Middle East Peace Plan
Debate between Robert Halfon and Andrew Murrison(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Dr Murrison
The hon. Gentleman has a great deal of experience in such matters. He will forgive me if I do not answer for the peace plan, because it is not the UK Government’s plan. We can welcome its publication, and we can welcome the process that may follow, but we cannot be answerable for the contents of the plan.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
The US peace plan calls for a just solution for Jewish refugees expelled from Arab lands—my father’s family were forced to leave Libya shortly after the creation of the state of Israel—as well as a fair solution for the Palestinians. The plight of 850,000 Jewish refugees is key to understanding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Will the Minister welcome the recognition of the historical injustice against hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees?
Dr Murrison
My right hon. Friend is of course absolutely right. The refugee issue is sometimes not necessarily associated with Jewish refugees. I remember reading a good book on this subject called “Uprooted”—he no doubt has a copy—that explains the situation exceptionally well. Of course, any settlement needs to include Jewish refugees as well as Palestinian refugees.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Robert Halfon and Andrew Murrison(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Dr Andrew Murrison)
As my right hon. Friend knows, the UK is committed to making progress towards a negotiated two-state solution. Meanwhile, UK aid to Palestinians helps to meet immediate needs, deliver key services and promote economic development. It supports stability in the development of a capable and accountable Palestinian Authority who can act as an effective partner for peace with Israel.
Robert Halfon
UK taxpayers’ aid pays the salaries of teachers in Palestinian Authority schools, yet at least 31 official PA schools are named after terrorists who killed innocent citizens. Does the Secretary of State share my concern that the children studying in those schools are being taught that it is honourable to commit violent acts against Israelis? Does he agree that, instead of prolonging the conflict by supporting such rhetoric, we must do more to press the Palestinians to stop glorifying terrorists and to use our aid as it is meant to be used?
Dr Murrison
My right hon. Friend is right to raise this matter. We are clear with the Palestinian Authority on how we expect UK aid to be spent. Last week, I had a further meeting with the Palestinian Authority Education Minister, Professor Awartani, following our meeting in Ramallah last year. He expressed his commitment to the EU’s review of teaching materials, as well as to the PA’s own review, which will be available before the start of the academic year.
Education means hope, and we need to be careful about removing hope from the OPTs, because hope is what is preventing people from falling into the arms of those with mischievous intent for the future of that part of the world.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Robert Halfon and Andrew Murrison(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)
The Minister for the Middle East (Dr Andrew Murrison)
The UK remains deeply concerned about Hezbollah’s actions and behaviour in the region. As the Home Secretary outlined in February, Hezbollah’s destabilising role in the middle east led to our proscription of the group in its entirety. We continue to condemn Hezbollah and all armed militia groups for seeking to amass illegal weapons and arms, and for putting the security of Lebanon and Israel at risk, in direct contradiction of UN Security Council resolution 1701.
Robert Halfon
I offer my strong congratulations to the Minister on his new role; he is a good man.
I strongly welcome the Government’s decision to proscribe Hezbollah in full earlier this year. Israel recently revealed that it has exposed Hezbollah cells in border villages on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights. Does the Minister share my grave concern and agree that were the Golan Heights to be under Syrian control, the security risk would be catastrophic, not only for Israel but for the entire region?
Dr Murrison
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his generous words, and I share his concerns about this matter. We condemn Hezbollah—we could not be clearer than that—and have gone further than most countries in doing so. However, we consider the Golan Heights to be occupied territory, which is contrary to international law. We do not believe that the Golan Heights are part of the territory of the state of Israel.
Education (Student Support)
Debate between Robert Halfon and Andrew Murrison(6 years, 7 months ago)
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Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
To achieve social justice and deal with the skills deficit, we need a skills revolution. In many sectors, we have a real skills shortage, particularly at level 4 and above. Young people are pushed towards traditional degrees, but only 52% are getting jobs after graduation that require a degree, according to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. On the flipside, degree apprenticeships are just not growing fast enough, and we need to invest more in further education and skills provision.
