Select Committee on Education and Skills Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witness (Questions 760-779)

WEDNESDAY 19 MARCH 2003

RT HON MR CHARLES CLARKE

  760. But it is a vested interest.
  (Mr Clarke) Yes, it is.

Mr Jackson

  761. On this, you talk about managing the transition. This is a transition that began about 14 years ago when we first introduced student loans and I speak with authority here having been responsible for that. Indeed, I can claim authorship for the zero real interest rate for student loans. If I ask myself what difference there is between the Secretary of State's account and his decision to maintain it and the factors that affected us when we decided to introduce it, there does not seem to be any more science in it now than there was then. It is seat of the pants, political hunch and what we need to do to keep the wolves at bay as we undertake this process. The fact of the matter is that of course it is politically controversial. I remember the standing committee on the Student Loan Bill dealing with Mr Will Straw's father who was leading for the opposition and all sorts of extraordinary claims were made about the effect of introducing student loans. The fact is that the introduction of student loans has been followed, I am not saying post hoc ergo propter hoc, by an enormous expansion of higher education and a huge increase in the demand for it. The issue here is really, in economic terms, that of a demand curve: If you put up the price, what is the effect on demand differentially by social class? It is actually quite an empirical sort of question. We can now look at 14 years' experience in this country—of which of course we did not have the benefit in 1989; we can look at the experience of other countries, the United States and Japan, which have long had variable commercial interest rates in their student loan systems. What, scientifically considered, are the actual demand curve effects of increasing price to the customer of higher education? I suggest the time has come for that study to be made by government, so that it is no longer just a question of putting up a finger in the wind or flying by the seat of the pants in considering what the different political pressures are. Might I urge the Secretary of State to undertake, alongside this longstanding practice of looking at student budgets, a serious scientific study of the demand curve differentiated by social class as you increase the price for higher education, because I think that could inform better decisions on the point made by the Chairman about the zero interest rate, the very good point made by Mr Shaw about the balance of subsidy between student maintenance and fees.

Chairman

  762. Mr Jackson is asking, is he not, for evidence-based policy?
  (Mr Clarke) Obviously, with this Government, the seat-of-pants and political-hunch decision taking is of a far higher quality than that of any previous government in the move forward on these things! I am prepared to look at the research work that Mr Jackson has suggested. I think it is a good idea. There is a tenure in the Committee, Mr Sheerman, if I may put it like this, which I should welcome, that we should be more involved and radical than we have been in the White Paper. If this is the report of this Committee, that would be very interesting indeed, because I do think quite seriously that this is an area which needs involved and radical policies, but the question of how far to go is very much a question of political judgment on many of these questions. I think the political judgment remains just about right. If the Committee is of the view that actually we should be more involved and more radical, I would be very interested to see what is said. I am not hostile to it and I understand the points that are being made, but do not underestimate, if I may advise the Committee, the responsibility to look at how any changes are actually put into effect and what the impact of those changes is on the existing university system and how it operates. I think that is quite an interesting point. You, Mr Sheerman, highlighted the approach of some of those with vested interests in higher education and the evidence they have given to this Committee and I have to say it is not untypical. They are not being unrepresentative of their members, if I may put it like that. My argument for many student governments, for example, is a familiar one to advocates of New Labour, that you have rights but you have responsibilities. That is not always the most popular message in some of the gatherings that we make or it is the wrong message, but it means that how you carry it through is an interesting political challenge.

  Chairman: Thank you for that. I want to move on to research.

