Scotland Bill

Debate between Lord Morgan and Lord Vallance of Tummel

Monday 26th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morgan]

I intervene very briefly, not as a member of the Labour Party but as a former vice-chancellor. The present situation is deeply harmful to the very concept of a university. Universities are founded on the ethic of equality, whereby all students should be treated the same. We have legislation to deal with some of the more harmful aspects of discrimination—with regard to racial matters, for example—but the current situation is a fundamental breach of that principle. The situation is harmful in two respects. There is a divisive principle at work, whereby students doing the same work in the same institution are not treated the same.

[Lord Vallance of Tummel]

Such divisiveness already occurs as regards international students. The only foreign students who are treated differently are other European Union students.