I welcome what the Minister has said today, and I thank him for meeting me to discuss this issue. We must go further on nursing apprenticeships, which I believe are the answer to this whole problem. We can square the circle and support nurses by rapidly expanding the apprenticeship programme. Hon. Members will know that I am a passionate advocate of apprenticeships, and I therefore support the introduction of new routes into nursing, through degree apprenticeships and the creation of the nursing associate role.
Nursing degree apprentices will not have to pay anything themselves, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield), a brilliant former nurse, explained. They will be able to become degree-registered nurses in four years. Similarly, the new nursing associate role will provide extra capacity in the workforce, and many of those who train as nursing associates may decide to continue to degree-level nursing.
The twin themes of the Education Committee in this Parliament are social justice and productivity. Nursing degree apprenticeships are key to both. They offer an attractive route both for mature students and for those with children, ensuring that all those who wish to train as nurses have the opportunity to do so. I am not suggesting that people should not have the choice of a three-year undergraduate course, but we must maximise the opportunities provided by degree apprenticeships. Doing so would mean that we have a sufficient nursing workforce and that aspiring nurses have options for training.
I have real worries about the fact only 30 people began training as a nurse through the nursing apprenticeship schemes this year, and we need to rapidly improve the number of people doing degree apprenticeships. There needs to be a taskforce involving the Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills, the Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation, Health Ministers, the Institute for Apprenticeships and others to drive this forward and to encourage people with a proper advertising campaign, using the £200 million levy. Thirty is just not enough; we need many thousands of people. If people in my constituency and across the country knew about the schemes, they would want to take them up.
Dr Murrison
Does my right hon. Friend agree that part of the way we might expand the numbers taking the apprenticeship route is to unleash the power of the further education sector? The sector now has degree-awarding powers and would be very attractive to a large number of people not just in the big urban centres but in the smaller regions, too.
Robert Halfon
Like me, my hon. Friend is a big champion of further education and understands it completely. This could be an incredible moment for our further education colleges because, along with some very good private providers, they could be leading the way in providing degree apprenticeships.
University Vice-Chancellors: Pay
Debate between Robert Halfon and Andrew Murrison(7 years, 2 months ago)
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Dr Murrison
I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. I will come on to some of the benefits later on in my remarks, and it will not surprise him to know—I suspect he has read the report, as I have—that the University of Bath features large in the University and College Union’s report on this subject, regrettably, as one of the arguably worst examples of what I certainly represent as excess at the top of higher education in this country, which is the matter we are seeking to resolve.
The Prime Minister is paid £152,000 a year. The Prime Minister, of course, heads the Government, and it is extraordinary therefore that the vice-chancellor of Bath University should be paid £451,000, which is pretty much three times the salary of the Prime Minister. I think most people in this country would have a general sense that that is odd, to put it mildly, and needs quite considerable justification.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend for securing the debate and congratulate him and the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew) on the principled way in which they resigned because of what I and many other people see as an outrageous amount of money. Does he agree that the pay of vice-chancellors should be clearly linked to performance measures? One performance measure must be successful job destinations, with highly skilled and highly paid jobs for students.
Dr Murrison
Yes, up to a point. If my right hon. Friend will allow me, I will come on to performance-related pay later in my remarks, which I have a little over two hours to make.
Robert Halfon
My hon. Friend is being incredibly generous in giving way, and that is typical of him. Does he agree that it is not just an issue of vice-chancellor pay but of senior management pay and the random way in which professors are paid from university to university, sometimes using significant amounts of funds? There is also an issue of pay disparity in senior management between men and women. There is some suggestion that BBC-type problems might be affecting our universities.
Dr Murrison
I am at a slight disadvantage on my right hon. Friend’s latter point, because my interest in this matter was sparked by Dame Glynis Breakwell, the vice-chancellor of the University of Bath. She is right at the top of the pay league table, so my local experience clearly does not bear his point out. I would not be surprised, however, if that was the case. The trouble is that the lack of transparency around a lot of this material in the university sector means that it is quite difficult to make that comparison. Were it to be the case—and I suspect he is right—I would clearly want the universities to address it, as it is simply not acceptable.