Jonathan Shaw

  763. Secretary of State, the Chairman referred to the £30 million snatch from level 4 being distributed to 5*, which we presume will be the new 6*. This was done as a directive from yourself to HEFCE. Yesterday, in an adjournment debate, I asked the Minister about this and she said, "I have often said in the Chamber and here that the last RAE determined the distribution of quality to a peer review exercise. It was never supposed nor intended that it should determine a distribution of resources." That is a bit disingenuous, is it not? Did people not think with this exercise that quality and resources went hand in hand? This sounds like a dodgy finance deal: "Read the small print" and the small print says that we can amend and change and do anything we like at any time. Is this the way to carry on? Is this the way to treat our institutions?
  (Mr Clarke) I think there is a lot of relatively extreme discussion on this actually. Let me see where to start in this discussion. I think it is important that everybody should look at what really is talked about and how the whole situation is. We are talking about increasing the spending on science and research in 2005-06, increasing it by £1.25 billion over 2002-03. That is a pretty substantial figure as an increase, compared to the £30 million to which you have referred. What are we saying? There is a couple of canards which I would like to take this opportunity to knock on the head. Canard number one is that we are trying to cut all research level 4 funding. That is not true and we are not about that. We have said that we believe that over a period of time we should be looking at all 3as and 4s and asking: Are they optimistic, and do they have plans to get to 5, 5* or even 6, or are they not? I think that is a perfectly legitimate question for us to raise. That is not the same thing as cutting out all 4s. It has been widely represented in the university sector that we are about cutting out all 4s—I do not know about you, you have been very straightforward with me, Mr Shaw, but in the university sector—which is why we want to place on record that that is not our approach. We do say that with 4s, 3as and other areas we have to look to the future as to how it is going to develop. Secondly, the money has been taken out of the 4s by HEFCE because of this process. I honestly believe that the level of resource that has been taken out, the £30 million you have described, is not absurd in the context of this year and we will have a process of looking at how we can take it further forward in the future according to the criteria I have just set. Is it naive to talk about our aims in relationship to funding? All I would say—and I came new to this job at the end of October—is that many universities have said to me that the RAE had been a major driver of their institutional mission and policy over the past period since the RAE was established. In some cases they were for it and in other cases they are doubtful about it. I personally think it is quite a good thing as far as research funding that it is the case, but one of my concerns was that we had too much of a focus on RAE funding and on research funding, and not enough on teaching and knowledge transfer funding, so we have the other areas to move forward. But I really think there is a lot of exaggerated talk in this area.[3]

  764. I hear those issues about the redistribution and the effect that that has upon institutions, but what I am asking you about this morning is the process that the Department has gone through and the way you have behaved. That is the issue. If you then complain that people are responding or reacting in an inappropriate way, is it not fair to say that perhaps it is the Department's fault? Between 1996 and 2001, the Research Assessment Exercise, quality and finance went hand in hand, and, for all intents and purposes, it went hand in hand from 2001. Then, two years after, you are saying, in dodgy small print, "Ah, sorry, we have an amendment here." Is it not reasonable for people to complain?
  (Mr Clarke) It is always reasonable for people to complain and in many ways we deal with complaint the whole time in the way that we operate. I expect people to complain, as it were. But let me just say how we approach this, because I do not think the complaint you are reflecting is a fair complaint. We went about the process of creating the HE White Paper. In so doing, you might be aware, we published on the website and elsewhere a series of discussions about where we might go. I speculated in a number of meetings about how we might deal with research, I speculated about the idea of removing post-graduate degree awarding status from certain institutions, I speculated about funding 4s and 3(a)s at significantly different levels from what we have. Why do I have that speculation? Because I think it is good that government debates these questions in a relatively open way with the people. I could produce the back-pocket solution and say, "Here it is" but I do not think that is the right way to make policy. In all these areas, we considered what was being said and we then came out with the proposal which was in the White Paper, which did not go down some of those courses about which I had speculated earlier on. I do not think it is unreasonable for people to say, "Let's look at what the White Paper actually says and what the HEFCE letter, published on the same day, actually says" rather than saying that some particular point beforehand is what is going on. I have taken the opportunity in our current review and in conferences we are having up and down the country—I was at the first one, in Newcastle, Tuesday a week ago—specifically to address this point because it was raised with me by a number of vice-chancellors, who said, "It is widely believed in the sector that they want to cut all 4 funding." I simply say that is not true. That is not what is said in the White Paper; it is not what we are doing. It is true that we want, over a period of time, to assure ourselves that 3(a)s and 4s have the aspiration in their universities and departments to try to go for a higher level of funding in terms of world-class research than would otherwise be the case—which I do not think is unreasonable. I just say have the discussion on the basis of where it is. If one were to say that this was badly handled by the Department, in the sense that we had a debate about the White Paper before we published the White Paper, I would reject the charge, because I think that it was necessary to have such a debate.

