Higher Education Bill

Public Bill Committee, 10 February 2004.

Standing Committee H

Higher Education Bill

Roger Gale (Conservative, North Thanet)

I have a few housekeeping announcements. Hon. Members may remove their jackets, and that rule will stand when I am in the Chair. I cannot speak for my co-Chairman.

For the benefit of those beyond the Bar, I should say that it is conceivable that there might be mild interest in later proceedings, so the Public Gallery may fill up, in which case I propose to do what I have done in the past, which is to rope off the far end of the Committee Room to enable members of the public to use the seats on each side. If we reach that stage, hon. Members will need to use the centre Door, including for Divisions. For the comfort and security of all concerned, I also propose to ask the Officials of the House to issue those who are present this morning, who may be presumed to have an interest in all the Bill's proceedings, with some identification or ticket that I shall sign. If we find it necessary to expand the space available to those in the Public Gallery, those with the ticket will be the people asked to sit in the body of the kirk.

I remind the Committee that debate on the programme motion may continue for up to half an hour.

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

I beg to move,

That—

(1) During proceedings on the Higher Education Bill the Standing Committee (in addition to its first sitting on Tuesday 10th February at 9.10 am) do meet on that day at 2.30 pm, and thereafter on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 9.10 am and 2.30 pm, except that the Committee shall not meet on Tuesday 17th February or Thursday 19th February;

(2) the proceedings shall be taken in the following order, namely Clauses 1 to 13, Schedules 1 and 2, Clause 14, Schedule 3, Clauses 15 and 16, Schedule 4, Clauses 17 to 29, Schedule 5, Clauses 30 to 45, Schedule 6, Clause 46, Schedule 7, Clauses 47 to 50, new Clauses, new Schedules;

(3) the proceedings on Clauses 1 to 13, Schedules 1 and 2, Clause 14, Schedule 3, Clauses 15 and 16, Schedule 4 and Clauses 17 to 20 (so far as not previously concluded) shall be brought to a conclusion at 11.25 am on Thursday 12th February;

(4) the proceedings on Clauses 21 to 29, Schedule 5 and Clauses 30 to 38 (so far as not previously concluded) shall be brought to a conclusion at 11.25 am on Thursday 4th March;

(5) the remaining proceedings on the Bill (so far as not previously concluded) shall be brought to a conclusion at 5 pm on Thursday 4th March.

I am delighted to serve once again under your chairmanship, Mr. Gale. You have already demonstrated in your opening remarks the sagacity for which you are renowned. When the other four Bills that I have piloted through the House as a Minister started, I had some certainty that we would end up in

Committee, but it is with a particular sense of elation that I open the Committee proceedings today. At one stage, it might have been moderately questionable whether we would reach this stage. I am glad that we have, because it enables us to give the Bill the line-by-line scrutiny that it deserves.

On the programme motion, we believe that with a Bill of 50 clauses, 12 sittings will do justice to the arguments that we need to have. You referred to public interest in the Bill, Mr. Gale, and whereas there have been demonstrations about some aspects of the Bill, there have been none to my knowledge against the arts and humanities research council or the office of the independent adjudicator. This is a good opportunity to concentrate on those issues, although it is fair to say that the real controversy surrounds the fees and the regulator. We have tried to ensure that there is sufficient time to deal with those arguments.

We have also tried to ensure that the devolution of student support to the Welsh Assembly is given time for debate, as it is important to the people of Wales. It is right that the programme motion gives sufficient time for debate, and we think that half a day is sufficient.

I have behind me the creme de la creme of Labour Back Benchers, and I see on the Opposition Benches people of equal esteem, including the hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell). I have said on many occasions that it is always comforting for a Johnson to have a Boswell opposite. I look forward to our deliberations, and I hope that the Committee will accept the programme motion, which is a sensible attempt to ensure that all the major issues are debated.

Tim Collins (Conservative, Westmorland and Lonsdale)

I begin by joining the Minister in saying how much we look forward to proceedings under your chairmanship, Mr. Gale, and to what will be a lively set of debates. Both you and the Minister were right to note that the Committee might attract slightly more than the usual interest from the wider public in our parliamentary proceedings. That reflects the fact that the Government chose to make the Bill their flagship measure in the Queen's Speech. It was the first piece of legislation that Her Majesty mentioned and, as the Minister said, it caused great speculation outside the House about whether it would receive a Second Reading.

Our problem with the programme motion is that it does not reflect the importance of the Bill or the interest in it that exists outside the House. As an Opposition, we asked for the Committee stage to be taken on the Floor of the House, but we were unable to persuade the Government to do that. We requested, following precedent on very controversial legislation, two days of debate on Second Reading, but we were unsuccessful in persuading the Government of that. We requested full and adequate time for debate in Committee, and our view continues to be that 12 sittings spread over only six days is inadequate. We have on many occasions established that we are not in favour in principle either of programme motions or of knives within them. They inevitably stifle debate and make it difficult to hold proper and full debates on

subjects that may not easily be foreseen as attracting many submissions from outside interest groups, and we are saddened by that situation.

I register our continuing concern and disappointment that the composition of the Committee does not, on the face of it, reflect properly the ruling of ''Erskine May''. The 1997 edition, page 693, states that

''the Committee will always ensure that standing committees reflect the party political composition of the House''.

