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Mr. Boswell: I thank the hon. Member for Ceredigion for raising this issue. It is right that we should have a debate although, like my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell, probably in the end my head has to rule my heart. I can see substantial reservations in the proposition of the hon. Gentleman. It may be of some aid and consolation to him to know that a research charity in the biological sciences that I used to chair and of which I am still a member—it preceded my membership of the research council—gave a significant number of its grants to the university of Wales, in particular, for projects that appealed to it. It is by no means barred or impossible to obtain private or not-for-profit funding in that area. As the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Jonathan Shaw) said, there is also a degree of sensitivity in the traditional funding for development work, in terms of the HEFCE fund. Back when the new universities came on stream after 1992, we put aside £50 million as a special fund for development work in them.
10.45 amTo stand back from the debate and make a general point, I think that the dilemma that the hon. Member for Ceredigion exposed with his amendment is similar to that which we will discuss on student admissions. The dilemma is whether one supports merit or potential that may not have been realised in meritorious performance. That is a rather wide philosophical issue, which I will perhaps keep for a later date. I would like the Minister to comment on two specific points. One point relates to my experience of research funding. It was said that the process of peer review was semi-exclusive, because people who were on either research councils or assessment and grants panels working to inform and advise research councils on their decisions tended to be from a particular coterie. It is difficult to break into that. My second specific point is on arts and humanities research. It was always said that there was something of a famous triangle centred on London, Oxford and Cambridge, and no further, and that was a concern to me in my time as a Minister although it may recently have dissipated slightly. As my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell rightly showed in Column Number: 29 reading out a list of grants, the AHRB has made grants outside that triangle. It has also made progress in what I might call softening the edges of the triangle. It would be helpful if the Minister commented on that.I also have two general points. First, it is clear that we need a viable and vibrant higher education system that is available throughout the country. It is important that students can access regional centres of excellence, which as my hon. Friend said is also true of the national health service, and that we ensure that higher education does not have any no-go areas in this country. Secondly, the system must be open to people of excellence, who can enter the system, get support and have their potential turned into meritorious performance. I conclude with a quotation from Napoleon. I think that he said that every private has to have a field marshal's baton in his knapsack. Every researcher, be they in Aberystwyth, Bangor or somewhere in Cumbria—if we can set up a Cumbrian university—should have the opportunity to get into the system. That means the full Monty: access to the research councils and to HEFCE money under the dual system of funding through research assessment. It is important that the Minister should deliver. I know that he wants to, and I look forward to his comments. Jonathan Shaw: I want to make some brief remarks about research funding, which the Select Committee on Education and Skills looked into in considerable detail. When the White Paper was published, much of the focus was understandably on student finance, but the Select Committee quickly understood that research funding was an important issue. We talk about the number of students going to university and the debt that they may or may not incur after university, but the quality of the product is essential to students while they are at university. The research base is important to maintain quality. We had many concerns in the Select Committee, given that 75 per cent. of research funding goes to 25 universities. We were further concerned when HEFCE wanted to increase the funding going to four star-rated departments by £10 million. However, Ministers intervened and, according to Sir Howard Newbury, required HEFCE to reduce that. The proposed figure of £148 million for 2003-04 was reduced to £118 million. The Government need to bear that in mind if the expansion that I support passionately is to occur. It is important that level four research universities should be able to develop those specialisms so that they may go on to five and six star level. Mr. Boswell: Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that, in order to inform the argument, Universities UK has made available to the Select Committee and subsequently compelling evidence that many of the highest-rated research projects and departments have developed from a comparatively low rating—from three to five stars, say—in a short time? Jonathan Shaw: The hon. Gentleman will remember the Adjournment debate in Westminster Hall on the issue in which the two of us and two other hon. Column Number: 30 Members participated while Iraq was being debated on the Floor of the House. Westminster Hall, as you can imagine, Mr. Gale, was packed to the gunnels, but it was a good and well-informed debate, and the hon. Gentleman made some useful contributions. He is right; I quoted an example from my area. Greenwich university developed important fire and evacuation modelling, which