  765. The message out there, as the Chairman always says, "the word on the street," is that to stay alive you have to be a level 5. People are turning down posts. I know of one university in my constituency where people are turning down posts in the research departments because they are not level 5s and other research departments are having to make people redundant. We have a White Paper here, not the Bill, and you are taking a great deal of time to go up and down the country and visit this Committee and many others to talk about student finance and the access regulator, which you say you have not reached a decision about, but it seems to me that you are acting already, ploughing ahead, when it comes to research. Is that not reason for people to feel aggrieved?
  (Mr Clarke) I do not really accept this actually. I understand what you are saying and I understand that you are accurately describing what some people do feel, but I think we have been very straightforward from the outset. I think the research chapter of the White Paper is as clear as it could be about the need for collaboration and the need for concentration of research and the need to focus on world-class research and the need to be rigorous in looking at the research that is currently done in universities. You can say,"That is OK, but don't do it now," but I do not think it is being done very acutely now. As I say, I think the £30 million reduction in 4s is not a dramatic, dramatic change. The question that is fundamental is: Are we in favour of looking rigorously at what research is done in British universities now? I would slightly vary, Mr Shaw, the wording that you use. I would not say it is the case that the research that we will fund in the future is all level 5 or above, but I would say that the research the Government will be looking to fund in the future is 5 or aspiring 5 (if I may put it like that) and above, in the whole approach as far as world-class research is concerned. There is other research within the knowledge transfer category and so on which is a different type of issue. But I suppose I am wanting—this may be an unpopular message and the Committee may disagree with it, I do not know—to send a strong message that the research that we should be funding as a state ought to be world-class research. Now I am not saying that world-class research is what exists today in the RAE, because I have knowledge not only that are there many, many very good quality 4 departments,but also that those very good quality 4 departments, which ought to be funded by the state and will be funded by the state, ought to have the aspiration of going to 5 and 5*. I do not think that is unreasonable. I would also make an additional point which we, again, make in the White Paper, that there are areas of research and areas of work about which we do not even know about now, which are not covered within the research structure which we have at the moment, which we have to encourage and which may come from a very low base and move things forwards. I suppose the sharp argument I am making is to ask: Is it true that all research that is done in this country and funded by the state at the moment by some fund or another is worthwhile and should be funded at its current level? I think I answer that question no. We need to be looking with a more critical eye.

  766. There is a process taking place. There is a Roberts review, in which everyone can make a contribution and that will provide you with a clear picture. Why do you not wait for that review to report, rather than ploughing ahead? People have argued that you are in danger of preventing the sort of things you are talking about; that is, emerging research. If a department is not a level 5, then are they going to be able to maintain and develop the infrastructure of people in order to get to the sort of levels that you want to see them achieve?
  (Mr Clarke) First, I agree that the Roberts review is very important. I spoke to Sir Gareth Roberts before we produced the White Paper and I think that his report will be extremely important. I do believe that what we have said in the White Paper is not going to be inconsistent with what his report recommends, but we shall have to see.

  767. You have given him the answers.
  (Mr Clarke) No, it is the other way round. It is the other way round, Mr Shaw: he is giving us answers because his analysis of it comes to the same view. There is then a question which has to be asked, and we have to ask it quite bluntly: If you have a given amount of resource available for research, should it be spent on what exists now or should it be spent on encouraging moves and stimuli towards funding world-class research or, for that matter, looking for new emerging areas of research and trying to fund that? The more you say, "Everything that happens now, let's just fund that," then the less scope you have either to give better funding for world-class research or to fund emerging areas. One could argue, "Stop this. Let's wait for a year or whatever before we start this process." I can understand that argument and there is always a good argument for delay but I am not that sympathetic to it at the end of the day because I think actually that we need to face up to some of these issues. I can tell you that certainly, as far as I am concerned, of the very many people I have spoken to about this question most people will acknowledge, sometimes privately, sometimes publicly, that there is an issue here about the quality of research that is done right across the system, from absolutely stunning world-class stuff to other areas. The following point I would make is this: If you look at London, where, I think I am right in saying, there are either 40 or 42 higher education institutions, is it rational to say that the way in which research should be organised is as in London, with all these various universities doing their own thing or should we be trying to promote collaboration and concentration? People say, "No, give us our own rights." That is okay up to a point, but I think it should come from the universities themselves rather than being imposed by us. I have no blueprint which says this is the way it should be organised but I do think the universities should be looking at the best way to develop in these areas. I do think the Manchester developments are important and worth looking at from this point of view. I just think there is an argument which is coming, which I have heard—and to be fair to you, Mr Shaw, we have probably heard it from similar people—which is saying "What you are doing is going too fast for us. We cannot deal with change at this pace." To that I say that the amount of change we are putting in HEFCE research at the moment is relatively small in the overall scale of things—and I indicated the comparative figures—and I do not think it is quite as acute as people think. But I do think that if people are looking to a future in research they should be looking at (a) 5s and 5*s, and (b), at 4s and 3(a)s which have the aspiration to be 5s and 5*s. If I was going to apply as a researcher to a university department which was a 4-rated university department, the question I would ask is: "Do you as a university department have an aspiration to become a 5 or 5* in the next three to five years?" If the answer was yes, fine; if the answer was no, I would wonder quite what I was doing.