I am sure that the Government would say that the Committee does so. ''Erskine May'' goes on to state that it should be ensured that

''in the case of bills which divide the House on cross-party lines''—

it is difficult to argue that this Bill is not such a Bill—

''the strength of opinion as expressed in any division at second reading is properly reflected''.

You will recollect that the majority on Second Reading for the Bill was only five, Mr. Gale. Pro rata, therefore, the Government should have a majority of only one on the Committee. Depending on how one defines the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mrs. Campbell), who abstained on Second Reading, the Government have a majority of either four or five, which is four or five times greater than ''Erskine May'' states that they should have. I do not intend to prolong the point.

Roger Gale (Conservative, North Thanet)

Order. I have allowed the hon. Gentleman to place his view on the record, but I am sure that he would not want to quarrel with Mr. Speaker's ruling. The composition of the Committee is entirely delegated to the Committee of Selection, which has done its job, and Mr. Speaker has ruled on the Floor of the House that that job was done to his satisfaction. That, I am afraid, must be the end of that matter.

Tim Collins (Conservative, Westmorland and Lonsdale)

I am grateful, Mr. Gale. I had not intended to refer to the matter further, and I will not do so.

I recognise that the Minister has enabled us, within the 12 sittings that are provided for by the programme motion, to have the vast majority of our proceedings on what he rightly described as the meat of the legislation, which is the provisions on top-up fees and all the surrounding issues. Although we are not happy with the idea that there are only 12 sittings, I applaud the Minister for having recognised that such issues comprise the bulk of the Bill and the point on which we want to have most discussion. Having registered our general concerns about the programme motion, I am happy to see if other hon. Members wish to comment.

Phil Willis (Liberal Democrat, Harrogate and Knaresborough)

I, too, take the opportunity to welcome you to the Committee, Mr. Gale, and to pass on our congratulations to Mr. Hood who will be your co-Chairman during the proceedings. We have enjoyed working with you before, and I have no doubt that your background in light entertainment will stand you in good stead as you try to direct this hand-picked cast to debate this crucial Bill. We will miss the multi-talented hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) but we look forward to the hon. Member for Westmorland

and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins) and his hon. Friends putting some flesh on the bones of Conservative policy as we progress through the Bill.

It is interesting that, having complained about the composition and political balance of the Committee, the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale conveniently neglected to say that the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr. Jackson) was not selected by the Conservatives to be part and parcel of their group. We will miss the views of that hon. Gentleman.

What has emerged from the Labour casting couch is interesting. I understand that they were going to run ''I'm a celebrity, get me in there'' to choose people for the Committee. I am sure that the three Ministers, one Whip and 10 would-be future Ministers will offer something equal to the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East and Wallsend (Mr. Brown). The hon. Member for Cambridge has not burnt her boats by abstaining on Second Reading, but the hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Mudie) will have to reappraise his career options after daring to be loyal to his party.

Roger Gale (Conservative, North Thanet)

Even by my standards, which are pretty low in light entertainment, the hon. Gentleman has gone off the script. We are discussing the programme motion; I have already ruled on the composition of the Committee.

Phil Willis (Liberal Democrat, Harrogate and Knaresborough)

You are always so wise on such matters, Mr. Gale, and I will obey your every instruction.

We accept that 12 sittings are probably sufficient to debate the Bill. We accept that the real decisions will sadly not be made in Committee; they will be made on the Floor of the House on Report and Third Reading. We want an early assurance from the Minister that we are not wasting our time in Committee. The Secretary of State's statement, made on the Floor of the House, that this is an everything or nothing Bill makes a mockery of having a debate in Committee, and I hope that the Minister will put us right on that.

We accept that the emphasis of the Bill is the issue of differential fees and the future of the university system. We are grateful to the Minister for recognising that and putting aside the bulk of the time for a thorough examination of the effects of top-up fees on the future of the higher education system. However, other key elements of the Bill are important. We welcome the new arts and humanities research council, and particularly the huge grant from the Secretary of State for the research of medieval history. We are also interested in student complaints. That has been regarded as a non-contentious element of the Bill, but it has significant effects. We hope that the Minister will keep an open mind when considering some of the amendments that my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel) and I have tabled.

Having said that, we are anxious to start debating the Bill. We intend to co-operate with the Government, and hope to improve this bad Bill. We hope that by the time the Bill has passed through the Committee, under your excellent leadership Mr. Gale, it will be worthy of debate on the Floor of the House, to be ultimately defeated.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

I echo the remarks already made by members of the Committee about your chairmanship, Mr. Gale. I will not abuse your wisdom by speaking at length about the following matter when I would much rather debate the substance of the Bill. However, instead of intervening on my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale, I wanted simply to record one point about the timing. The problem with the breakneck speed of Government legislation is that it provides scant time for reflection and preparation by the excellent bodies that prepare work, amendments and arguments for members of the Committee. It provides even less time for members of the Committee to reflect on that work. For this to be a real process, and not merely a shallow appearance of one, Ministers require time for the arguments to sink in.