I was interested in my right hon. Friend’s earlier point about performance-related pay, and in preparing for the debate I did look at those universities that had significantly increased the level of vice-chancellor pay in the recent past and compared that with improvements as judged by the Complete University Guide set of metrics, which is used by most pundits and commentators to compare universities. The students certainly look at those figures very closely when deciding where to go.
I stared at the figures and compared and contrasted them for some time, and I could not see any correlation between improved pay for vice-chancellors and improved metrics. Indeed, there is some suggestion that there is an inverse correlation, which rather bears down on the point about performance-related pay. I can see very little evidence of it operating here. We need to be careful about performance-related pay, because it is set by remuneration committees and, unless its terms are available for scrutiny, the goals could be eminently achievable. That would make a mockery of the whole thing, which comes back to my central point: we must have transparency in how pay is set if we are to have any confidence in our current system.
I absolutely accept that vice-chancellor pay and benefit packages are a tiny part of a multi-billion-pound consideration in higher education. That point was made clearly by Lord Willetts when he was the universities Minister. He rightly sought to put the whole thing into perspective, but my worry is that in the remuneration of vice-chancellors and senior people in higher education we have a window into what might be going on more generally in the universities sector. If we are seeing such egregious examples of the misuse of public funds and student indebtedness, as I believe we are in this case, we wonder what is happening more generally in this sector.
Universities have charitable status. The Higher Education Funding Council governs that, with this subcontracted by the Charities Commission, which has written to me on this subject. It is important that we emphasise that charities—universities, in this case—have charitable purposes; they are meant to use their moneys for charitable purposes, to demonstrate charitable good. They should not be using money unless they can demonstrate that that expenditure in some way satisfies their charitable purposes.
The University and College Union’s report of February 2016, for which I am in its debt, sheds interesting light on this subject, because it discusses not only pay, but other benefits. Although many universities did not respond to the UCU’s request for information, and so we need to be slightly guarded about its conclusions, this report nevertheless gives us some useful data. For example, it shows that Bath’s vice-chancellor spends an average of £313 a night for hotel accommodation and that Middlesex University’s vice-chancellor spends an average of £448 a night, whereas the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority will allow MPs £150 a night in London and £120 a night outside it. I make no comparison between MPs and vice-chancellors; what I would say is that £150 a night seems reasonable. People will not often hear a Member of Parliament being nice about IPSA, but I am nice about it; for the record, I think it does a good job in general and it has pitched that about right, because we can certainly get accommodation in London for £150 a night or outside London for £120 a night and we will not be living underneath the arches. How someone can spend £448 or £313 a night, inside or outside London, is a little beyond me—it is probably beyond my experience. That is an example of what I mean about the use of funds for charitable purposes. In what way does that expenditure advance the charitable purposes of these institutions?
It gets worse, however, because the report goes on to consider air fares. Twenty-one universities that responded to the request for information—there may well be more that decided not to respond, because they do not want to share their information, for obvious reasons—ranging from high-end Bristol to the frankly obscure, send their principals only by first-class or business-class air travel. That is a remarkable thing. The vice-chancellor of the University of Bath spent £23,000 in 2014-15 on air fares and, according to the report, flew exclusively by first or business class. Members of Parliament will know full well that IPSA will take a dim view of any Member seeking to claim for anything other than economy. The Minister may well be familiar with the ability of Ministers to fly long haul by business class if they have a meeting the next day—most Departments would allow that for Ministers, and I certainly recall it—but for short-haul flights of less than three hours most certainly that particular benefit would not be got. It seems excessive for universities—remember the point about their charitable status—to have their principals and senior staff fly first or business class habitually. In this day and age, that seems wholly excessive.