Chairman

  768. The criticism that is coming, is it not in part: Who makes those decisions? I jokingly mentioned Robert Jackson's intervention that we are in danger of looking at evidence-based policy, but surely that is the watchword of the Government.
  (Mr Clarke) Yes.

  769. And we should be looking at the evidence for these changes. I would have thought the evidence for making these changes should be somewhere amongst the leading higher education experts in this rather than your Department. It is a concern. We are told in this Committee that already 75% of research money flows into 25 institutions. People are concerned that you are giving the signal really that that concentration is going to be, as Sir Richard Sykes said, on only a handful—I think someone said six: "No, a handful"—of fine institutions would be the powerhouses of research. That sends a clear message to a lot of universities that you are no longer in the top league.
  (Mr Clarke) I think there is a whole series of very different questions here. This is a slight aside which is not entirely a joke: When I looked at the assessment—and you will be glad to know that I did not see the assessment before I saw the press releases that came through—I saw the Norwich School of Art and Design with a 3,000% increase in its research allocation as a result of the HEFCE collaboration. So it is not true that it is only the great universities—

Jonathan Shaw

  770. What was that in pounds?
  (Mr Clarke) It went up from about £4,000 to about £120,000.[4] I may have the figures slightly wrong, but it was of that kind of order. It was from a very low base, as you have correctly said, but it was not that it was simply being told to shut at all; it was being told, "Here is the basis to build some research capacity" and this is not a place which has substantial 5 and 5* work. I do not want to send a message of demoralisation in this area at all, Mr Sheerman, I think it is a very important that there is new research in university departments up and down the country. I am trying to send the message that excellence matters and that we will support excellence in particular areas. If we are being blunt about it—which I think we should be—there is already a very strong hierarchy within research institutions in this country in any given discipline about which are on the top of a particular pecking order and tree and which are not. You may wish that was not the case, but I say to you it is the case and I think we should be much more open about that in the way we address it rather than not. I actually think the problem with the system that we have at the moment is that the great collaborations and concentrations of 4 and 5, which Sir Richard Sykes mentioned, tend to be in the south of the country. I think there is a very strong case for developing a very strong Manchester research capacity by exactly the kind of collaboration I have described, a very strong Yorkshire collaboration and so on. I think that is how it has to be. It requires leadership by the universities to address this question in a very explicit way, in my opinion. That leadership should not permit simply the view: It has always gone on here; it must continue to go on here.

Chairman

  771. You have not really answered the question—
  (Mr Clarke) I am sorry.

  772.—of the concentration. At the moment 75% of funding goes to 25. We heard Sir Richard—and people do say that Richard had or has the ear of the Prime Minister—arguing the case that research should be based in a "handful" of institutions. He said it very explicitly.
  (Mr Clarke) I do not want to be rude to Sir Richard, Mr Sheerman, but all I can say is that a large number of senior university figures have the ear of the Prime Minister and myself in this area and Sir Richard's view will be taken into consideration along with everybody else's. That is the fact. You are right about the 75% going to 25, but there are four or five institutions, no more than that, which have the lion's share even of the 75%, and my worry is to make sure that everywhere throughout the country there are major research institutions of that capacity and drive it forward. If the suggestion is that a plan cobbled together by Sir Richard and the Prime Minister (in the midst of his other duties!) is to shut down all universities in Britain but half a dozen, I can tell you it is not true. I can tell you what is the case: a lot of people—much wider than Sir Richard—say we have to make sure that the four or five which are of this world-class level get properly resourced. They argue that. Most of the same people argue, exactly as you argue, that we have to make sure that the high quality research departments in the universities throughout the country are supported and promoted in a wide variety of different ways. Most of them argue that trying to collaborate—promote collaboration/promote concentration in that area—is the way to go. Most of the same people argue: Let's also look at what is actually done, where it is done and how it is done.

