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Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We must move to the next debate.
Oxford and Cambridge College Fees
11 am
Dr. Evan Harris (Oxford, West and Abingdon): A story runs that only in Oxford would one hear a snatched conversation between two people walking down the street, in which one is saying to the other, "And ninthly." The House will be pleased to know that, although I have a number of points to make, I shall not tax its patience or my numeracy by matching that caricature.
I should begin by making clear what I shall not be speaking about. I shall not be claiming that Oxford and Cambridge are the only two excellent universities. Indeed, I would mention that, in many of our leading universities, departments across a range of subjects rival and even exceed the quality found in Oxford and Cambridge. I hope that Members will not spend time this morning arguing that point, which I think has already been conceded.
This debate allows discussion on how we can improve access to excellence in teaching and research. It does not concern privilege or elitism in any sense other than we would wish to help to produce an academic elite just as we would artistic, cultural and sporting innovators and leaders. There is no reason why the term "elite" should be one of abuse, providing that there are opportunities for all members of society with the right gifts and talents to access the means by which they may excel.
Mr. Robert Jackson (Wantage):
Will the hon. Gentleman spell out to the Government the limited range of practical steps for many colleges if the fee that the Government pay is abolished or substantially reduced and if they are not allowed to resume the charging of private fees? As he will point out, such options are stark. Colleges could close, they could scale down their activities to the level that their endowment and university-derived income provides, or they could substantially increase the number of full fee-paying overseas students. Does he agree that the Government would be well advised to cut out egalitarian dogma and focus on practical implications?
Dr. Harris:
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. Although I shall not necessarily imply that I believe that that is what the Government are doing, I shall turn to some of the options for universities if they are faced with a cut in income of any kind, specifically the potential cut in college-fee income. Access is at the heart of the debate, and I shall return to it later.
The current review is being conducted because the Dearing report said that any funding differentials between different educational establishments should be reviewed with a view to maintaining higher levels of investment only if there is an improved difference in provision and if the state, through the Department for Education and Employment, decides that it is a good use of resources. The review is therefore welcome because it is an opportunity for Oxford and Cambridge universities to justify their additional funding.
It is right, as Lord Plant said last week in another place, that any differential funding by the state be the subject of proper scrutiny. It must be publicly justified and periodically reviewed. The review provides an opportunity to show value for money and to re-energise universities' efforts to expand access.
We must remember that the Government and parliamentarians share an interest in ensuring that nothing said here will deter state-school applicants of appropriate merit from applying to Oxford and Cambridge universities. There is a great problem with image; it is an outdated one which portrays them as caricatures and as stereotypes in the media. We must ensure that any comments that we make today can be used by people who wish to see the excellence offered at Oxford and Cambridge and other universities open to state-school applicants.
Today's debate, and the review which prompted my request for House of Commons' time to discuss it, provides a valuable opportunity to debunk the Oxbridge myths. I was educated in a Liverpool state school and trained in medicine at Oxford university so that I could go on to a career in public service--the health service initially. I am therefore anxious to eliminate the myth of Brideshead-style privilege. Broadening access and encouraging the most able from all backgrounds to apply and undergo the, albeit rigorous, selection procedures is a job for the two universities, in co-operation with the Government.
Some people will always be attracted to Oxbridge for what we might call the wrong reasons, but I am concerned with the substance rather than the fluff of what it produces. We must deprecate the fact that the press do not publish pictures of people in formal academic dress at other universities which have the same or similar ceremonies to those at Oxford and Cambridge and approximately the same number of annual occasions. I want to move away from the associated image of gilded youth and dreaming spires.
The Government are right to be taking advice and seeking information from various sources, including the Higher Education Funding Council for England, which has been asked to give a view. We should, however, remember that the funding council has a relatively narrow remit to look only at funding issues, and then only within its terms of operation, which is generally to even out funding. The Government must not allow any reduction in funding to be implemented without proper consideration of Oxbridge's place and role in what the Prime Minister likes to call "the big picture".
Our secondary education system is severely damaged. The state sector achieves relatively poor results compared with private and grammar schools. People have made great play of the apparent wider access to universities in former days, but that was of course before the huge expansion in private secondary school education over past decades, when grammar schools moved into the private sector.
We have also seen a huge expansion in the number of assisted places. The figures that Oxbridge collects--the only universities to publish them--will include people who, in the 1960s, would have attended state grammar schools and who come from all backgrounds, especially lower socio-economic groups. We must remember that, until recently, such people did not progress through assisted places.
Problems with access--the ratio of state to privately educated students at Oxford and Cambridge is approximately 50:50--together with the British tendency
to associate the word "elite" with class privilege, has skewed our perceptions of excellence in higher education. The French have no problem with the concept of an elite, and pour far more money than we do into students who attend the top higher education institutions--the grandes ecoles. Since the French have a totally egalitarian state secondary school system that works, their elite is meritocratic. We need to move more quickly toward that ideal, as I am sure the Government would agree, by broadening access to the best institutions and not by homogenising or levelling down.
