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

Lord Ricketts Excerpts

Monday 1st April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ricketts (CB)]

My Lords, this is becoming a debate with a single message for the Minister. I think that this is a compelling report. I declare an interest as a member of the sub-committee of my noble friend Lord Jay and I pay tribute to his chairmanship. The report is a clear statement of a complex set of issues with, to my mind, a great deal of compelling evidence. As the noble Baroness, Lady Janke, has just said, it demonstrates that these are two of the most successful EU programmes from which the UK has derived enormous benefit. Down the years they have had a real impact on the lives of many thousands of young people—including, incidentally, my two children. They have also enabled the British university sector to establish its unrivalled international networks and countless projects that probably would not have been funded without Horizon 2020. It would be a disaster if access to all this were cut off or seriously reduced, just as both programmes are expanding enormously for the period 2021 to 2027.

As others have said, at least if the withdrawal agreement is agreed, there is a breathing space until the end of the transition period at the end of 2020. That is a short time, but it is better than nothing. However, I am much more concerned about what will happen in the event of no deal, which is certainly not impossible if the gridlock in the House of Commons continues until 12 April.

Let me briefly take each programme in turn. Clearly there would be a diminished British role in Horizon Europe even if we had a transition period and negotiated an association agreement. I remind noble Lords that, as the report states, the UK has been “disproportionately successful” in winning grants under the Horizon scheme, with more than 15% of the total. There will be financial rebalancing arrangements in the future programme that will ensure that the UK can no longer be a net beneficiary. Basically, we will take out more or less what we put in, so there will be a shortfall even in the event of an association agreement, because Britain will no longer be a net beneficiary of the very large sums of money available under Horizon.

From what I hear from the universities I have contact with, no deal presents a real systemic risk to the international networks that they have built up. In part that is because, if we cease to be a member of the European Union, it will pose problems for many projects where the quota for the required number of members from the European Union may well make it impossible for us to continue. Moreover, the international nature of our university sector comes out in everything one reads from university leaders. I shall quote from the recent address made by the president of Imperial College, Professor Alice Gast:

“We are international. Our international community, our collaborations, our partnerships, and our own experiences in other cultures and places have an immeasurable and profound effect on the world”.


Professor Gast is right, and Horizon has been a vital part of that. Perhaps this question has already been put to the Minister in other ways, but I would be interested to know whether there are plans to make good the funding gap that would arise even in the case of a withdrawal agreement, given that in those circumstances we shall be getting less back from Horizon than we put in.

I understand that the Commission’s guidance is that in the case of no deal there will be no new financial commitments for UK applicants. As the noble Lord, Lord Jay, said, it will continue funding provided we continue to pay into the budget for 2019—but nothing beyond. The evidence in our report is that uncertainty is already casting a shadow over the willingness of researchers around the EU to collaborate with British partners in these circumstances. Can the Minister tell us what contingency work is going on to make sure that vital projects can continue after the end of 2019, even in the event of a no-deal Brexit?

It is in Erasmus where the human cost of the current uncertainty is most clear. As the noble Baroness, Lady Janke, said, 17,000 young people are preparing for the exciting opportunity to go abroad under Erasmus in September this year. The Commission said in its guidance that,

“students and trainees abroad participating in Erasmus+ at the time of the UK’s withdrawal can complete their studies and continue to receive … grants”—

but that is as far as clarity goes. Many noble Lords will have seen articles in the media about the problems that is already causing for young people trying to make plans for September this year, including one young lady who told the Guardian that she had been advised to take £1,200 in cash when she went in September, just in case there were problems with the grant and funding. That will certainly exclude disadvantaged people from even thinking about taking up an Erasmus opportunity in those circumstances.

There is also the impact on UK universities of reluctance on the part of EU students to commit to coming here in September. I see that both Spain and Norway are now advising their students to look at countries other than the UK. I wonder whether there is yet any data on the fallout for British universities of declining Erasmus applications for this coming year, because it could be important. I have a particular link with the University of Kent—the UK’s European university, with a wonderful network of four campuses in Europe. It sends a large number of students across Europe and receives a lot as well. I am sure that many others are in the same position. These universities really change the lives of young people using the Erasmus programme. To put any substitute in place—bilateral links—will take a lot of time, consume a lot of resources and in the end mean that a lot of young people cannot travel and take those opportunities. In my view, we must not jeopardise what has been achieved under these schemes.