It gets worse still. Many universities provide accommodation for their vice-chancellors. The report lists accommodation occupied by vice-chancellors, and some of it looks rather attractive, particularly that in Bath. At No. 2 in the catalogue is the vice-chancellor of the University of Bath, who in 2014-15 occupied accommodation worth nearly £3 million, which I think would seem excessive to most. It would probably seem excessive to the parents who have recently delivered their children to university halls of residence, many of which are distinctly shabby.
My chief concern about all this is the lack of transparency. The University and College Union makes transparency the crux of its survey and report, and it is right to do so. In seeking the information it has sought, it has found that universities have in many cases been reluctant to engage, and we are beginning to see why. It found that 71% of those universities that responded had their vice-chancellors as members of their remuneration committees. In most walks of life, that would be considered a strange feature of a remuneration committee, even if the individual who was the subject of a particular discussion absented him or herself from the room while their issue was being discussed, because pay for an individual is not seen in isolation; it is seen against the backdrop of other senior pay within the institution and senior pay in other institutions.
I perceive a cartel operating in higher education, with vice-chancellors, and senior university staff generally, sharing each other’s remuneration processes to their mutual benefit. I am of course not in any way suggesting that there is some deliberate attempt to do that, but that seems to me to be how it might work in practice. In short, remuneration committees appear to be unsatisfactorily shadowy for organisations operating in the public or quasi-public sectors. We see instances of minutes not being published, and of redacted minutes being published. When we are dealing with public funds and student indebtedness, that is unacceptable.
My other concern is about leadership. Vice-chancellors are quintessential leaders; leading is what they do. If they are not leaders, they are nothing at all. Yet some of the most senior, such as the vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford, have been bleating about being paid less than footballers and bankers. That does not strike me as leadership. At a time of pay restraint in the university sector, as well as in others, it seems to me wholly inappropriate for the leaders of these organisations to be complicit in a system that gives them a pay rise that is way out of kilter with that being awarded to their staff. That is wholly wrong and I hope that, going forward, we will see the same sort of restraint among the senior echelons of higher education as we have seen further down the pay scale.
I shall finish by being nice about the vice-chancellor of the University of Bath, because Dame Glynis Breakwell has done a grand job, over many years, and the University of Bath is a fine institution. Dame Glynis deserves warm thanks and praise for all the hard work she has put in. I do not blame her for her extraordinarily generous remuneration package; I do blame the system that has allowed it. I am pleased that a lot of the things the Government have been talking about recently—particularly the Office for Students, which I know my hon. Friend the Minister will talk about in a moment—will help in that respect. In particular, the OfS will add transparency to the way in which senior people in higher education are paid, bearing in mind the charitable status of those institutions, and the fact that they are in receipt of large sums of public money and the proceeds of student indebtedness. If it manages to achieve that through reforming not only remuneration committees, but the general atmosphere and ethos around this, it will have done a good job and that will be an early indication that it will be a worthy successor to the Higher Education Funding Council.
The purpose of this debate was simply to discuss how we might restore some balance and confidence to this particular element of university finances. I fear that I have hardly ingratiated myself with senior university administrators. I hope very much that we will continue to remunerate appropriately these heads of our wonderful national institutions, but most can agree that pay for university vice-chancellors has become excessive and that, in the months and years ahead, we need to do something about it.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Robert Halfon and Andrew Murrison(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
T4. Iran’s position as the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism was highlighted once again in March when Israel intercepted the Gaza-bound Klos-C ship with a deadly cargo of advanced long-range rockets. What estimate has my hon. Friend made of Iran’s continued support for terrorism and the effect that that has on our security and strategic interests in the middle east?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Dr Andrew Murrison)
Iran’s known support for militant groups across the middle east remains cause for grave concern, and it rather undermines President Rouhani’s stated desire to improve Iran’s relations with its neighbours. The UK will continue to work with allies to ensure a suitable response to Iran’s destabilising activities.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Robert Halfon and Andrew Murrison(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
10. What recent assessment he has made of the security situation in the middle east; and if he will make a statement.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Dr Andrew Murrison)
Demands for greater political, social and economic participation continue in the middle east and north Africa. The situation in Syria continues to deteriorate and we are supporting efforts to deliver a political solution to the conflict. The UK also remains concerned over Iran’s nuclear programme and continues to work with other countries to achieve a diplomatic solution to Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. In short, we assess that the regional security situation is fragile.
