Higher Education and Research Bill Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateLord Cormack
Main Page: Lord Cormack (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Cormack's debates with the Department for Education
(7 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, I hope your Lordships will forgive a single intervention in this whole long procedure, as I should not wish it to be thought that there were no friends of the amendment on this side of the House. The opening speech by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, about the direction in which this leads reminds me immediately of the two departments in the Government of Nineteen Eighty-Four: the Ministry of Truth and the Ministry of Peace. We do not want to start on that path.
My Lords, there are at least two Members on this side of the House who support the amendment and hope that the Minister will come back on it. There is a possibility of confusion with the National Union of Students, for instance. Let us get “students” out and “higher education” in.
My Lords, I, too, support the amendment. We need to have a status of title that puts universities and higher education in an elevated place in our society. We know that “students” comes trailing clouds of all sorts of other implications that may not be appropriate. Education and universities are serious, hard-core activities on which this country depends, and they deserve respect.