has now won a Queen's award. That began at level three and it is now level five. It is important for the Government to recognise that one has to build up infrastructure over a number of years. In this case, infrastructure is people. If the funding is not there, the professors will leave, and what will happen to the rest of the staff?Mr. Willis: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that one of the key components of any research university—particularly those new universities that are struggling to get into the research programme—is having post-graduate students who wish to stay on and to engage in research? By racking up the level of debt that students will have by the time they graduate, the idea of attracting them into research, often on a relatively low stipend— The Chairman: Order. I have a sneaking feeling that these are issues that we might debate later. Jonathan Shaw: The hon. Gentleman could not resist it, could he? It is important that staff in universities should be paid at a reasonable level. The measures that the Government are introducing will allow pay to increase, and that is an important part of the infrastructure to which I referred. I shall conclude by saying that the Select Committee was very concerned about how that will affect emerging research, such as the examples that I have quoted from my constituency. In order for our universities to compete with America—the top 14 universities are there, and the fifteenth is in Britain—we need the critical mass that is so important in science-based universities. Those—Warwick is a good example—must develop if we are to continue to nurture world-class universities. The Chairman: Before I invite the Minister to respond, might I gently remind him that the clause deals with research funding, not other matters? I am sure that he will not wish to stray into other areas at this point. Alan Johnson: You are absolutely right, Mr. Gale. I congratulate the hon. Member for Ceredigion on raising the issue; we have had a fair debate about research funding. The Bill would be truly dreadful if his amendment were made. I realise that it is a probing amendment, but it would not only deal with the arts and humanities research council, but would change the basis for funding all research councils, which have been 90 per cent. successful for the last 40 years. We would be taking a dangerous step if we went down the route suggested by the hon. Gentleman. However, he raised some important points and that gives me an opportunity to respond.
Column Number: 31 The hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell was kind enough to send me a note explaining that he had to leave because he had to take his wife to hospital, but his contribution was absolutely right, as were those of the hon. Member for Daventry and my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford. We must fund the best research. We have a world-class research infrastructure second only to, but a long way behind, that of the United States of America. It would be a forlorn ambition to catch up with the USA, but to stay in second place is crucially important, particularly considering the huge advances and investment in research in countries such as India in China.Mr. Boswell: On the arts and humanities, it would be fair to claim that we can punch our weight equally with the Americans, if not excel them. Alan Johnson: I agree with the hon. Gentleman, which is why it is important to continue that development through this Bill. Jonathan Shaw: I agree with my right hon. Friend about the US. However, during the proceedings of the Select Committee, we learned that the Government's proposals would mean that our funding is even more concentrated than that in the US. Alan Johnson: I will come to that point later because it must be dealt with. Points were raised about HEFCE's allocation of QR money, rather than the allocation of the research council. However, the point is important, and particularly its effect on Wales. It is important to establish that research is currently considered on a national basis by the research councils. The money is not distributed to institutions, which is the wording of the amendment of the hon. Member for Ceredigion, but is awarded primarily to individual researchers and collaborations. The research council funding goes primarily to institutions. In that further respect, his probing amendment should remain probing and not be made. There has been a lot of misrepresentation of the Government's actions a year ago. What was meant as a shock to the system ended up purely as a shock. However, the context must be remembered. We are investing another £1.25 billion in research—roughly a 34 per cent. increase in our research base. We cannot distribute that money on the usual basis. We must ensure that we fund excellent research, including emerging research, and make the best use of taxpayers' money. Last year at our bidding the Higher Education Funding Council for England, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford pointed out from the evidence submitted to the Select Committee, redistributed 2 per cent. of the total research budget—£20 million. That created a fair degree of concern but, as the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell and others pointed out, that concern expressed by the research establishment a year ago has calmed down to a certain extent. We patently do not intend to concentrate all Column Number: 32 resources on the famous golden triangle, or as Lord Dearing described it ''a rugby ball'', in the south-east. Last year, some 43 institutions received more than £5 million-worth of funding, and that allocation was spread fairly throughout the country.
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