Universities: Compulsory Redundancies

Lord Hannan of Kingsclere Excerpts

Monday 21st June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, we are all proud of our world-leading higher education sector, which is a tribute to those who work in it and have done over many years. We have four of the world’s top 10 universities and 17 of the top 100. Many universities are able to combine academic excellence with commercial success, so I do not quite recognise the dichotomy that the noble Viscount paints. However, we recognise the challenges of the past year and a half, during the pandemic, which is why, alongside access to the business support schemes available to all businesses, we brought forward more than £2 billion of tuition fee payments, provided £280 million of grant funding for research and established a loan scheme to cover up to 80% of universities’ income losses from international students for the current academic year.

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my declaration of interests, particularly as a teacher at the University of Buckingham. The proximate cause of these redundancies is a fall in income. Universities depend not just on fees but on rent and income from retail, bars and so on. Will my noble friend the Minister join me in congratulating those universities that have facilitated a safe return to in-person tuition? Will he also join me in urging particularly those in the college lecturers’ union who are resisting a return to campus to drop their opposition—in their own interest if not in that of the students?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My noble friend is right: it is important for universities to meet in person, and staff and students have shown themselves to be very flexible and adaptable during the challenging circumstances of the last year and a half. All students have been eligible to return to in-person teaching since 17 May, and we have encouraged universities to bring that about. How best to manage the return of face-to-face teaching is up to universities themselves, but all students are now eligible to receive their vaccination, and we encourage them to take that up to support their return to campuses, particularly as the autumn term approaches.