  773. When we opened this session, I said that some of the evidence we had had surprised the Committee. There is this misunderstanding—and it may be poor communication in the White Paper or in the way that ministers have explained the White Paper. It certainly is this research area that is of very intense interest to universities and there is this misunderstanding which seems to be coming out. On the one hand, the argument can be made that of course you would need, in what people call the "big science" area, this high concentration, you would need a great deal of capital investment and all the rest. We understand that. But is this model to be applied to the arts, the humanities and the social sciences? Sir Richard, in his evidence on Monday, said that there should be a different model perhaps for the humanities, arts and social sciences. Is that the way you interpret the White Paper?
  (Mr Clarke) Certainly. I think the fact is that there is a wide range of different models. I think the argument I would make, and the danger of the "big science" argument, is that all the arguments about collaboration and concentration come on the basis of some economic efficiency module based on the qualitative results, which is a serious issue when you are talking about an accelerator or something of that scope where you can only invest in a relatively small number of places. But I think that there are also intellectual arguments. I talked to a number of serious academics before Christmas about this, asking, "Where does your stimulus come from? Is it you in a garret, sitting there with your piece of paper waiting for your idea to come? Or it is actually being part of a community with pother people?" I was told—which I thought was very interesting—that they thought the most important thing for them was to be in a community which included people who were working in disciplines adjacent to but not the same as theirs; that is, in an area that was quite close but with other high quality people who were working in those areas, and that would create the stimulus which led to the breakthroughs in different ways. That was the powerful advocate of itself, for collaboration. That does not mean that the philosopher sitting in his or her garret cannot make some breakthrough in what they are doing, but I do think the argument for collaboration is principally intellectual rather than principally economic, if I may put it like that, and that it ought to be facilitated in that way. But I think there are conservative forces which say, "Actually our institution has this, that or the other badge of being an institution, which is our research," to which I say, "Be more open-minded, collaborate more, work in a more creative way but not for economic reasons." The difference between the big sciences and the arts and humanities is really an economic argument; intellectually I say there is no difference between them.

  774. May I take you one step further than that. Many people argue that the difference between going to a real university experience, even as an undergraduate, is that you are on a campus or you are in an institution where not only is the teaching of good quality but it is informed by that feeling of being on the frontiers of knowledge because high quality research is taking place at the same time. There is a fear in the White Paper, with the seeds of teaching-only universities, that many of our students in this country going to university will go to a second rate, a second order institution, and get second order higher education if you break that link between education and research.
  (Mr Clarke) I think there is . . . I was going to say "an intellectual dishonesty" but that is too sharp. I think that argument is not coherent. If you can take, present company excepted, All Souls as a model of what perfect academic life should be—I was trying to be blunt to All Souls; that is, a group of scholars working about things in an intellectual and interesting manner, doing things in pursuit of knowledge for its own sake and that is what happens. That model might or might not have been an effective model when you were talking about 6% of the population going to university. I really think it is not the same model when you are talking about 43% or possibly higher, 50%, of the population going to university. I think there is a C P Snow (if I may put it like that) model of university life which is in many people's minds when they are discussing this. The reality in modern universities, which I welcome, is that modern universities are reaching out into the communities of which they are a part, having a whole set of different forms of teaching and learning which are taking place, which are not simply of that All Souls type of model. I think that is a good thing. But I think that if we think that everybody is involved in quite the same way as to what they do, it is wrong—and it takes me back to the diversity agenda again. What is the relationship between research and teaching across this range? I would say it varies. The only common factor I would say is that all teachers in universities should be aware of and engaged in discussion about what is happening at the cutting edge of the subjects as they are being taught. Do I think they all need themselves to be leading world researchers? I am quite doubtful. I have just finished reading a book called Fermat's Last Theorem by Simon Singh about the solution of Fermat's last theorem by a great mathematician. It reminded me of something which I had forgotten, which is that most great mathematicians finish doing their great work by the time they get even to 25 or 26, let alone to 30, because they move forward. Actually, as you have a 50-year old mathematician doing his or her stuff, they are not on the cutting edge at that point. Their experience can help them, of course, in teaching, but this idea that you have world-breaking research taking place in this community with 43% of the population I think is a romantic illusion. It is the case that teaching should be taught by people who are themselves intellectually interested and part of this great debate, but it is not the same thing as saying you have the same research and teaching function going on in every university in Britain. This relationship, which is, I would say, almost romantic, between teaching and research needs to be deconstructed (to use a word of the 1960s).

