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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