Scotland Bill

Debate between Lord McFall of Alcluith and Lord Empey

Monday 26th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey]

My Lords, in many respects it is a pity that the legislation to which this amendment applies this evening is not a UK-wide piece of legislation, because that, quite frankly, is the only way that we will fix this. We are suffering from the fact that we forwent some time ago a unitary state with a central Government. I have to declare that I was responsible for, among other things, further and higher education for three and a half years until 18 months ago and was therefore very much aware of these issues. The Scottish Government and Parliament, in their wisdom, decided to have free tuition fees. In Northern Ireland, we had the same rate as applied in England. However, the new Assembly has decided to depart from that parity arrangement and now students coming to Northern Ireland from England and other parts of the United Kingdom will pay the higher fee. I regret that; had I remained in post it would not have been my intention to have kept that arrangement, but nevertheless that is where it is. I understand that there are similar arrangements in Wales, whereby the Welsh, too, have frozen their fee or have a lower fee than would be applicable in England.

For me, the issue concerning devolution is this. We already see anomalies. Prescription charges are one, higher education is another and of course there are others, and there will be more. However, what sticks in the craw in this case is the fact that somebody from Bratislava can come in but somebody from Scunthorpe cannot—or at least they cannot get the same treatment. I have no difficulty with devolved regions being entitled to pursue their own policies when Whitehall and this Parliament give them the authority to spend their block grant as they see fit within the law. I speak as someone who for many years had that opportunity and spent money in different departments, and I am sure that many statues of the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, will be erected in towns and villages all over the place. The Barnett formula worked; we were permitted to spend the money and that was the whole point of devolution. However, the issue for me is the severe difficulty faced by 25 per cent of our students who have to leave Northern Ireland because there are no places for them. We have sent thousands of students to Scotland. In fact, at the peak the number of students involved was effectively sufficient to keep a university going. Therefore, this is something that we feel acutely.

In Northern Ireland I implemented the MaSN—maximum annual student number—cap as a way of controlling higher education expenditure. We set a limit on the number of students that our budget would allow us to support, and that MaSN cap would be altered from to time if we were able to find more money. We did that on several occasions to raise the number of students whom we could accommodate.

This Bill is not the vehicle to resolve this problem but it does perhaps provide us with an opportunity to send a signal. When he replies, I should like the Minister to say whether he is going to consult his ministerial colleagues in government to establish whether they will be able to deal with this discrimination in the United Kingdom. It is very hard to cope with the fact that somebody from Dublin goes to a university within the United Kingdom and is treated in one way but somebody from Belfast going to the same university is treated differently. That is the issue for me.

I fully support the right of a devolved Administration in Edinburgh to choose its higher education policy. I did it, so I cannot deny the opportunity to others. However, the question is how we deal with this conundrum. The noble Lord, Lord Stephen, mentioned the legal advice that he was given, and I understand the rationale behind that. We had difficulties with students coming across the border for further education. We had to ensure that they did not pay higher fees than our indigenous students, so we experienced almost a reversal of this situation. It is perfectly proper for devolved regions to choose their policies in areas such as the payment of prescription fees—if that is how they spend their money, that is fine—but the question for me is whether it is right and proper to treat an EU citizen from England differently from an EU citizen from Scotland. That is the basic question, but it will not be entirely resolved by this amendment because it is a UK-wide issue.

Foreign students are a totally different ball game. They are cultivated because they can pay their fees, and all universities run after them to get the money and keep their coffers topped up, but the fact is that foreign students are not UK taxpayers. That is the big difference. They make no contribution whatever to the building up or long-term maintenance of our institutions, whereas UK taxpayers will continue to do so. Therefore, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Vallance, that I understand the difference of opinion that he has with the noble Lord, Lord Morgan, and he is probably right in many respects because there is a difference, but people accept it because foreign students do not contribute to our taxes. The Government need to deal with this matter at a UK level. I should be very interested to know whether the Minister is going to discuss it with his colleagues, what discussions they have had already and what long-term solutions he envisages.

[Lord McFall of Alcluith]

My Lords, as a predecessor of the noble Lord, Lord Empey, as Minister for Education in Northern Ireland, I was very aware of the number of Northern Ireland students who went to Scotland for their education and, indeed, stayed in Scotland or in the UK generally as a result. I was left with the lasting impression that education is a UK-wide initiative. In a globalised world where the transfer of wealth and economic power is going from west to east, we have to keep the integrity of the UK education system, but I fear that we are losing it with the current situation in Scotland.

The noble Lord, Lord Vallance, and Scottish universities have made the point about the stability of the system. In particular, cross-border student flow is given at 24,000 students from England applying to Scottish universities, which could cause chaos for 2013. That is a legitimate argument, but the main issue here is the actions of the Scottish Funding Council, which in a letter in December last year said that £27.8 million was going to be taken off Scottish universities. In the next four years, the sum will be more than £100 million. That is not a capricious act on the part of the Scottish Funding Council; it is because the Scottish Government have stated that that is the case. That will decrease the teaching grants as well as the quality of student experience at Scottish universities.

We are facing a crisis at the present time and it is appropriate for us to debate this. If we were only debating Amendment 1A, then I would not be supporting the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and others. However, we have Amendment 59, which is giving us a year’s grace. Frankly, the Scottish Government are having their cake and eating it. This amendment should be saying to them: “You cannot have your cake and eat it. If you want to provide quality education, then you have to be honest about it”. A dishonest conversation has taken place in Scotland and there is a narrow, introspective approach to education where there should be an inclusive, global approach. If we are making a plea for anything tonight, it is to be honest in our debate and ensure that we will look at the UK as a whole and keep the integrity of the UK education system, so that we have a more prosperous country with increased skills which can accept and face up to the challenges of globalisation in the years ahead. We should not run backwards, as, sadly, I think is happening in Scotland at the moment.