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Higher Education: Funding

My Lords, I start by declaring my non-pecuniary interests. I have visiting fellowships at Cambridge and Warwick universities. I also express—rapidly, as time is moving on—my appreciation for this early opportunity that the Government and Minister have provided to debate the report of the noble Lord, Lord Browne. I thank all noble Lords who have engaged so effectively and powerfully in the debate—and not least I thank the noble Lord, Lord Browne, himself. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, on a fine maiden speech. I used to negotiate with him and promise to carry on arguing with him. I now find that I share that experience with the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland of Houndwood, and I have no doubt that we will all enjoy it. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, that Sir Keith was indeed reviled, not least by the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, who told the world that on that matter he had not briefed her. When the Minister repeated Vince Cable's statement on 12 October, I said that the entire history of the debate on the scale of the United Kingdom's—and latterly, the English—system of higher education, and on how it and its students should be funded, had been going on for so long that it was essentially free-standing from the current controversy about the nation's financial circumstances. So it should be, if we are to have what the noble Lord, Lord Smith, described as a coherent debate on these matters. However, having read and discussed the comprehensive spending review, as we all have, I know that it will be necessary to deal with the interplay of the Browne review and the CSR. It is necessary because of the threat to our universities. Having had the chance to study the report in more detail, and having heard what was said today, I now feel also that the report signals nothing less than a true, but in our view little considered, paradigm shift. Many speakers have expressed the same conclusion in other words. Before considering the monumental shift that is proposed, and to which I understand the Government have pretty much committed themselves, it would be churlish not to welcome some conclusions of the noble Lord, Lord Browne. For a start, he confirms an aspiration for higher education that I believe has been shared on all sides: that, "““teaching at our HEIs is sustainably financed, that the quality of that teaching is world class and that our HEIs remain accessible to anyone who has the talent to succeed … The quality of teaching and of the awarded degrees is the foundation upon which the reputation and value of our higher education system rests””." I am wholly with him and I take that to be the guiding principle of all that follows. The report concludes that all those who benefit from higher education should contribute to the cost—holders of degrees and the nation as a whole. Again, I endorse the principle, as did Sir Ron Dearing, as he was when he published his report. Incidentally, Lord Dearing was never a university student but he understood this sector very well, and at the heart of his understanding lay his grasp of the value of universities at the core of our national infrastructure. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Butler—