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Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Scheme

Like other noble Lords who have spoken, I thank my noble friend Lord Luce for the work he has carried out in bringing forward this issue. I begin by declaring an interest. As a practising academic, like the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, I have experience of some of the students who have come to this country as a result of the schemes which the FCO is planning to prune. I also speak as an honorary fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge, which has a tradition of attracting Commonwealth students, which is probably as marked as any Cambridge college. Everyone knows that these students are among the very best that we will ever have the good fortune to teach. It was therefore rather shocking for me to contemplate, earlier this year, the FCO’s suggestion that there would, for example, no longer be any scholarships for PhD students from the developed Commonwealth countries. It was a simple, brutal shock to the system. There are issues here of intellectual competitiveness. We cannot afford to be complacent about the UK’s place in the world higher educational rankings. It is in our interests not only to attract graduate students in large numbers, which we already do, but to attract the already high achievers. To do that, our country has to make an investment of its own. Such an investment builds up a benign, reciprocal interest with scholarly institutions around the world. It is clear, however, that the Government are now more focused on leadership, and they have good reason for that focus. When my noble friend Lord Hannay raised the issue of the Marshall scholarships, the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, asked a very pertinent question. He observed that a quarter of a century ago, two dozen heads of state around the world had been educated in this country. I remind noble Lords that the noble Lord spoke as a former education Minister, and therefore with some authority. He asked what the figure was today. The answer can be found in the Library of the House in October 2007. Essentially, we do not know—we cannot give a figure in the way that we once could. I suspect that like other noble Lords, I regard that as a rather sombre and worrying conclusion. For that reason, I welcome one aspect of the Foreign Secretary’s Written Statement of 13 March this year, which said: "““We will maintain a much closer relationship with those scholars who do come, making sure that right from the start of the selection process we begin to build links with them … while they are here””." The Statement said that we would maintain connections with them through a, "““web-based alumni networking system””.—[Official Report, Commons, 13/3/08; col. 23WS.]" That is all well and good, but something in me fears that it is a fig leaf. If you are reducing resources, it can be a fig leaf simply to say that you will work harder to maintain contact with those who actually come. I have a similarly uneasy feeling about the decision to transfer £10 million to what are considered to be more priority programmes on climate change intended to engage China and India. There is a sense—it may not be so and I hope that it is not—that we may be exchanging a real current benefit for a highly attractive will o’ the wisp. We can say that while fully respecting the fact that one of the Foreign Secretary’s achievements has been to focus, with greater intensity, British foreign policy on China and India. There is a sense, too, of rash decision-making, designed to achieve an already preordained end. One can see this when, for example, one looks at the way in which the FCO has failed to produce hard evidence of any valid comparison of the past records of the Chevening and FCO-funded Commonwealth scholarships. In conclusion, I share the unease about the lack of serious consultation with the higher education sector on this issue. I do not want to add to the Minister’s torture by touching again on the lack of joined-up government but I want to ask a different question concerning consultation with the higher education sector. There is now some sense that the Government know that a mistake was made and that there will be further consultation on these matters. I hope that the Minister can say something about that this evening.