I respect the Minister, who has been personally kind to me, for his attention to the arguments. Ministers, and all members of the Committee, must be able to consider what is said and to allow the debate to evolve. I can tell hon. Members, including Government Members, who may firmly support Government policy—there will be a few—that there will be points of difficulty worthy of consideration in all clauses, including those that appear non-contentious. I think that the common wish of members of the Committee, whether or not they like the legislation, is to ensure that it works as well as it can. We have to work within time constraints, as has happened on other Bills, but that will probably unnecessarily constrict the process in this case. In the manner of the serpent that swallows the chicken, if an issue is not dealt with immediately, it will have to be stored for further consideration on Report or perhaps in another place. I am not sure that that is the best and most efficient way to do business.

David Rendel (Liberal Democrat, Newbury)

I welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Gale, and I am grateful for the chance to make a brief contribution. I am slightly concerned because the Minister, in saying that he believed that the last half-day would be sufficient to consider the remaining clauses, mentioned that he thought that the important part of that would relate to Wales. I should hate my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis), who is on the Front Bench, to think that I thought that Wales was in any sense unimportant, but it was our feeling that the issue to do with Wales was comparatively non-controversial and therefore might not take up too much time, important though it is.

If the Minister really thinks that most of the last half-day will be taken up purely with the Welsh clause, that will mean that we cannot spend much time on the bankruptcy clause, which is also important, on other clauses to do with information, to which we have tabled amendments, and on the three new clauses, all of which also come under that part of the knife. I hope that he will reassure us that he does not expect to spend all that time on Wales; otherwise, we might need to extend the time.

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

I do not accept the point made by the hon. Member for Daventry that we are moving at breakneck speed. The Bill has 50 clauses and involves controversial issues, but I think that hon. Members on both sides of the Committee have agreed that we have allowed enough time for them to be considered. We published the Bill on 8 January, a year after we published the White Paper that contains virtually every element of the Bill. Nothing has changed in that respect, so we cannot be accused of moving at breakneck speed. [Interruption.] I hear the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) comment from a sedentary position. He has asked me a parliamentary question, the answer to which will detail how much has changed from the White Paper since January 2003. The answer will be ''zilch'', but will be couched in much more elegant terms.

Chris Grayling (Conservative, Epsom and Ewell)

The regulatory impact assessment says explicitly at a number of points that measures in the White Paper have been dropped.

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

I delete ''zilch''. There are a few minor issues, which will be fully explained in my answer to the hon. Gentleman's written question.

No one from our ranks who opposed the Bill applied to be on the Committee. I will not take that point any further, because I respect your ruling, Mr. Gale, but we needed to make that point in response to the points that were made with regard to ''Erskine May''.

On the points made by the hon. Member for Newbury, I emphasised the position of Wales, but we have allowed half a day for the whole of part 4 of the Bill, which includes the issue of bankruptcy. I fully accept that that is an element and I suggest that we will not spend that full half-day purely on Welsh issues. The hon. Gentleman is probably right that little controversy surrounds those issues, although we shall see when we reach that part. I should have mentioned that the bankruptcy issue is equally important, as are other clauses in part 4. Half a day is sufficient to debate the whole of that part.

Question put:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 18, Noes 6.

Roger Gale (Conservative, North Thanet)

I remind the Committee that there is a money resolution in connection with the Bill; copies of the resolution are available in the Room. I also remind hon. Members that adequate notice must be given of any amendments. As a general rule, my co-Chairman and I do not intend to call any starred amendments, including starred amendments that may be reached in the course of an afternoon sitting of the Committee.Clause 1 Arts and Humanities Research Council

Clause 1 - Arts and Humanities Research Council

Tim Collins (Conservative, Westmorland and Lonsdale)

I thought that it might be useful at this early stage, given that the clause creates the arts and humanities research council, to tease out some issues related to the running of the council and, in particular, its future relationship with the rest of Whitehall. Members of the Committee may recall that the Secretary of State referred to the creation of the council in his speech on Second Reading. He said:

''The Bill will create an arts and humanities research council—the first new research council since 1994 and a major step forward for the arts and humanities community, giving those disciplines their proper status.''

Making what I thought was rather a good joke, he continued:

''Some might call that measure the revenge of the medieval historians.''—[Official Report, 27 January 2004; Vol. 417, c. 167.]

I want to find out from the Minister exactly how the arts and humanities research council will operate in Whitehall after its creation.

Paragraph 64 of the explanatory notes state:

''It is intended that the Arts and Humanities Research Council should receive its funding from the Office of Science and Technology as part of the same budget as the existing research councils, and take part in discussions about funding in exactly the same way.''

The funding of the existing Arts and Humanities Research Board through the Education Departments is discussed, and it is then stated that

''from 2005-06 this funding will transfer from the existing funding departments to the DTI.''

That is the point that I wanted to tease out.

It is worth noting what the Department of Trade and Industry says about the role of the Office of Science and Technology, which will, as a result of the provisions in the Bill, become the new home for arts and humanities research. The Office of Science and Technology website quotes the Prime Minister as saying that

''the science base is the absolute bedrock of our economic performance.''

It then sets out the objectives of the Office of Science and Technology, of which the first is

''To sustain and improve the science and engineering base.''

It describes the existing research councils, all of which, perhaps not surprisingly, have a very heavy scientific basis. The list includes the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, the Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, the Economic and Social Research Council, which is arguably slightly closer to arts and humanities than the others, the Natural Environment Research Council, and the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council.

