Scotland Bill

Debate between Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market and Lord Sutherland of Houndwood

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood]

I am very uncomfortable with that. On the other hand, there were reasons, which I shall come to now, for the level of fees being set as it is.

The policy of the Scottish Government and the funding council is such that in the period from last year to next year a gap of roughly £40 million will have opened up in the funding of those universities. The University of Edinburgh, much to its credit—as the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, will be pleased to hear—recruits a large number of students from south of the border, and they contribute significantly to the life of that university. That is part of the way in which the university focuses on its United Kingdom, let alone its international, obligations.

With regard to that gap of £40 million, I know it is put about by some that the universities are raiding the coffers of the rich English and that is why they are setting the fees as they are, but that is not the case. A funding gap has been created. I pay tribute to the University of Edinburgh because I believe that at the same time it has put in place the most generous and best scheme for helping students who could not otherwise afford it to come from south of the border. It is a very good scheme which I think could be emulated by others.

Where did this fees level come from? It came from two decisions. One was the coalition Government’s decision to increase the fees to £9,000, although I have to say that they were following the example of their predecessors. This is not an argument about whether there should or should not be fees. I resist the temptation to get into that, although I have strong views on it. That was one element of what created this division. The other is that the Scottish Parliament, through its allocation to the funding council, deliberately created a gap in the funding of Scottish universities—it is in its accounts—of over £50 million. It created that gap and in effect instructed the universities to raise the money from students coming from the rest of the United Kingdom. That being so, there is a dual responsibility here, and it simply illustrates the point made more eloquently by the previous speakers about how we can sometimes set out on a constitutional road that leads not just to unintended consequences but to very unfair and unacceptable consequences as many of us see them.

Students from the rest of the United Kingdom, or RUK—it has a name, which is a sign of how well entrenched it is—will have to live with students whom they know will be paying none of the £36,000 that they are paying. The case has already been given of at least two such universities. It is sometimes suggested that the £36,000 is unnecessary. That is not true. If we are to compete with the best in the United Kingdom, that is the carefully estimated sum of money that has to be put back into the budget of individual universities, and they have set their fees accordingly.

I should mention that I was rather pleased to hear in the Antarctic debate mention of the University of Edinburgh. It has very strong research interests there and I am glad that we are protecting those interests. The only other interest that I could think of Scottish universities having in the Antarctic was if a very strong strain of clever penguins started applying to universities. They would have to decide what fees to charge the penguins, but happily we are unlikely to face that problem.

To summarise, an indefensible gap has arisen. I am not sure that either of these amendments would deal with it completely, but it is time for further thought. Do we want our university community, which shares knowledge and a passion for truth, to be divided within the United Kingdom financially in this extrovert way—a way that will distort human behaviour and the ways in which applications to universities are made? I hope not.

[Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market]

My Lords, I am delighted to be able to follow the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland. He referred to the eloquence of the other speakers but, if I may say so, he has spoken with great eloquence, great authority and great experience on this subject.

When I woke up this morning, I had not been expecting to take part in this debate but I was working in my office and at other meetings in the House and happened to bump into my noble friend Lord Forsyth over a sandwich. Having realised what the subject is, I am only too delighted to be able to intervene. I hope to speak on the subject briefly because many of the points that I wanted to make have been made already.

I was born and brought up in Scotland and, like my noble friend Lord Forsyth, I went to the University of St Andrews. I listened to the point that the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, made about the contribution of English students to the University of Edinburgh. I recall very clearly that one of the great richnesses during my time at St Andrews came from the university having so many students from America and elsewhere but particularly from England. I believe that that had a very beneficial effect in widening my horizons.

Subsequently, of course, I came to England and for many years represented an English constituency, and I shall say something about that in a moment. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, referred to the sensitivity of dealing with the Scottish Parliament on this issue. However, I think that there is no more sensitive an issue than this question of tuition fees for parents who live in England but who, like me, may have been born in Scotland and who hope that their children will go to Scottish universities. From knowledge gained from my friends and particularly from my constituents in Norfolk, I can say that the resentment is very great.

I know how this issue arose originally—the Scottish universities had to accept the ruling that EU students had to be treated the same as those in Scotland but that did not apply in the United Kingdom. That argument is not understood by any parent or potential student who wants to come to Scotland. I hesitate to mention the Barnett formula but the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, has done so already. I was going to look at the Barnett formula in a slightly different context. I have always—since first being in government—been a strong opponent of the Barnett formula, but that is another story. However, there is no question that Scotland benefits greatly from the formula. One way of putting this resentment right would be to meet the fees required from English students coming to Scotland through the extra expenditure that the Scottish Parliament has received from the Barnett formula.

I want to say one other thing on this subject. For many years, I tried to persuade my constituents and many others in Norfolk and elsewhere of the unfairness to those in England—very often receiving grants from local authorities and so on—of the Barnett formula in treating Scotland so much better. I could never persuade my constituents of the importance of this case because it seemed remote from them. However, the one issue that they really understand and which creates resentment is when they want one of their children to go to the Scottish university that they attended but they find that the financial penalties are such that they are not able to do so. That is what comes home to them. I used to get a lot of representations from people in this situation and I could never convince them otherwise; I could only agree with them. That is why I strongly support these two amendments.