The Government have spoken of their commitment to excellence in, for example, their intention to create centres of excellence and special training facilities for tomorrow's sporting heroes. I hope that they can work with Oxford and Cambridge to ensure that those two training grounds for exceptional academic ability continue to lead the world and draw on all British talents.
Oxford and Cambridge are world-class institutions, in the top 10 on any measure of merit, and unique in Europe for being able to compete with and match the standards of the great American universities in both teaching and research across a broad subject range. Alone in Europe, Oxford and Cambridge can compete with Harvard, MIT, Columbia, Yale, Princeton, Chicago and California. Penicillin was discovered in an Oxford laboratory and DNA in a Cambridge physics department. I am pleased to see the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mrs. Campbell) is present, and look forward to her contribution to the debate.
Through their work, the universities indirectly contribute to the standing of this country in arts and science, and of course to the work of other universities in cross-fertilisation of ideas and personnel. Of the university professors listed in "Who's Who", a majority have been through Oxford or Cambridge--especially for an early part of their research career.
The extra college fee income must be seen to be used to maintain quality, not for other purposes. That extra fee income is used by Oxford and Cambridge to provide a unique teaching system and extensive research capabilities, all in the context of a collegiate structure.
Mr. Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield):
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the extra resources would be more acceptable if the price extracted for them was wider availability for ordinary bright children to go to Oxford and Cambridge?
Dr. Harris:
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point, which I shall deal with later. It is at the nub of the argument. The fee will not be perceived as value for money unless it is used to provide wider access to Oxford and Cambridge for all socio-economic groups than applies at present. The funding is used to deliver excellence and quality in the collegiate system. I do not claim that one-to-one tutorials are the norm or the only way of teaching, but the collegiate structure and the community of learning make those places different and contribute to the excellence that is provided.
Dearing specified that there should be diversity in Britain's higher education. Oxbridge offers unique features that must not be sacrificed on the altar of a fallacious definition of equality. The Dearing report says:
It is not strictly correct to say that the argument is about undergraduate teaching alone. Lord Plant, from the Labour Benches in another place, has said that research in Oxford and Cambridge is embedded in a collegiate structure which is bound to be more expensive and will not survive if college fees disappear. Colleges fund research fellowships, junior research fellowships, graduate studentships and graduate scholarships from their income.
The college system is not the only way to achieve that or a template that all must follow, but where it exists there are additional benefits that compensate for additional costs. The Oxford and Cambridge college system is a fact of life that cannot be uninvented, even if it is a model that other universities would prefer not to, or could not afford to, follow.
The £35 million that goes to Oxbridge in college fees gives good value for money, helping to maintain those pre-eminent institutions and their teaching and research strengths. The money does not come from the HEFCE pool, so it is not taken directly from other universities. It is a separate item in the budget of the Department for Education and Employment, used to compensate local education authorities for paying the fees that students used to pay. The HEFCE general budget gets a clawback.
There is a danger that, if the fee were reduced, the Government would not automatically allocate the money to other universities without taking a decision to do so. While I join the Government in lamenting the drop in unit resource in universities over the years and I recognise that there is chronic underfunding in the higher education system, I do not think that they would argue that such a simplistic measure would solve all the problems facing higher education.
It is sad that so much is said about funding that is deleterious, looking at what some colleges have and saying that they should not have it simply because other universities do not. Some have said in another place that it would be no bad thing if Oxford and Cambridge colleges were to close. Such comments are unwelcome in this debate.
Academic salaries in Oxford are as low as those anywhere else in the sector. Without the senior lecturer grade that exists in other universities, many age equivalents are less well remunerated. It is sad that hon. Members may have to be reminded that college members pay from their salary for any wine that is supposedly consumed in large quantities in the colleges. I hope that we shall hear no more such nonsense and stereotypes.
There is no pot of gold on which colleges can draw to keep afloat. They cannot compensate for the withdrawal of college fees by selling their assets, as recent press coverage has suggested. Some colleges have valuable assets, but every penny earned from those assets, endowments and funds is spent on teaching research and the upkeep of libraries, laboratories and college buildings, often of great heritage value.
Christ Church in Oxford is not poor, but it funds, among other things, 16 junior research fellowships and looks after the 12th-century cathedral for the city and the nation with part of its income. The Cambridge equivalent is the King's college chapel.
"We do not believe that students in the future will see themselves simply as customers of higher education but as members of a learning community."
19 Nov 1997 : Column 263
Oxbridge has cross-subject communities. That experience should be held up as an ideal. Those who sit on the Labour Benches in another place have said that, from teaching in other universities and consulting universities abroad, they have found that Oxford and Cambridge are a model on which many institutions abroad base their teaching methods.
College-based university life provides unique opportunities to interface between disciplines, which leads to unusual and exceptional achievements. The discovery of DNA was a biology problem solved in the physics department at Cambridge. If Britain loses a precious asset such as Cambridge science--there is great fear and danger that, should the fee be reduced--Microsoft's recent valuable inward investment package may not be repeated. Indeed, the standing of British universities may never recover.
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