Brexit: The Erasmus and Horizon Programmes (European Union Committee Report)

Lord Bassam of Brighton Excerpts

Monday 1st April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to speak in this debate, on a subject which may well come to define the future hopes and aspirations of our next generation of students, researchers, entrepreneurs and business leaders. The noble Lord, Lord Jay, is to be congratulated on the report that has been produced and on the excellence and quality of this evening’s debate, which it has so ably supported.

These two programmes, Erasmus and Horizon 2020, have their origins in the mid-1980s, at a time when the European Parliament and the Commission were looking expansively at ways in which Europe’s emerging “knowledge economy” recognised the need to be more ambitious. The UK’s part in these programmes has long been regarded as critical to their success, largely because we punch way above our weight. As the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, said earlier, we have just 1% of the world’s population but gather 15.2% of the world’s most highly cited articles. We are ranked first among competitors by field-weighted citation impact.

UK universities tell us that Horizon 2020 is the largest multilateral international funding pot in the world, with a budget of €75 billion over a seven-year period. Since the programme’s inception, the UK has been the second most successful country in terms of funding received. The programme provides a tailor-made platform for collaboration with key partners in Europe; over 50% of UK collaborations are with members of the EU. The Horizon 2020 budget is set to grow to €100 billion in the period 2021-27. At our current level of success in securing funding, UK universities could expect to benefit to the tune of between €14 billion and €18 billion over that period.

Whatever the outcome of Commons votes tonight and later in the week, and the shape of any withdrawal deal, it is essential, as the EU Committee’s report says, that the UK Government secure continued access to the EU research framework programmes through association with Horizon Europe. Our universities need this guarantee to ensure their pre-eminence as research institutions leading and participating in collaborative programmes. A failure to secure this beyond the current spending period will, as many speakers have said tonight, damage permanently our university sector and the businesses that depend upon it.

The Government’s commitment to increase research funding to 2.4% of GDP by 2027 is of course welcome, but it merely underlines the centrality of research to the UK’s future prosperity. Does it go far enough? This I doubt. The weakness in the strategy is that access to Horizon Europe is dependent on a guarantee that post-2020 funding will be commensurate with the UK’s ambition. Again, a failure to be ambitious will mean that we cease to be a net beneficiary from future Horizon Europe budgets. My fear is that, because being an associate member will not give the UK more than observer status at programme committees, the temptation for this Government and perhaps future Administrations will be to restrain funding and minimise costs. If the UK participates as a non-associated member, it will lose access to major funding opportunities and have no influence over the direction of research programmes and priorities.

We echo the calls for the Government to secure at least associated status in the event of the UK leaving the EU, so that negotiations can begin about our participation and on shaping some of the future research agenda. The underwrite guarantee helps to ensure cross-university collaborative work in the short term, but what happens beyond Horizon 2020? Perhaps the Minister can help us with some assurances. Can he also provide a cast-iron assurance that funding commensurate with the expected returns from the ERC and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, estimated to be worth €1.3 billion over the final 20 months of the Horizon programme, will be available?

My noble friend Lady Warwick and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, expressed concern about the uncertainty that researchers might suffer from and that they might be encouraged to move as a consequence to other EU institutions. It is equally possible that, if we have no deal, negotiations might stall. It might be helpful if the Government therefore gave assurances to those researchers that UK Research and Innovation will sign grant agreements in such a situation. If as a product of Brexit we in the UK lose access to funding opportunities, it is clear that we will need replacement programmes. The Government must work with the research communities to ensure that, in the event of crashing out or failing to negotiate a workable deal with the EU, we have a well-funded alternative. It needs to be understood by government that it will take many years to replicate the scope of current programmes and undo the damage done to our reputation and field-leading position internationally.

Turning to the Erasmus+ programmes, many similar challenges exist here. Currently, the budget of €16.4 billion for the programme period reaches over 4 million people through study, training, work experience, sports and volunteering abroad. Over the past 30 years, some 300,000 UK students have benefited from the Erasmus programmes. Of course, UK university students have always studied abroad. Like other noble Lords, I recall a few friends having years abroad during my time at Sussex in the early 1970s, but the programmes had to be individually negotiated and were reliant on the good will of the two institutions involved and an element of good fortune. Today’s programmes are sophisticated, and a far cry from those back then, which predated our membership of the EU.

In the academic year 2015-16, 15,000-plus students from UK universities took part. Incoming students add to the broader cultural experience of students attending our university courses. The NUS estimates that on and off-campus spending by international students, the vast majority from the EU, totalled some £25 billion in 2014-15 alone and contributed £13.8 billion to the UK’s GDP. This supports the equivalent of over 200,000 jobs and equates to £10.8 billion of export earnings. To put it in tax revenue terms, it supplies £l billion a year to the Treasury and supports the salaries that pay for 31,000 nurses or 25,000 police officers.

But the major benefit is probably to less measurable things. Students bring overseas thinking and ideas home with them. They add to the UK’s influence through forms of soft power. Students and researchers bring fresh approaches to our academic institutions and towns and cities. Some research suggests that students who study abroad access better employment opportunities, achieve higher incomes and make a bigger contribution to the national economy.

Unsurprisingly, overseas study benefits social mobility and, as many noble Lords have said, students from disadvantaged backgrounds. One study suggests that black and minority ethnic students who participate in Erasmus are 41% less likely to be unemployed than non-exchange students, and that mobile students from poorer backgrounds earn 6% more across their lifetimes. Shutting off the opportunity for international exchange for those students will undermine work to widen participation in higher education and improve upward mobility.

Given all the benefits to our university sector and to the wider economy from Erasmus, it is essential that, in any post-Brexit deal with the EU, the UK Government negotiate full association with the 2021-27 programme. Costs will be higher and we will not have the purchase on the content of the programme we currently do, as voting members of programme committees, but as a non-associated country we would give up a seat at the table completely. If it is not possible to negotiate a sensible post-Brexit arrangement, it is essential that the UK Government establish a new international mobility scheme, with all the same features of our current arrangements. I agree with the report that this must not be at the expense of exchanges on our doorstep, not least because they are attractive to vocational students, those with special needs and those with strong family ties.

I echo much of what the noble Lord, Lord Jay, said in his opening speech, because we have only seen government commitments for funding of the existing programmes. Can the Minister assure the House that the Government have a plan for the long term in mind and the replication of the UK’s participation in Erasmus on current terms?

Finally, it would be remiss of me not to mention the position of students seeking to study in the UK. Can we be assured that there is no threat to the status of students currently studying here? Can we be further assured that internal discussions are taking place within government and especially the Home Office to guarantee the extension of the temporary leave to remain scheme? Without that, the future of mobility learning will be jeopardised, and our place as a centre of excellence for the student experience placed at risk.

No deal is a form of intellectual and academic self-harm. I share the fear of many Peers tonight: I cannot believe a Government serious in looking to the future of our country will allow this to take place, and I hope I am right. The Government have offered little by way of reassurance so far, though there are some encouraging signs in the political statement that sits with the withdrawal agreement. Tonight, as we await the outcome of Commons votes, and at a point when we all need more answers to hard questions, I hope that the Government will offer us more than the empty promises we have sadly become used to over the last couple of years, which are a feature of Mrs May’s administration. These questions need answers.