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Address in Reply to Her Majesty’s Most Gracious Speech

My Lords, I would like to concentrate my remarks on higher education and in doing so declare my interest as chief executive of Universities UK. I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, on an excellent maiden speech. I add my warmest good wishes and welcome too my noble friend the Minister. I very much enjoyed working with him in his former capacity and can attest to his formidable grasp of issues right across the whole of the education sector. I look forward to what I know will be his enormous contribution to the work of this House. In some respects it is a relief to see that higher education does not occupy the same high profile in the legislative programme as it has in previous Sessions. However, I must remind the House and the Government that they must not make the mistake of thinking that somehow we have ““done”” higher education. First, there are a number of pieces of legislation that will have a considerable impact on our universities. The Charities Bill will return to this House, having failed to complete its passage through Parliament in the previous Session. While the Bill preserves the exempt charitable status enjoyed by many universities, such institutions will be regulated in their roles as charities by the Higher Education Funding Council in lieu of the Charities Commission. I think that is the right approach to ensure that public trust in charities can be maintained with the minimum bureaucratic burden. I would like to pay particular tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, who has once again been active on behalf of universities to ensure that this Bill emerges in the best possible shape. I welcome the Government’s emphasis on the reduction of regulation, epitomised by the inclusion in the Queen’s Speech of a Regulatory Reform Bill. I look forward to seeing the details of that legislation, but I hope that it will deliver real improvements for universities as well as for business and industry. While I feel positive about the two Bills I have just described, I feel less happy about the Immigration and Asylum Bill. While I am sure that there are many measures in that legislation which are fair and necessary and which I will be able to support, I am deeply unhappy about the Government’s plans to remove the right of appeal for prospective international students who have been refused visas. There has been quite some debate in this House already of recent measures to increase fees for international student visas, and charges for visa extensions. Vice-chancellors tell me that there is no doubt that these measures are affecting the attractiveness of the UK as a study destination. I do not wish to detain the House now with a lengthy discussion of the rights and wrongs of this case. I am sure it is a matter to which we will return. However, I will say this: Ministers know how valuable international students are to the United Kingdom. We depend in many ways on the best and brightest students from around the world who choose to study here. This is particularly true at postgraduate level and in science, engineering and technology. Brilliant students from all over the world come to our country and contribute something priceless to the intellectual culture of our universities and to our national life. The Government clearly recognise this because there are many policies, including the Prime Minister’s initiative, which are aimed at attracting and retaining such students. What the Home Office proposes to do is, in my view, directly counter-productive. Coming so soon after a 60   per cent increase in the charge for a visa extension application by post, a 100 per cent increase in the charge for an application in person, and a proposed 136 per cent increase in the charge for an initial visa, the measures included in the Immigration and Asylum Bill to remove the right of appeal for international students will send a direct, and in my view very unfortunate, message to the best and the brightest from around the world. I hope that the Government will be persuaded to reconsider. Looking beyond the programme of legislation, there are some other major issues this House will almost certainly debate over the coming months. As always, funding will be foremost on the agenda as we embark on another spending review cycle. I hope that the Government will renew their existing commitment to maintain public investment in higher education teaching, measured by the unit of funding per student, not only in the current spending review period but throughout this Parliament. I hope that the Minister will be able to give that commitment today. It is always said at the start of each spending review that money will be tight, but I know that the universities will have to make the case more clearly than ever that additional public investment will continue to be needed. Although the income from fees will start to make a difference from 2006, it will, indeed, only be a start. Universities need investment to rebuild and replace ageing infrastructure, to fund pay modernisation and to address the historic imbalance in the funding for the teaching and support of part-time students. Universities UK has commissioned research into the circumstances and needs of part-time students and I hope that the Government will take note of the findings of that research when they become available, and act upon them. There will be other big decisions to make. The future of the research assessment exercise is still to be determined. The role of universities in their regions and within the skills agenda will continue to evolve. It is right that universities should be seen more and more as integral parts of the family of education providers. Universities are reaching wider in a number of ways—building links with further education, expanding into   continual professional development, joining with regional development agencies and sector skills councils to ensure that they can make the maximum possible contribution to the regional and national economies. Finally, with the landscape of higher education changing so rapidly and the influence of our universities ever expanding, I look forward to what promises to be a busy parliamentary Session.