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2 Apr 2003 : Column 1040—continued

8.2 pm

Mr. David Lepper (Brighton, Pavilion): I present a petition signed by 4,648 residents of the city of Brighton and Hove who are concerned about the implications for their community pharmacies of the Office of Fair Trading report.

The petition states:


To lie upon the Table.

8.3 pm

Chris Grayling (Epsom and Ewell): I think that the residents of Epsom and Ewell just about win the battle tonight. I have here more than 5,000 signatures, once again in support of community pharmacies. It is an indication of the strength of feeling in the country tonight that so many of the petitions before you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and before the House deal with this extremely important subject. They do so because so many residents in all our constituencies are both aware of the importance of their community pharmacies and determined to ensure that the service that they provide is preserved for those who need them today and those who will need them in future.

The petition states:


To lie upon the Table.

2 Apr 2003 : Column 1041

Higher Education (Plymouth)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Ainger.]

8.5 pm

Linda Gilroy (Plymouth, Sutton): I am very pleased to have secured a debate on this important topic at a time when the consultation on the White Paper on the future of higher education is nearing its conclusion. The White Paper is set to affect many of my constituents—whether students, their parents or staff—and those of my neighbour, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Mr. Jamieson).

In launching the White Paper, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Skills paid great tribute to the success story of our universities. I join him in acknowledging that success, particularly that of Plymouth university. I welcome the publication of the White Paper and the boldness with which my right hon. Friend has set out an agenda to address what he calls the great missions, describing them as strengthening and improving our research and development, knowledge transfer and, perhaps most importantly, teaching.

Nowhere is that agenda of greater importance or better appreciated than in Plymouth. We need to provide university activity in a dynamic and increasingly competitive world—a world where we need to do much more to harness our knowledge to the process of creating wealth and to extend the opportunities of higher education to all, irrespective of their personal and economic backgrounds.

From a low and unfunded research base in 1989, Plymouth, which became a university in 1992, now has a research and consultancy turnover of more than £11 million. More than half of its research activity is rated at international and/or national standard across a wide spectrum of technology, science, social science and the arts. Seventeen subject areas have been assessed for teaching quality, yielding an average mark of almost 90 per cent.

Student numbers have grown from 6,000 to 27,000—16,000 of those are full-time, with nearly 500 PhD students. Staff numbers in the same period have grown by only 50 per cent. to 3,000, reflecting not only high productivity gains, but substantial pressures on staff. I welcome the recognition in the White Paper that achieving better conditions for staff—whose pay has increased in real terms by only 5 per cent., while average pay in the community has increased by some 45 per cent.—has an important part to play in improving the quality of teaching to which the White Paper aspires.

That growth in activity has been accompanied by developing partnership work with 17 further education colleges, with 4,500 higher education students funded through the university in those colleges. Links with industry and commerce are now embedded in a variety of ways—for example, through 30 teaching company schemes, funded by the Department of Trade and Industry, as well as competitively funded initiatives, such as "reach out to business" and "community rural access training", run by RATIO—Rural Area Training and Information Opportunities—and the university's consultancy company. Together, that amounts to business worth well over £50 million since 1989.

2 Apr 2003 : Column 1042

Together with Exeter university and local NHS trusts, the university successfully bid to establish the Peninsula medical school, which is one of the first new medical schools for 30 years. It admitted its first students in 2002 and is already making a substantial name for itself.

That substantial record of achievement marked the success of the 13-year tenure of Professor John Bull as vice-chancellor of the university, and Victor Parsons as chairman, both of whom relinquished their posts in 2002, thereby giving the university the opportunity to recruit a new vice-chancellor. They set out to look for someone who could help the university to make a further transformational leap forward and, through developing its research and technology, to become the dynamic engine house of the sub-regional economy in Devon and Cornwall. Cornwall has objective 1 status and Plymouth has objective 2 status. Large parts of Torbay and north Devon also have that status, reflecting poverty in the sub-region.

The university has been fortunate to find Professor Roland Levinsky, the first vice-chancellor of a new university to come from one of the elite Russell Group research universities. He has a long and successful track record in medical research, and he was described to me by a colleague who knows more about these matters than I do as someone for whom almost any university would give its eye teeth.

When I went to meet Professor Levinsky during the week in which the White Paper was published, I expected to face some challenges about how student fee proposals might affect the development of our university. I shall return to that matter towards the end of my remarks. However, I was met—on reflection, I understand this—with much greater concern about the proposals to concentrate research funding in a few universities, and the impact that that will have on the aspirations of the University of Plymouth.