  Chairman: I think some of us would want you to talk more of the profession, about what motivates people to go into university teaching at low salaries and stay there. I think the Government ought to be a little more thoughtful. From the evidence we are getting to this Committee, there is a lot of unhappiness on this issue. I do not ask that as a question. Robert Jackson has been waiting.

  Mr Jackson: I want to make two points, but I have a preliminary matter. I do say to the Secretary of State really as a friend and with my own personal experience slightly in mind, that I would caution him to avoid obiter dicta about things like classics and All Souls and all the rest of it. There is a danger in causing people to misunderstand what are honest intellectual observations which are not necessarily based on great personal experience. The two points I want to make are these. First of all, I think this discussion has been rather narrowly focused. We have to remember basic facts, that three-quarters of all the expenditure on R&D in this country are in the private sector. We have been talking exclusively about the one quarter which is the public sector.

  Chairman: That is the bit for which he is responsible

Mr Jackson

  775. Yes, but it seems to me that one of the points we need to bear in mind in all of this—and I put this to the Secretary of State—is that the private sector is a potent source of research support in universities, including a lot of universities which were former polytechnics. I would encourage him to encourage his colleagues at the DTI to be more proactive in promoting research links between universities and private sector—because that is, as it was in the old polytechnic sector, a very important source of research funding. I agree with the thrust of his policy. I think that the role of government in relation to science is to support the kind of science that the private sector will not support. That is fundamental work, and that has to be world class and it has to be concentrated, given the relatively small resources available. I do agree—this is the second point I am putting to him—with the inference of the Chairman's point, that there is a bit of a difference between science and technology on the one side and the humanities and the social sciences on the other. I very much welcome the decision to have a Humanities Research Council, but I think the future here—and I invite the Secretary of State's comment on this—is to expand the funding available from the research council and perhaps to promote more plurality in research funding, as in the United States, from research foundations, so that scholars, whether individuals or groups in whatever sort of institution, who are doing valuable work can achieve that kind of support.
  (Mr Clarke) I think this is very interesting. I shall take the advice, Mr Sheerman, that Mr Jackson offers me and try to avoid any obiter dicta in any area of life. I shall try to be entirely disciplined. I shall get out my New Labour code book every time I speak in that way and try to avoid risks of misleading. I have tried to put the record straight on classics and, as advised by Mr Jackson, afterwards I shall try to put the record straight on All Souls if I have it wrong in any important respect. At the risk of falling into error again, let me make a couple of observations on what he has asked. First, the point about the proportion of R&D which is in the private sector is a massive issue. I have talked to a lot of companies about how they see the university research world. All I would say is that there is clear evidence of a clash of view that I have had. Many of the companies who are the biggest research funders in Britain find the university sector difficult to deal with in a variety of different ways and do not think it facilitates this kind of collaboration which is there. The clash comes because every university to which I have spoken takes precisely the opposite view and says, "We are very easy to work with and it is very positive in a wide variety of different ways." For a mere layman like myself to try to understand the truth between these two views is not easy but I do report to the Committee that there is this difference of view. My answer to it is to follow the line suggested, Mr Sheerman, by Mr Jackson, in saying we need to get a much better dialogue. I can tell the Committee that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and myself are talking about this very fully. In fact, we are jointly giving evidence together to the Science Select Committee of the House on these questions—in what I think is an important departure, for two secretaries of state to give evidence side by side—precisely to send the message that Mr Jackson implies and to try to work together in these areas. I think Mr Jackson's point about market failure in this area is an interesting one in defining what the state should support and what private sector supports. My belief is that the implication of his proposition has not, including by my own Department, been properly thought through as to how we do operate and how we go. Secondly, I am glad that he applauded what we are doing on the Arts and Humanities Research Council. I think that is important. I can say I do agree with him about trying to create a more plural set of funding regimes for what happens. I note in the medical research area, for example, that there are already some very substantial foundations that make a major contribution, in partnership with Government, which has been very important. This, in my opinion, is the right way to go in this area and I think he is quite right to identify this. I come back though to this point, that I do think intellectually there is a case for trying to get cross-fertilisation in these areas rather than simply saying they are all done in separate places in different ways. That is why I make the case for collaboration across the range more profoundly. I would make one other point on this, if I may, Mr Sheerman. I think the dialogue between universities and the rest of the world—this is an obiter dicta, to use your phrase, which may get me in more trouble with Mr Jackson—

