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Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Scheme

I join others in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Luce, for bringing this important issue to the Committee’s attention. This morning, I was talking to a group of people from the Industry and Parliament Trust about the work of the House of Lords, and I instanced the importance of our role in holding the Government to account. I think that this debate is a good one, as it illustrates how the House of Lords does hold the Government to account. As the noble Lord, Lord Bew, said, we have perhaps been torturing the Minister and he has many questions to answer. The issue before us is the withdrawal of approximately £10 million of funding from two schemes for graduate students—specifically the Commonwealth scholarship scheme, which is now to be restricted to those from developing countries, and the Chevening scholarship programme, which has been funding graduate students from around the world. These decisions, taken last March, have been compounded by the decision taken in August by the Higher Education Funding Council to withdraw funding from the Overseas Research Students Awards Scheme. As the noble Lord, Lord Rees, mentioned, all these schemes fund graduate research students in this country. The quality is very high and our universities depend on these overseas students. The fact that we are withdrawing these scholarships does nothing for the quality of our research. In addition, as the noble Lord, Lord Bew, has just emphasised, these decisions were taken without consultation with the universities, in spite of the compact back in 1999 that students on the Chevening scholarships would get a 20 per cent reduction in their overseas student fees in return for increased government funding for the scheme. In response to government urging, many universities have been expanding their intake of overseas students, developing new bursary schemes, often in conjunction with private partners. At a time when this Government have been urging the universities to reach out overseas and bring more overseas students here to Britain, what message do these cuts from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office send to our partners? It is hardly an encouraging one. Many noble Lords have criticised the lack of joined-up thinking that we have seen. It is to be welcomed that the DIUS, late in the day, has stepped in to make good some of the deficit, but it is a small amount in relation to the total that has been withdrawn: £400,000 over two years is very little compared with the £10 million that has been withdrawn. In answer to the question why the FCO cut funding to Commonwealth students, in its Statement on 18 March the FCO implied that the scheme was not well managed. However, there is considerable evidence to show that this scheme was not the one that was investigated by the FCO—the FCO had actually reviewed the Chevening scheme. Independent consultants had looked at the Commonwealth scheme and had given it a very good bill of health. On top of that are rumours that one reason that it was criticised and withdrawn was that it was selecting students on the basis of academic excellence. Again, that sends completely the wrong message. In terms of effectiveness, it might have been useful to review what former students are doing now. Again, round this table we have managed to put together a considerable list of former students’ achievements. I pick up one point made by the noble Lord, Lord Wilson, which is the Hong Kong experience of the two-way flow.