I understand that it is expected that, within the Office of Science and Technology, the arts and humanities research council will come under the director general of research councils. He was appointed to the post with effect from 1 January 2004—a full year after the Government set out in the higher education White Paper their intention to create an arts and humanities research council and to place it in the Office of Science and Technology. However, the person who has been appointed to be director general of research councils is Professor Sir Keith O'Nions. He has an extremely distinguished academic and public service record, but it is heavily and, some might argue, exclusively scientific. He has been professor of the physics and chemistry of minerals and head of the department of earth sciences at the university of Oxford. He was a demonstrator and then lecturer in geochemistry at the university of Oxford and he was professor of geology at Columbia university. I will not read out his full curriculum vitae, but the point is that he has an immensely distinguished, but wholly scientific background.

It is not simply that the arts and humanities will be located within the Office of Science and Technology, but that the Department that bats for them, argues for their funding with the Treasury and sponsors their work will be the DTI rather than the Department for Education and Skills. The Secretary of State who has responsibility to Parliament for accounting for the public moneys that are provided to them will be from the DTI rather than the DFES. It will be within your recollection, Mr. Gale, that there was a time when the DFES was the Department of Education and Science and so all those things were located within the one Department.

The decision has been taken—I do not query that this morning—that science logically fits with the DTI. One of the reasons for that—the Government are quite explicit about this—is that they wish to encourage further growth of business sponsorship, business relationships and the development and practical application of scientific and technological breakthroughs to boost the competitiveness of UK industry. Those are entirely desirable objectives, but the reason I am seeking to tease out from the Minister his thinking on these matters is that it is not entirely obvious that arts and humanities have the same business spin-off, technological impact and scientific grounding.

The Government refer in their explanatory notes, quite rightly and understandably, to the value of interdisciplinary research and the greater

opportunities that are created by looking at matters across the arts and science spectrum. Of course, it is true to say that there a large number of areas where scientific and arts and humanities research will overlap. Sometimes it has to do with the use of technology such as carbon dating for looking into the past. Sometimes it has to do with the use of computer technology in analysing whether a lost text was the work of Shakespeare.

It would also be true to say that many specialists in the arts and humanities would not naturally assume that their work or their expertise is the same as that of specialists in the physical sciences. I have no doubt that the Minister will be able to cite a large of number of people in the field of arts and humanities who have supported the creation of the arts and humanities research council. I wish to place on record that I do not say that it is an inappropriate step for the Government to take. In fact, in principle, the Opposition are in favour of it. However, it matters significantly whether the research council will have an opportunity to thrive within what will be quite a different environment. Arts and humanities have not hitherto been part of the DTI.

A further subject for some concern, but about which the Minister may be able to reassure us, again comes from the explanatory notes to the Bill. Referring to future funding for arts and humanities research, they state:

''Provision for 2005-06 is estimated as £78m.''

In the overall scope of public spending that is not a huge sum, but within the field of arts and humanities research I suspect that it is regarded as extremely important and no doubt enables quite a bit of work to be done that otherwise would not proceed either at all or on the same scale. However, the explanatory notes continue:

''Annual expenditure on direct funding related to arts and humanities research will vary from year to year, and a projected annual figure is therefore not available.''

Again, in principle, few would object to the fact that the Government perhaps could not be expected to set out the detail many years ahead, although the Chancellor is usually at great pains to explain that one of his great innovations is the construction of the comprehensive spending review and the fact that it has given most areas of public funding a greater degree of predictability over a three-year time scale rather a one-year time scale as applied in the past. However, the explanatory notes go on to say that replacement of the Arts and Humanities Research Board with a fully fledged research council creates potential labour savings for the new AHRC as its systems are aligned with other research councils. That could mean something or nothing, but it is possible that one of the reasons for creating the new research council is to save a bit of money in respect of those who work for the AHRB. That is not necessarily a bad thing; there is considerable scope for efficiency savings in many areas of public life, and the Government may have successfully and appropriately identified one of them.

However, a pattern begins to emerge. As far as arts and humanities research is concerned, the Government are giving the community something that I suspect the vast majority will welcome: the status that goes with being a proper research council, and the recognition that the work of arts and humanities deserves parity of esteem with scientific research. A statement has been made from a very high level, by the Secretary of State—I expect that the Minister will make it, too—of the Government's commitment to, and recognition of, the importance of arts and humanities research alongside other academic research.

As framed in the explanatory notes, funding is predicted only for the first financial year after the transfer in 2005-06, and thereafter it is explicitly flagged up that it will vary from year to year—the wording does not say ''varying while continuing to increase'', it says ''vary''. That leaves open the opportunity for it to reduce, especially if responsibility is transferred to the Department of Trade and Industry. That Department has many strengths, but part of its core mission in life is not to promote arts and humanities research, because it has many other schemes, projects, mission statements and objectives that it would wish to pursue. There is a danger, not necessarily in the first or even the second year of the transfer, but down the line, that the DTI might take the view that it had inherited the strange, esoteric field of arts and humanities research, very little of which had much to do with promoting economic competitiveness, exports or the growth of UK industry. In a tough public spending round negotiation with the Treasury it might take the view that arts and humanities research could offer a relatively painless range of savings. I should be grateful for reassurance from the Minister on that matter.

