Scotland Bill

Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland of Houndwood, for spelling out how we got into what I can only call an unholy mess. Before we turn to the amendments, let me say that I fully support what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Boyd, said at the start of this debate. In fact, I marvelled at his moderation. It is appalling that we are attempting—I hope we are not attempting—to deal with this on Report in the time that has been allotted at present. We have not only got the debate in the dinner hour, but we also have a Statement coming up which will take another 40 minutes out of the time. It is intolerable. It is the kind of thing that, as my noble friend Lord Forsyth hinted, we used to object to in the Commons. Scottish business of very serious import is being debated here—this is only one of many issues we are supposed to be discussing in the next few hours—and it should not be dealt with in this rushed way. I hope we will be told, when the Whip—or whoever deals with this on the Front Bench—proposes the break for the dinner hour, what is going to happen, and when we are going to sit to give this proper consideration.

I find myself in some difficulty because when I read Amendment 1A, in conjunction with the letter I received from the vice-chancellor of Heriot-Watt University, I sympathised with the universities possibly finding themselves being bereft of revenue they were expecting. That is why I warmly support Amendment 59, which the noble Lord has just spoken to, and to which four distinguished Members of this House have put their names.

By giving at least a year to all the authorities—the funding councils, the two Governments—they should be able to sort this out. The anomaly is intolerable, and we cannot allow this simply to drift on. Here is our legislative chance to put it right, and we should do that by accepting Amendment 59.

[Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke]

My Lords, I will speak briefly. It is no secret that I am most unhappy with the fact that we are continuing with this Bill when it has been so comprehensively overtaken by events. There is a sense that “We’ve started so we’ll finish”. Partly because it has had the gestation period of an elephant, we seem to be debating it at a time when the whole constitutional discussion in Scotland has moved on.

I regret to say that it seems that the business managers of the House share my view of the Bill. I can think of no other reason for the way that it has been treated, and indeed the way that those noble Members who have taken an intense interest in it have been treated, in the course of its process. When I first went to the other place I complained that Scottish legislation was usually done after everyone else had gone home to bed. It seems as though that procedure is now being copied in this House.

However, we can redeem the situation by getting one issue up and live in the debate. There are no two ways about it: what has happened with tuition fees for students from England, Wales and Northern Ireland is so unfair as to shame all of us Scots who have benefited from a Scottish education. Perhaps it needs those of us who have a clear and distinct Scottish accent to say so.

I have not been lobbied by vice-chancellors. That could be because I was a Scottish Education Minister, and maybe they are feart. However, even if I had been I would still take the point of the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, that it is important to seize an opportunity now to resolve this matter. There is a sound educational argument for ensuring that we continue to have the maximum number possible of English, Welsh and Northern Irish students in our universities. One of the secrets of a good Scottish education is the nature of the diversity of the experience. That is being denied.

I will make one other point briefly, because I am conscious of the time. Rich English students can continue to come to Scottish universities, either because their parents can afford to pay the fees or because they own an island or a hunting estate or a lovely Georgian house in Edinburgh and so can easily establish residency. Someone who, like me, is a bus driver’s daughter, frankly has no chance whatever.

I will make an appeal to the noble and learned Lord, whom I do not blame for one minute for the difficulties that have been encountered in passing this Bill—if ever there was a Minister who ended up with the short straw, it is the noble and learned Lord. I appeal to him to take this back, having listened to the representations made tonight and in other places, and seek a resolution to this manifest unfairness that—I repeat—shames Scotland.

[Lord Vallance of Tummel]

My Lords, I declare an interest as the chairman of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, which as a higher education institution would be directly affected by the amendment if it were agreed. I will not take up much of your Lordships’ time, but I feel that I should draw attention to the chaotic practical consequences that the amendment would have on the Scottish universities and other higher education institutions, which have been levying modest fixed fees on students resident elsewhere in the UK, without controversy, since 2001, in part to manage the flow of students into Scotland.

The decision made here in London to introduce market-based, variable fees up to £9,000 per annum in English, Welsh and Northern Irish universities, changed the game radically. It demanded a response if there were not to be a veritable tsunami of applications from students south of the border for far less expensive places at Scottish universities, with clear consequences for potential students resident in Scotland, and for funding by the Scottish Government. That Government’s decision, on which I pass no judgment one way or the other, was to withdraw funding for students resident elsewhere in the UK, and to allow the Scottish universities to apply the same market-based, variable-fee regime for such students as they would have enjoyed, if that is the right word, had they stayed at home.

Some, including Universities Scotland—the representative body for all the higher education institutions—would say that that was entirely reasonable in a UK context. However, it is also anomalous, particularly as regards the rest of the European Union. However, anomalies of one kind or another are almost inevitable in areas where competence has been devolved to Scotland. Various practical problems stemming from the legitimate pursuit of widely different policies on either side of the border will have to be addressed. In the case of higher education, the EU requirement to give preferential treatment to students resident elsewhere in Europe, as against those from other foreign countries, simply compounds the anomaly.

The substantive issue is how best to deal with such anomalies. The amendment, although on the face of it eminently reasonable in seeking to give European Union benchmarks pride of place, would not only unnecessarily and indefinitely constrain the scope for manoeuvre here in the United Kingdom but would create a major and immediate practical problem for Scottish Universities, for the simple reason that the new fee regime has already been implemented, as we have already learnt.