§ Mr. Marquandasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he will make a statement about the recurrent grant to be made available to the universities of Great Britain for the academic year 1967–68.
§ Mr. CroslandYes. As the House will be aware, it was decided that, in order to give the universities a firm planning base for the first year of the quinquennium beginning next August, a provisional figure for that year should be decided and allocated between the universities before the end of 1966. After considering the advice of the University Grants Committee this has been settled at £147.5 million. The U.G.C. will now allocate this amount between the universities. The corresponding figure for the current academic year 1966–67 is estimated at £133 million. The increase between the two years is attributable partly to the increase in students planned for next year to the Robbins target of 197,000, and partly to price increases which universities274W have had to absorb under the block grant arrangements since the last adjustment on this account in 1964–65. It does not include the cost of research work to be taken over from Research Council funds, or provision for local authority rates, which will be separately dealt with.
This provisoinal figure will be reviewed next year in the light of advice from the U.G.C. when they have completed their consideration of the estimates put forward by the universities for the quinquennium 1967–68–1971–72. The final figure will then be incorporated in the full Quinquennial Settlement.