What discussions have the Minister's officials had with those from the DTI about the attitude of the new Department responsible for arts and humanities research to the proposed research council after it has been set up? Were his officials, who at present deal with the AHRB, consulted before the appointment of the director general of research councils, Professor Sir Keith O'Nions? Have they received assurances that in the future arts and humanities work of Research Councils UK will be given a higher priority? The Government's website states that the chief executive of the AHRB already attends meetings of Research Councils UK as an observer. That may cause slight concern in the arts and humanities community, as the main tasks of Research Councils UK are listed as developing the strategy for investing the science budget, investing in world-class facilities such as the new, high-performance computing capability and the new synchrotron radiation source, and ensuring that investment in science and technology benefit the UK's economy.

Under the present structure of Research Councils UK, even though the director general knows that it is highly likely that the arts and humanities research council will join and that the chief executive of the

AHRB already attends its meetings, there is no reference to anything non-scientific in the objectives or the mission statements of Research Councils UK. Has the Minister secured an undertaking from the Department of Trade and Industry that the changes will be reflected in the mission statements and objectives of the Office of Science and Technology at large and of Research Councils UK specifically? In short, the arts and humanities community, which widely welcomes the creation of a research council, would further welcome anything that the Minister can say to reassure us that, even after the transfer of responsibility for these matters to a Department that is not innately assumed to have a huge grasp of the importance of arts and humanities, proper importance will continue to be given to that work, which the Government will continue to make a priority.

Roger Gale (Conservative, North Thanet)

I should make it plain that there is an inevitable inter-relationship between clauses in a Bill as complex as this. Hon. Members will find that some amendments that apply to later clauses have been grouped with earlier clauses. It is immediately apparent, for example, that the debate on clause 1 is already touching on matters relating to clause 3. I have no problem with that, providing that members of the Committee understand that we shall debate the issues once, not twice.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

Many of us from all parties will lament the absence of the former hon. Member for the Cities of London and Westminster, now Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, whom my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) and I much enjoyed when we led for our party. In his final years in this place, he would come in to Committees as a Back Bencher and delight them either with cricket stories—on which I did not feel as strongly as him—or with classical references, with which I cannot claim to match him but in which I shared an interest.

Germane to our consideration of the arts and humanities research council is the analogy between the ranks of Government Back Benchers attending the Committee and the formation of a Greek hoplite army; tightly grouped, working in a narrow phalanx and, above all, ensuring that nobody steps out of line. With the greatest respect to Ministers and Government Members, the difficulty is that that is a somewhat inflexible procedure. Some may be aware of the analogy of Apamanondus, who was the first Theban general to defeat the Spartans for 400 years. He caused them great distress, and a kind of psychological breakdown, at the battle of Lutra in 371 BC when he manoeuvred by concentrating his forces on the left and broke in to the hoplite formation, which fell down completely. That is the only Brookeism to which I shall treat the Committee this morning.

I hope that the Minister will not feel upset if I say that I agree with the clause; I indicated that on Second Reading and I do so again, as it is the right thing to do. I shall say a little about the reservations of my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale, which I share, but the basic decision is right. It is right

to give the arts and humanities community a pukka research council, both as a matter of status and because it will enable it fully to access resources within the research council net.

I have a number of interests in the area. First, I am a humanities person through and through myself. Secondly—somewhat to my surprise, but it is amazing how training transfers—I sat for two years on a science research council in the late 1980s. Thirdly, I was Higher Education Minister when some of these ideas were beginning to be developed. The arts and humanities community's interest then, as now—judging from the briefing that I have seen—was in favour of a full research council. We should not stand in its way.

I have been reflecting—although I have not had time to access and check through all the files—on the arguments that were deployed in my time as a Minister for not creating a council. In a sense, the arguments are behind the reservations that my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale has already mentioned, and they are still matters on which Ministers need to reflect. Ministers need to be sensitive in dealing with the humanities in establishing the council.

Essentially, the problem is one of scale, and we should consider the characteristics and management of the higher education sector. For example, if we compare the proportion of vice-chancellors who come from a big science background, where they are used to managing substantial research teams and resources, with the proportion that come from an arts or humanities background, we see that there is a strong preponderance in favour of science.

Universities clearly require substantial resources to carry out their work—that point may also come up in later debates—and that does not exclude the humanities, which need library facilities, IT support and so forth. However, in a way that is not universally feasible in science, it is possible for a lone scholar to sit in a garret and puzzle a problem of philosophy, ancient history or logic and argue it through with a pen, paper and their own brain. That is the cultural and scale difference between the humanities and the sciences.

My hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale has already referred to the second reservation. It concerns the transfer that effectively farms the council off to the Department of Trade and Industry, of which I was not fully aware until I read the small print. If we are going to establish a research council, it would be inappropriate to leave it uniquely under the control of his Department. I notice that the Minister is nodding. The council has to transfer, as it cannot be half one and half the other.

There are some important sensitivities, to which the Minister could helpfully respond, about his Department's continuing relations with and interest in the arts and humanities. Indeed, he might want to say something about his relations with the sciences, and I shall return to that later. There are also particular interests among the arts and humanities world from other organisations and bodies that will remain at least under the general sponsorship and encouragement of

the Department. I am thinking of, for example, the British Academy and the British archaeological schools in Athens and Rome. These are matters in which the Minister and his successors will be taking an interest. We must also consider what is taught in schools, and progression issues. As we are slightly more at leisure this morning, it would be helpful if the Minister commented on those points.