Robert Halfon
General Sir David Richards is reported as being seriously concerned that Syria’s chemical weapons could soon be either used or lost into the hands of terrorists. Will my hon. Friend set out to the House the preparations made by NATO to prevent Assad’s use of chemical weapons?
Dr Murrison
We have made it perfectly clear to President Assad that the use of these dreadful weapons is absolutely unacceptable. We know where they are, we have defined and delineated them, and we have plans to deal with them in the event that the regime falls, as ultimately it must. We are also in talks with the country’s neighbours to ensure that these weapons do not find their way into the hands of third parties. We look forward to a more enlightened regime in Syria that has no use for biological and chemical warfare and that will comply with its international obligations.
Charging for Access to Parliament
Debate between Robert Halfon and Andrew Murrison(12 years, 9 months ago)
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Robert Halfon
My hon. Friend, who has been a friend for many years, is absolutely right. It is clearly not true to say that Big Ben is an adornment and is not part of our democracy. Moreover, those who claim that it is not part of our democracy and then say that we do not charge for tours elsewhere might ask themselves why we charge for tours during the summer and at weekends.
As I said, the proposal is unprecedented but creates a dangerous precedent. Now that this has been suggested., what will happen in a few years’ time when it is proposed to charge to go through Westminster Hall or to see the Royal Gallery? The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, the Leader of the House, the Speaker and so on will say that of course nothing like that would ever happen. I agree with them, in the sense that they are benign individuals, but who is to say that in future years there will not be such benign individuals and that these decisions will not be made?
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend accept that there is a clear distinction between viewing democracy in action here in the Chamber from the Gallery, and in Committee Rooms, and touring Big Ben? The tour is fascinating—one can see the mechanism of the clock and the little room in which MPs were incarcerated—but in no way is it central to our democracy, unlike viewing, and being able to be part of in some small way, what goes on in this Chamber and in Committee Rooms. There is clearly a distinction between the two.
Robert Halfon
That is where I have a fundamental disagreement with my hon. Friend and with people who believe that we should charge for visiting Big Ben. I believe that Big Ben is central to the whole of Parliament, and the symbol of Parliament. If one asks anybody what is the one symbol of Parliament in the United Kingdom and across the world, they will say it is Big Ben. It is completely wrong to say that it is just a separate tourist thing.
Robert Halfon
As my hon. Friend says, it is becoming a theme park. It is advertising itself for weddings, bar mitzvahs, engagement parties and big corporate entertainment shows. I have no problem with businesses coming here and having dinners at which particular issues are discussed. However, this is not a theme park. We should not be selling ourselves short to businesses and hiring ourselves out to them when ordinary people cannot come here. Businesses will inevitably be privileged over ordinary people. I am reminded of the parable of the moneylenders at the temple. Let us not become a place of moneylenders and be just about money, money, money; let us be the Parliament of the people, by the people, for the people.
Dr Murrison
On that rather churchy theme, does my hon. Friend not accept that people who want to pray in our great cathedrals do so, of course, free of charge, but that people who visit them as sightseers are invited to pay a fee? In a similar way, people who wish to participate in democracy here can view the proceedings, but if they want to be sightseers in the tower, they should perhaps be invited to contribute.
Robert Halfon
I have two points in answer to that. First, Parliament is part of our democracy and so is slightly different. Secondly, people who go to churches do not already pay for local churches through their taxes. We already pay for Parliament through taxation, so why should we be taxed again?
Finally, perhaps the House of Commons Commission could set up a foundation to look at the heritage of Big Ben and to keep Big Ben tours free. In the interests of that, I will make a pledge to the Chairman of the House of Commons Commission. Some Members will know that I have difficulties with my legs. I pledge to walk up Big Ben to raise money so that we can keep our Parliament free for all our citizens and to ensure that many people can come to see our greatest landmark for many years to come.