this figure is entirely consistent, on past form, with an expenditure of £22.5 million during the financial year.

The Committee decided, when they issued their initial drawing limits in March, to work within a total of £20 million, keeping £2.5 million in hand as a reserve. This was because they were conscious of the difficulty of ensuring that the limit assigned to each university accurately fitted that university's needs. Universities were therefore invited to submit a claim if they wanted a higher limit. In the event, the claims submitted by universities amounted in total to £21.5 million over and above the total of the limits notified in March. If these claims had all been met, it would have meant that the drawings of furniture and equipment grant in 1967–68 would have been £41.5 million, as compared with £21.5 million in 1966–67 and £17 million in 1965–66. It seems clear from these figures that a total of £41.5 million in a single year presupposes a completely different pattern of drawings from the past pattern. The U.G.C. saw no possibility of justifying such an increase in expenditure, and therefore proceeded to distribute the remaining £2.5 million, having regard to the building programmes of universities and their outstanding balances of past authorisations.

Now it is certainly true that the limit which has been assigned to some universities may prove to be less than they can legitimately claim that they need and less than they would have drawn if the drawing of grants had been left to take its own course as in the past. But it is also true overall that more money for furniture and equipment is being provided in this year than in any year in the past. It looks as if the prospective change in the method of providing money for equipment—a change which all agree to be thoroughly sensible—is having its effect on the pattern of drawings. The Chairman of the University Grants Committee took pains to give universities warning against this, and at every stage in the working out of the new system and of the interim arrangements he has taken steps to explain the situation, first to the Vice-Chancellors' Committee and latterly to the universities themselves. I understand that discussions with the Committee of Vice-Chancellors are still in progress, and the Universitity Grants Committee are making a careful study of the situation, and particularly that of the comparatively small number of universities where, because of particular circumstances, the impact of drawing units has been particularly hard. My right honourable friend the Minister of State for Education and Science has asked that he be kept informed of developments. I am sorry that I cannot give the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, any suggestion of reconsideration other than that.

My Lords, since there have been a number of quotations from the Press, I know that noble Lords will forgive me if I also quote from The Times Educational Supplement of July 14, in which they referred in an editorial to the dissatisfaction of some universities in connection with the change-over of their drawing. The editorial concluded with the very telling sentence: To the outsider, it is almost incredible that cost control and long-term financial planning should be under the wing of planning committees usually composed of senior academics who are often not only ignorant of accountancy and the operation of analysis but probably have a haughty disdain of the subjects. My Lords, I am quite sure that this does not apply to any of the universities that are represented here this evening through your Lordships; but I would suggest that this is a comment from the Press which is just as impartial as any which your Lordships have quoted.

I am sorry that I am unable to give the noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme, a direct reply. I should have loved to be able to tell him what he was supposed to do. I suppose that the noble Lord will feel that I am unhelpful and may even suggest that I am cynical; but it appears to me, as a housekeeper, that perhaps one has to spread one's expenditure over more than one year and that this appears to have been the practice of the universities in the past.