The other area that featured in the theology of our decision about 10 years ago when I was Minister not to move to a full-blown research council concerned the future of the dual support funding. As the Minister will know, the funding is divided between the research councils' contracts or grant arrangements for service and the Higher Education Funding Council for England money, which is tied to the research assessment exercise and pays for blue-skies research. Ministers are rightly anxious to defend and maintain that distinction.

We must take note, although perhaps in a different context from this morning, that Lord May—a former chief scientist whom I greatly respect—said cheerfully that we could allocate all funding through the research councils, simplify the system and not bother with the HEFCE research funding. That would not be appropriate, but the Minister might want to comment on it.

I have several points that I should like to list solely to get them out of the way so that I do not need to intervene on later amendments. First, will the Minister confirm that the charter of the proposed council will provide for an ability to receive and deploy external funds? I remember from my time on a research council that although the prime funding—about 90 per cent.—was through the Government department that became the OST in due course, there was a significant amount of private sector funding. I imagine that the Minister will not want to discourage external funding, whether it is through endowment, commercial contracts, intellectual property or whatever.

The second point, which relates to external activities, is probably covered sufficiently by clause 8. I am sure that the Minister will endorse my view that there are important academic linkages. The academic world is not confined to the UK or even parts of the UK, important as some of us think they are; I have a Welsh wife, so I have an interest in those clauses, too. Most academics, particularly in the world of the internet, converse academically, and collaborate and associate themselves with a wide range of scholars and researchers throughout the world. We all want such practices to happen and we do not want them to be in any way inhibited.

Clause 8 states that nothing should restrict the activities of the arts and humanities research council to the UK or to any constituent part of the UK. That is a fairly simple and unequivocal statement, but perhaps the Minister can say whether it extends equally to the activities of scholars and researchers who are supported by the council and whether there are inhibitions on that.

I shall simply flag up the third point, because it is the subject of a later amendment. It concerns the need to ensure that any legal undertakings that have been concluded by the AHRB, and in particular its obligations to staff, are fully recognised and transferred.

When in government, we faced a situation in which the sector wanted a change and there was pressure for an arts and humanities research council. However, 10 years ago, we did not feel that the time was right. Indeed, I have emphasised some of the points that are more than purely theological or organisational. There are points of substance, on which my hon. Friend rightly questioned the Minister and which at least give rise to reservations about rushing into this process. As Sir Humphrey knew, Rome was not built in a day, and it has taken 10 years to get from the laying of the foundations, which I modestly hope I laid, to the fruition of the proposal today.

I am conscious that I could have made a cynical response at the time when I laid the foundations. I could have said, ''This is the way to block the proposal off, so that it might never be implemented'', but in fact I am quite happy that it has evolved through the way in which the Arts and Humanities Research Board has communicated with interested persons, developed authority and led the sector, and that the time is right to make this change. I pay tribute to the successive professors who have led the board; Laver, Eastwood and Crossick. I hope that I have not omitted one. There has been good leadership that has operated in a modest but effective way. The time has now come to move on, but we should not neglect the sensitivities. It is particularly important when there is such consensus on moving to this proposal that we do not pretend that there are no problems. We should simply deal with them in a grown-up way.

We all need to emphasise the importance of the arts and humanities in their own right. They are not irrelevant to the economic strength of the country. We are strong in many of those fields, and many of us would think it proper that we should be even if there were no economic worth to that. We must ensure that what the Minister is proposing, with an aura of good will on both sides of the Committee and a good deal of pressure to do so, delivers the result that we all want.

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

The points raised are perfectly valid. I am pleased that we have had the debate because we may, as you suggested Mr. Gale, be able to cover future debates on the clause more quickly.

I shall provide an outline for why we believe the proposal to be such an important step forward and, in doing so, pick up on the points raised by Opposition Members. I believe that this aspect of the Bill has unanimous support; in my seven months in the job, I have not heard a single argument against it. The measure brings to fruition a tremendous amount of work, and I applaud the hon. Member for Daventry on setting aspects of the initiative in motion 10 years ago. However, we must remember that establishing an arts

and humanities research council was a specific recommendation of the Dearing inquiry into higher education.

The Arts and Humanities Research Board completely supports the proposal, including placing the council under the responsibility of the Department of Trade and Industry. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the important reasons for doing that; if one research council remained in the DFES while the other seven were in the DTI, it would not have the same status. The AHRB has done a lot of work, as have the Office of Science and Technology, the DTI and the Government. A review of arts and humanities research—carried out internally but involving the devolved administrations and building on the Dearing and other recommendations—found that a fully fledged research council should be established. We believe that such a council gives proper recognition to the arts and humanities, which are important not only to the social fabric of the country, but to the economy and the interface with scientific research.

Part of the argument of the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale was about the business spin-offs from the council and its placement in the DTI. There are enormous business spin-offs. The creative industries, which accounted for 7.9 per cent. of our GDP in 2000, are growing at a rate of 9 per cent. a year. Tourism, which will be a major aspect of the research council, contributed £10.9 billion to export earnings in 2001 with the support of culture and heritage research. More than a third of overseas visitors cite the heritage sector as a prime reason for their visit.

