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Scott Report
32. Mr. Winnick: To ask the Attorney-General if he will make a statement on references in the Scott report to his official role.[14189]
The Attorney-General: As will be clear, I welcome the Scott report, which conclusively shows that there was no conspiracy to send innocent men to gaol. My role was to advise Ministers on the law of public interest immunity. I did so carefully, and strictly in accordance with the accepted view of the law as it then stood. Following my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister's request and the drafting of his special public interest immunity certificate, I took the exceptional course of calling in the prosecution team, who assured me that the prosecution was fair.
Mr. Winnick: Does the Attorney-General realise that he has not managed to persuade public opinion since the Scott report was published, and that he has not even managed to persuade some of his own Back Benchers,
who rightly take the view that out of honour he should resign? Has the Attorney-General not made the comparison between the way in which he pathetically clings to office and the way in which, five years ago this month, members of the armed forces reacted, as one would expect them to do, to Saddam's criminal aggression? They made no excuses. They acted honourably. It is a pity that the Attorney-General does not do the same.
The Attorney-General: I do not accept what the hon. Gentleman has said. I acted carefully and properly throughout. If there has been any distortion, it is in the material of which I have received a copy today and which, regrettably--indeed, lamentably--is being sent around by the hon. Gentleman's party.
Higher Education
3.32 pm
The Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mrs. Gillian Shephard): With permission, Madam Speaker, I should like to make a statement on higher education.
Just over 30 years ago, the Robbins committee set out a vision for expanding higher education in Great Britain. Since then, higher education has been transformed beyond the expectations even of Robbins. It no longer caters just for a privileged elite but provides opportunities for a significant proportion of our young people. In Robbins' day, just one young person in 17 went on to higher education. Now, the figure is approaching one in three.
Higher education no longer exists to educate just young people--predominantly young men--prior to their outset on a career for life, and there are as many female students as there are male students, and more mature than young entrants. In total, there are more than 1 million full-time students in the United Kingdom--five times as many as in Robbins' day. In addition, half a million people study part-time.
Much of this growth has taken place since 1988, as a result of independence for polytechnics and colleges, abolishing the binary line, and introducing more competitive funding. Thanks to those policies, higher education now provides more highly qualified people than ever before for the labour market.
The number of newly qualified graduates gaining first degrees each year in the United Kingdom has doubled since 1979, and more than a third of those are science, maths and engineering graduates. Our graduation rate is now one of the highest in Europe, second only to Denmark in the European Union, and the UK produces more science graduates relative to the young work force than any other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development country. By the year 2001, the number of graduates in the work force is likely to be well over3 million--twice as high as in 1981. It is not just academic qualifications to which higher education leads. More than 15 per cent. of those who have followed undergraduate courses leave with professional qualifications.
Impressive though those achievements are, future success requires universities and colleges to continue to develop, while preserving their best traditions. After such fast growth, it is time to take stock and to consider the future of higher education. That is why, just over a year ago, I launched a review of higher education with my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Scotland and for Wales and my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of Sate for Northern Ireland. We asked consumers as well as producers for their views.
Their responses paid tribute to higher education's continuing role in advancing understanding and learning, and in developing the powers of the mind. But they also emphasised the growing importance of higher education in securing our future competitiveness and economic growth. The global markets in which the UK has to compete have been transformed by an information revolution and other technological advances. Our economic success will increasingly depend on higher levels of knowledge, understanding and skills. Higher
education has a vital role to play. It can supply both young and mature people with those higher levels of skills and understanding, and the ability to adapt to changing knowledge.
Today's graduates face a world different from their predecessors'. They must be prepared for changes in the nature of work and the greater demands it makes. Increasingly, they will need to switch career more than once in their lifetime. We must ensure that they are equipped with the skills and flexibility needed by the labour market of the 21st century, both through initial education and through updating and upskilling throughout their lives. Higher education must be in the best shape possible to meet those needs.
As the pace of change quickens, there will be a greater premium on the capacity to innovate. The universities' contribution to the research base underpins the UK's ability to harness scientific and technological advances. It will become ever more important in enhancing wealth creation and our quality of life. Higher education can also help to drive local and regional regeneration through services to employers.