The fear is that funding research in elite universities at the 2001 research assessment exercise snapshot level will maintain the status quo for a long time to come and, on the worst-case scenario, perhaps for ever.

Writing to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, Professor Levinsky said:


My region, especially the sub-region, needs that more than almost anywhere.

Paragraph 2.7 of the White Paper sets out the Government's position that there is apparently no direct relationship between research and teaching quality. It states:


That may be true in certain areas—perhaps, for example, undergraduate mathematics—but in areas where the technology, methods and codes of practice are fast evolving, high-quality teaching will not be achieved

2 Apr 2003 : Column 1043

where research to attainable national excellence levels does not exist. I would argue that these areas include disciplines such as engineering, medicine, health and allied studies, as well as environmental sciences, all of which happen to be key activities at the University of Plymouth. They are complementary to the economic development priorities that have been identified by the South West of England Development Agency.

I understand that the professional accreditation of such degrees includes explicit linkages between research, teaching and professional practice. Such departments are often teaching intensive, to further the Government's aims to widen participation and to provide the technologically literate work force that modern society demands. The proposals in the White Paper require careful consideration if, as some fear, they set in tablets of stone the significant reduction of the research resource resulting from RAE 4—the research assessment exercise for rated departments—bearing in mind the fact that there was a 43 per cent. reduction in allocations between 2001–02 and 2003–04. That is particularly relevant to institutions such as the Plymouth university, where the research trajectory is strongly upwards. I have described how, over the past 10 years, Plymouth has developed from a polytechnic into one of the most successful modern universities.

The University of Plymouth is understandably concerned about the apparent vision in the White Paper that universities such as Plymouth should become teaching-only institutions with some regional involvement, perhaps, in the delivery of business skills and the transfer of technologies that have, however, been developed elsewhere. If the Government are serious about promoting a regional agenda that regards regional development agencies as the engine of national as well as regional growth, they must surely support research on a regional basis, particularly, as I have already mentioned, because we have objective 1 status in Cornwall—my hon. Friend the Minister for Lifelong Learning and Higher Education is visiting the county today, and will see for herself what is being done—and objective 2 status in Plymouth and Devon. We have a significant gap to make up, and being at the cutting edge of research and development is one of the visions that our RDA must help us to achieve.

I want to mention two specific examples from Plymouth, which show the importance of considering carefully the consequences of the White Paper proposals. First, on environmental sciences, the most recent RAE exercise resulted in only four 5-rated departments in the whole country. If RAE grade 4 Departments in environmental science are not funded, the UK will throw away some of the best environmental science in the country—Plymouth, which has a grade 4, is the seventh-best department in the UK—leaving only two universities doing environmental science research, including one doing meteorology, which is a narrow focus.

Secondly, Plymouth has one of the eight new medical schools, which, because of the point at which they were formed during the RAE cycle, did not have research staff to put forward for assessment. Because of the way in which that cycle and the comprehensive spending review work, the fear is that it may be 2008 before any revenue funding for research comes on stream for medical faculties. In most people's view, medical

2 Apr 2003 : Column 1044

education needs to be conducted in a research-rich environment. In addition, the significant contribution that the Tamar science park is making to economic regeneration in our city, could, it is feared, slow down as a result of the emerging deficit in research funding. A vicious circle may result if it then becomes less easy to attract and retain the best clinical academic staff, with a consequent impact on the quality of teaching.

Finally, I want to deal with the perceived impact of student fees and finance. As the Minister knows, there is general concern that increasing levels of student debt will result in more people turning to locally provided higher education, particularly as students from debt-averse, low-income families will inevitably choose the lowest-cost option. If, alongside that, the fears that I have outlined of a teaching-only university are realised, students from the peninsula could have less access to high-quality higher education than they do at present or indeed than their counterparts elsewhere. I hope that my hon. Friend will offer some reassurance about those matters. Plymouth university has a wealth of experience in raising standards through good practice in the research-teaching nexus, and in achieving high-quality access, for which it has been praised by the Audit Commission.

This is an age when education, knowledge and skill are likely to become a powerful determinant of the ability of individuals and their communities to meet their full potential—as powerful a determinant as money. It is a period when regional policy is supposed to improve economic performance in each and every region, and thereby contribute to the overall economic performance of UK plc. If we are to


my hon. Friend will recognise that quote from clause 4 of the Labour party constitution—it is important that we take the opportunity offered by the Government's White Paper to set a course for the higher education community in Plymouth, as well as in some of our longer-established university cities, which truly achieves those "great missions" that the Secretary of State clearly wants to see.

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