Tim Collins (Conservative, Westmorland and Lonsdale)

The Minister is right on that point, but he will recognise that responsibility for tourism promotion lies not with the DTI but with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Have officials in that Department been consulted and involved in the process?

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

Yes, they have. The DCMS might use the research council's resources for the reasons that the hon. Gentleman suggests. The central thrust of the hon. Gentleman's point was the priorities that he quoted. I reassure him that after the change, those priorities and everything associated with them from the OST will reflect the existence of the arts and humanities research council.

Research in the humanities makes an important contribution to the development of public policy. That is a link with the scientific community, which was another point raised by the hon. Gentleman. Embryology, surrogacy, human genetics and cloning, as ethical aspects of the research council, will have an important link with the rest of the research council's work.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

In support of the Minister's argument, I point out that Ruth Deech, who will be the first student complaints adjudicator, comes with a distinguished background in the humanities and with service on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. She is exactly the kind of person who stands with the humanities tradition in dealing with

important matters, which in her previous activity were germane to the conduct of scientific research and the development of medical techniques.

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. I am glad that he read that in to the record.

Before I turn to the meat of clause 1, I should bring one other issue to your attention, Mr. Gale. As Committee members will know, the arts and humanities research council, like existing research councils, will operate throughout the UK and the primary legislation involves the UK Parliament legislating on a matter previously devolved to Scotland. By convention, there will be a Sewel motion in the Scottish Parliament. I understand that that is likely to be formally moved without debate in the Scottish Parliament on Thursday. We will know by the subsequent sitting whether that process has been completed. Our consideration of the clauses on the arts and humanities research council in so far as they relate to Scotland is framed by the Government's commitment to seek the consent of the Scottish Parliament when it plans to legislate on a devolved area at Westminster.

Clause 1 defines the AHRC as a body to be set up by royal charter. We are not establishing the body here. I think that we have distributed copies of the charter to Committee members. The charter provides, in broad terms, for the governance of the AHRC, its accountability to the taxpayer and the appointment of its senior officials, including the chief executive. I am advised that the chief executive was appointed by open competition in the normal way against the advertised job specification, and a splendid choice he is. Without clause 1, the AHRC would not be established and everyone agrees that that would be of great detriment to the research community.

The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale raised an important point when he spoke about the social sciences. The Economic and Social Research Council most closely equates to the arts and humanities research council. I remind him that when the idea emerged of putting social sciences under a research council under the Department of Trade and Industry, similar concerns were rightly expressed. However, with the passage of time it has proved to be successful and no one would argue that the council ought to be anywhere other than under the DTI.

I cannot remember who quoted the figure of £78 million that will transfer across. No significant savings are to be found in turning the board in to a research council. I can give the hon. Member for Daventry the assurance that he sought; we will debate the terms and conditions of the staff and they will be fully protected. There are some synergies but no significant savings. Resource transfers will make the change neutral in terms of funding for arts and humanities research. In the recent spending review, research funding increased and that increased research funding will transfer over to the research council.

Phil Willis (Liberal Democrat, Harrogate and Knaresborough)

We accept that staff will be protected and that the resources will be transferred over, so there is no reason to question the Minister on that. We are concerned about the redistribution of resources in the future. The resources will all come through one Department, the DTI. Will the Department be able to give 90 per cent. of the total cake to science and technology, for instance, and squeeze arts and humanities research significantly? How will measures be put in place that ensure an equitable distribution of resources to the various research councils?

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

We have a specific amendment that relates precisely to that example, including the terms 90 per cent. and 10 per cent. Of course, unlike the funding councils, who allocate money on a much more methodological system, the research councils allocate money by peer review in response to specific applications and specific projects. That is an important definition. There is no question of the arts and humanities research council being any different from the other eight research councils in being able to respond to applications.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

Like me, the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough is perhaps feeling for some sense that Ministers at the DFES will continue to take an interest in the allocation of the money. Of course, it would be unreasonable to ask them to do the OST's job or that of the DTI, but I hope that they will at least undertake to make friendly representations if they feel that an imbalance has developed in the treatment the arts and humanities, the social sciences or, conceivably, the natural sciences.

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

I shall deal with that now. Let me clarify the situation as regards the OST consultation on dual support and the consultation on the research assessment exercise, which is due to be announced today. The Committee that deals with those issues includes myself, Lord Sainsbury and all the major players, and will ultimately decide how the research council's funding works. Therefore, DFES input is definitely part of the process.

The hon. Member for Daventry raised the important issue of Apamanondus and the hoplite formation, but enough has been said about that. The issue has dominated the tabloids for weeks, and we need not dwell on it further. He also asked for reassurance as regards dual support, but he knows that that has already been given in the White Paper and in the letter that Lord Sainsbury and I recently sent to all the research councils. We believe that dual support is essential, and the vast majority of those in the research and higher education communities are with us on that. Even Lord May, whom I admire as much the hon. Member for Daventry does, has said that he is not calling for the end of dual support and that he is talking about something else; I am not exactly sure what, but that is what he claims. So I think there is unanimity on the issue and we certainly believe that dual support should continue.