As the world around is changing, so too is higher education itself. Changes in institutional structures, modes of study and information technology are opening up opportunities to a broader range of students, both at home and abroad. Links with other parts of education and training are becoming more important, and boundaries are blurring. Higher education no longer needs to take place only inside a university or college. New technology enables more students to study in the workplace or from home.
Our consultations have made clear the extent of changes in both higher education itself and the context in which it operates. A huge and exciting agenda faces all of us with an interest in higher education. The scale of that agenda exceeds anything facing higher education since the early 1960s.
Thirty-five years ago--almost to the day--the then Prime Minister proposed the appointment of the Robbins committee to review higher education in Britain and advise on its development. The Robbins report provided a landmark for higher education policy that has stood the test of time well. But it is time to take a fresh and comprehensive look at the challenges facing higher education as we approach the 21st century.
So, with the agreement of the Prime Minister, my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Scotland and for Wales and my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and I intend to appointa committee of inquiry into higher education. [Interruption.] In carrying out its task, the committee will make appropriate arrangements to take account of the distinctive features of higher education in different parts of the UK. [Interruption.] I am delighted thatSir Ron Dearing has agreed to chair the committee.
We propose to invite the committee to make recommendations on how the shape, structure, size and funding of higher education, including support for students, should develop to meet the needs of the UK over the next 20 years. We shall supply the committee with the preparatory work that has already been undertaken in the education Departments as part of my review.
We shall consult widely on the committee's precise terms of reference and composition. I shall place a copy of the draft terms of reference and the consultation letter
in the Library. In due course, I shall make a further announcement on the committee's remit and membership in the light of the consultations. I expect the committee to start work after Easter, and to report by the summer of 1997. [Interruption.]
Mr. David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside):
Madam Speaker--[Interruption.]
Mr. Blunkett:
I am getting on with it, thank you. Hon. Members must not act like a rabble.
May I take the unusual step of welcoming the statement, and commending the Secretary of State for her approach to the national inquiry? The public are heartily sick and tired of the knockabout politics that characterises so much of our public debate. It is in marked contrast to the antics of last week, therefore, that the Secretary of State has been prepared to offer a bipartisan national approach to the important long-term question of the part that further and higher education can play in the economic and social future of the United Kingdom. It is in that spirit that I welcome the inquiry.
Will the Secretary of State confirm her willingness to continue her approach to seeking solutions that will build agreement, in the same way as the Robbins committee built agreement and facilitated a way forward more than30 years ago? I welcome the appointment of Sir Ron Dearing. Will she confirm that the approach that she adopted in developing the terms of reference with me will be carried forward into developing the membership of the inquiry? Will she lay to rest the belief that the inquiry will be a short-term fix? Will she rather confirm that it will be a long-term look at the needs of the United Kingdom for the next two decades?
Does the Secretary of State agree that we now have an opportunity to build on the four key principles of Robbins by adding to them--in this European Year of Lifelong Learning--commitments to lifelong learning for everyone, to the value of further and higher education to the economic and social well-being of each individual and to the nation as a whole, and to placing quality, equity and access at the very forefront of our deliberations?
Does the Secretary of State agree that we have a choice as a nation as to whether we are a low-wage, low-tech, low-added-value economy, or whether we build on the knowledge base that is possible in the decades ahead to produce a high-tech, high-wage, high-added-value Britain that can compete at the cutting edge of the global economy?
Will the Secretary of State confirm that the way in which we proceed with the inquiry in terms of Britain's future needs in the global economy will determine whether our people have jobs that are built on the knowledge base and innovation that higher education offers the United Kingdom of the future, or whether we merely fill existing jobs? Does she agree that we must use higher education to foster enterprise and innovation, so that higher education itself can help to create employment, rather than simply fill the job market?
Will the Secretary of State confirm that the humanities, arts and social sciences--as well as technology and science--will have a key role in the new economy of the
future not only in offering opportunities to individuals, but in opening up opportunities world wide for our industry and commerce? Does she agree that equity and access for all capable of benefiting from it require actions to alleviate student poverty and parental worry and that, in seeking a way forward, no one should be precluded from entering higher education because of their income or background? Does she agree that, while the future is the responsibility of all of us--the Labour party is ready and willing to take up that challenge--the responsibility for the current crisis rests with the actions of the Government?
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