Chairman

  776. The Chairman will protect you.
  (Mr Clarke) I am very grateful for that, Mr Sheerman. I know that the people of Huddersfield are strongly represented by you and you will protect me in the same spirit! I do think there is a serious issue about the way in which the university world has evolved, where people make a choice at the age of 21, normally after their under graduate degree: they will maybe go to a post graduate degree and there may be further choices made, and then people diverge in a completely dramatic way. You go off into a university department for the rest of your life as an academic researcher or you go off into another world as a business person or a civil servant or whatever it might be on a completely different path. After that point of 21 or perhaps 24 or whatever it is, there is almost no exchange whatsoever amongst people. I think this is a serious weakness of the universities. I think you need to have a far greater exchange. The idea that you have a research community which is determined at that relatively young age, which then stays together, and you have the rest of the world which does other things, is a serious weakness of our university system. One of the things which I would hope to see in diversity is a much greater set of interplay. I know you, Mr Sheerman, work very hard to do that with the University and Parliament Trust that you organise, but, I think, for that to be done it needs a lot more than that and universities ought to be in much more serious dialogue with the people who are great industrialists of the country or great civil servants, politicians or whatever than is currently the case. I think it is a weakness which needs to be challenged.

  Chairman: It is certainly music to the Chairman's ears, in the sense that we have been pushing for a long time to have a properly funded visiting professor, a proper relationship, properly funded, but large numbers, so that we could get not just business people but non-university people going into universities and exchanges of that kind. If the Department were to take that seriously, that would be extremely good news.

Mr Jackson

  777. Of course the real obstacle is university pay. Nobody is going to come back from industry to go into university at the levels of pay that are there. I would encourage the Secretary of State, if he is serious about promoting this very valuable idea, to promote not only higher university pay but also much more flexibility in it, so that this fundamental problem of disparity between the university sector and the private sector and, indeed, the rest of the public sector is addressed.
  (Mr Clarke) All I would say is I understand the point and I think what we do does do something for university pay and does do something for flexibility. To be blunt, I do not think it is so much just a question of what the Department thinks and what the Government thinks but I think the universities themselves have positively to seek people, even on short-term contracts or whatever, to get far better relationships. I think it is quite possible to imagine, without even touching the pay issue, a series of exchanges and dialogues between the universities and other employers which would help this exchange.

  Chairman: There are two more topics we need to cover. I want to move on to expanding higher education and ask David to lead us on this subject.

Mr Chaytor

  778. Before we leave this issue, I have one quick question. Do you think the Manchester UMIST merger is another example of what Manchester thinks today and London thinks tomorrow?
  (Mr Clarke) Yes, but with one qualification. I think collaboration does not necessarily need merger. Merger can help but, I think, whatever happens, whatever the relationship, we need the collaboration and we need to promote it and our planning regime should promote it. Merger is one response. I think, personally, a very positive one in the case of Manchester—which is why the Department helped and supported that merger—but I do not say that merger is necessarily the way to deal with all the issues that we are talking about. That would be my qualification. I also think that there is an issue for other universities in Greater Manchester to think how they relate to this new institution which is emerging in a very sharp way.

  779. Under the expansion plans that we have, the Government has established foundation degrees as the main vehicle for expansion and said there will be no increases in places in the existing honours degrees. What is the time scale for the establishment of foundation degrees?
  (Mr Clarke) As soon as possible. I regard this as the single biggest challenge we have to implement the White Paper. Many, many people think it is all about the access issues and so on, but having a credible foundation degree programme is exceptionally important. We have a unit working on it in the Department very hard now with universities. A number of universities are already, I am glad to say, responding very positively, as are a number of employers in both the public and private sector, but turning those positive responses into courses which actually are there is very important. I am actually, the Committee will be delighted to hear, the holder of the first honorary foundation degree in the country, from the University of Wolverhampton. I was presented with it the other day, about a month after the Chancellor of the Exchequer was presented with an honorary doctorate from the University of Wolverhampton. As the vice-chancellor said, he was presenting the Chancellor with the degree of the past but me with the degree of the future. The fact is, Mr Chaytor, that this is a major priority for us. We will publish in about three or four months a detailed proposal, on which we are already working very energetically, as to how we can develop the foundation degrees.


3   See Ev. p279. Back

4   Note by witness: the actual figures were £4,228 to £144,870. Back


 
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