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Mr. Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield): Disgraceful.
Dr. Lewis: I apologise to my hon. Friend for not having noticed his presence and support until his timely intervention. As he rightly said, the proceedings were indeed disgraceful. By those means, Miss Whelan was ousted from the presidency of the Oxford Brookes student union.
In the few moments remaining to me, I shall state what happened when I became involved in the matter. After Margaret Whelan had been through the complaints procedure, a report eventually came from the independent person who had been appointed to consider the case. That gentleman was Mr. Guy Whalley, who is a retired lawyer, a former senior partner in the London law firm of Freshfields, chair of the governing body of the Royal Academy of Music and chair of the medical services committee of a local health authority. When Mr. Whalley provided his report, it was covered by a letter marked "in strictest confidence". The letter said:
Finally, I sent a series of 25 questions to Mr. Summers at Oxford Brookes university, having had a long telephone conversation with him, to give him an opportunity to respond, just as Mr. Whalley was given an opportunity to respond. I hope that I have done justice to Mr. Whalley's response in the very brief time available to me. The university's response was, to put it mildly, disappointing. For example, it said:
In this little David-and-Goliath battle, we have had arrayed on one side a caucus of student hacks, a distinguished board of university governors and an eminent independent person. Ranged against all of them was a 20-year-old recently orphaned undergraduate whose sole offence was fairly and squarely to win an election in a campus-wide democratic ballot. All of those whom I have mentioned succeeded between them in depriving her of her presidency; but, in my opinion, she succeeded in putting all of them to shame.
Mr. Winterton:
They ought to be ashamed of themselves.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mr. George Mudie):
I join the hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) in wishing the young lady a very long and happy wedding.
Mr. Mudie:
Wedding is the same as marriage.
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me a brief opportunity to reply to a debate on the importance of student unions, their conduct and accountability, and the mechanism for independent consideration and complaints against them. I am also pleased to place on record the courtesy with which he approached my office to inform me of the basis of the debate.
I expect the hon. Gentleman to accept that there is no way that I would intervene in a specific case. Although he feels very strongly about an individual case, which may be appropriate, it has been dealt with through agreed procedures under an Act that was passed by the previous Government. What matters is not the individual case but the questions of principle that it raises. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will understand that, given the time, I shall attempt to answer the five general questions that he raised concerning the young lady. I have a long spiel, but very little time to give it, so I shall go straight to the reforms introduced by the Education Act 1994, which govern the election of officers to student unions.
Student reforms passed under the 1994 Act had the support of the House. Their stated aims were to secure choice, fairness and accountability in student unions.
As the hon. Gentleman knows, one of the key reforms of the 1994 Act was to give students the right to opt out of student union membership if they so wished. As he will know, very few students take up that option. Student unions are also required to hold referendums to decide whether to continue to be affiliated to the National Union of Students. Again, the Act does not seem to be persuading student unions not to become affiliated to the NUS. Time after time, students vote overwhelmingly to remain affiliated.
The 1994 Act introduced other reforms that specifically govern some of the matters touched on by the hon. Gentleman--elections to the offices of student unions, their conduct and the procedure for dealing with complaints against them. First, each student union must have a written constitution, which must be agreed by the university's governing body, and it must act in accordance with it. All elections to a major student union office must be carried out by secret ballot, in which all union members are allowed to vote. Each institution where there is a student union covered by the 1994 Act must have a framework, governed by a code of practice, for considering promptly and fairly any complaint about the conduct of the student union. That includes the right to have a complaint investigated by an "independent person".
It is now nearly five years since the 1994 Act came into force, and we are not aware of any significant problems in its operation. The provisions that became the 1994 Act were, of course, fully debated in both Houses. During the Bill's passage, several amendments were made by the then Government. For example, a proposal in the Bill that governing bodies must have regard to written guidance from the Secretary of State for Education when preparing their codes of practice--something that the hon. Gentleman might find attractive now--was specifically dropped by the then Government. That would have allowed the Secretary of State to intervene or give guidance on the preparation of codes of practice for the conduct of student unions.
The proposal that complaints about the actions of a student union should be considered by an independent person--rather than the institution's own governing
body--was introduced by a Government amendment. The Government spokesman in the other place added the provision of an "independent person" to the Bill during the House of Lords Committee debate, to give students the confidence that they would be dealt with fairly. It is clear that the provisions of the 1994 Act were carefully considered by both Houses during debate and tightened up, to avoid any potential loopholes, by amendments by the then Government.
The current framework is designed to ensure fairness, transparency and an independent mechanism by which a student can seek redress. First, all elections to major student union offices must be carried out by secret ballot. The student union must have and follow a written constitution, and follow the institution's governing body's code of practice on its conduct. That must be regularly revised. After a suitable period had passed, the 1994 Act was revised. As a result of that revision, students must be informed about the requirements of the code of practice at least once a year.
Individual students or groups of students who opt out of the union--as is their right--are protected from discrimination by the unions.
An aggrieved student has the right to complain to an independent person, who reports to the governing body on the complaint. The 1994 Act requires the governing body to deal with complaints promptly and fairly, and to provide an effective remedy where a complaint is upheld.
"The Report is submitted on the basis that it is strictly confidential to the members of the Board and will not be shown to any other party (including the Complainant). My reason for requesting confidentiality in this way is that the Report does contain sensitive material which, if vouchsafed to a wider audience, could create difficulty, particularly if you and your colleagues decided not to accept any of the Report's recommendations. At some point, however, a summary of the conclusions accepted by the Board will have to be given to the Union and the Complainant."
I have spoken to Mr. Whalley about that, and in his defence he points out that his terms of reference did not mention the 1994 Act. He was asked to report to the university, and only the university, and rightly or wrongly he decided that that was where his obligation lay. It must be said that in none of the internal inquiries into the complaints or the terms of reference as stated to the external independent person was any reference made to the existence of the 1994 Act and its provisions for a complaints procedure.
"Your point is that the Board reviewed the Students' Union Constitution in 1994 and identified some elements which might benefit from review, however, it was some time before any changes took place."
Well, one could call four years' continuation of an illegal constitution--four years following the union's identification of what needed to be done to its constitution to make it legal--some time. The letter continued:
"While it is difficult to accurately account"--
that is a nice split infinitive--
"for delays so many years on, these were in part occasioned by a genuine desire on the part of the Union to be thorough in redrafting and the need to secure the support of a quorate general meeting for
12 Jul 1999 : Column 144any changes . . . The Board had noted that the power of the general meeting to overturn the decisions of a Returning Officer in an election might not be satisfactory, but it had not considered that the removal of an officer by a general meeting required amendment."
The truth of the matter was, as Mr. Summers had revealed to me in his telephone conversation, that the board had actually approved the recommendations of his own memorandum--BG94/101--but the union had refused to go along with it and left the whole process in suspension for four years.
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