Phil Willis (Liberal Democrat, Harrogate and Knaresborough)

The Minister raises an important issue. We should not dismiss Lord May as a crank; he is an eminent researcher, and his views reflect what the Secretary of State said at the time of the White Paper. The Government's view was that there would be research-only and teaching-only universities. There is surely logic in what Lord May said, because if we go down the proposed road, the division between research and teaching will demand a different form of funding for research universities.

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

I fully accept that, and I hope that none of my comments suggested that Lord May was anything other than an eminent and valuable contributor to the debate. I agree completely with the hon. Gentleman's comments.

The hon. Member for Daventry asked for a reassurance as regards international links. I will give him that, although I should point out that a later Opposition amendment would damage those links. However, we shall debate that in due course. With those comments, however, I ask the Committee to agree that the clause should stand part of the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2 - Transfer to Council of property etc of Arts and Humanities Research Board

Chris Grayling (Conservative, Epsom and Ewell)

I beg to move amendment No. 126, in

clause 2, page 2, line 5, at end insert

'and carrying with it full employment and other rights reflecting the employee's service with the Board'.

This is a simple proposal, which is designed to meet some of the concerns that frequently arise when status is transferred between Government bodies, from one corporate form to another. I say that because, on at least two occasions in my constituency, the message from the management of the organisations concerned to their staff contained ambiguities—probably inadvertently—that caused confusion and uncertainty among staff.

The amendment aims to set out a clear, simple and straightforward stipulation for the staff who work for the current board that their employment rights will remain unchanged and unaffected by the transition. It aims to remove the uncertainty that might exist if the message given were wrong.

A person in a similar situation told me, ''I am not sure if my pension rights will carry over in the same way. I am also not sure if one of my colleagues who, in the existing organisation, has the right to stay on for a particular period of time, will be able to do so under the new organisation, and so he may not able to continue his career as he had previously envisaged.''

The amendment is designed to clarify for the members of staff that their rights will transfer. The Society of College Principals, the organisation representing higher education colleges, welcomes the

amendment. It believes that such clarification would be valuable to staff, and would like to see it added to the Bill. I hope that the amendment is uncontroversial; it will not make a material difference to what the Government are trying to achieve, nor will it cause problems for the council as it is established.

The amendment would clarify the situation for all staff who currently work for the legacy body—the previous body—when the new council is established and the royal charter is put in place, and when the new corporate framework in which those staff will work has been set up. It would reassure them that when the transition from a charitable organisation to a non-departmental public body takes place, nothing—their rights to pensions, to specific benefits after particular lengths of service or to their current pay scales, which may have led them to expect a pay rise next April—will be materially affected by the change.

I hope that the Government will accept the simple and straightforward amendment and will use it to send the message to staff that the provision is a positive step for the whole of the arts and humanities world and that the commitment to staff within it is absolute and straightforward.

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

I think that I can give the hon. Gentleman the assurance that he seeks. However, he does not need to carry the amendment to achieve the effect that he wants. Incidentally, the TUPE regulations stem from the acquired rights directive, and it is rather ironic that the Opposition, when in government, fiercely opposed that directive. However, I accept that times change and that we now have champions of trade union rights in the Opposition. As John Lennon once said:

''A working-class hero is something to be.''

I am heartened by the interest shown in the matter. Clause 5 will ensure that there can be no ambiguity about pensions. However, it is worth mentioning that last year the Government included pensions as one of the issues that would be protected under a TUPE transfer; previously they were not covered, so that was an important development. However, to remove any doubt, we have dealt with pensions in a separate clause.

When the AHRB was created, it was itself subject to a TUPE transfer. That worked well and the AHRB is determined that when it becomes a council it will do the same thing.

We looked carefully to see whether anything was missing in relation to the transfer of employment rights, but there is not. All that would be achieved by adding the wording in the amendment would be to repeat the wording that is already in the Bill, because TUPE must be applied in relation to the transfer, and pensions are covered under clause 5. The hon. Gentleman can safely withdraw his amendment, because the terms that he rightly seeks are in the Bill as drafted.

Chris Grayling (Conservative, Epsom and Ewell)

I am grateful for the Minister's reassurance and for his statement, on the record, that TUPE applies in this case. In the related matter to which I referred, one of the uncertainties in the

separate organisation involved in a similar type of change was that the employers had not made it explicit that TUPE applied, so there was a further uncertainty. The Minister has given a categorical assurance that all employment rights are protected and that there are no missing elements in the package that could slip through the net, and I am grateful to have that clarification on the record. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Roger Gale (Conservative, North Thanet)

I remind hon. Members that if they seek to catch my eye they must do so before the debate is wound up.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 3 - Expenses of Council

Simon Thomas (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

I beg to move amendment No. 212, in

clause 3, page 2, line 11, at end insert—

'(1A) Sums may not be paid under subsection (1) unless the Secretary of State is satisfied that the principle of distribution set out in section [distribution principle for funding by research councils] will be adhered to.'.

Roger Gale (Conservative, North Thanet)

With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 5—Distribution principle for funding by research councils—

'(1) In distributing funding, the research councils to which this section applies shall have regard to the distribution principle in this section.

(2) That principle is that, in any period of twelve months, 10 per cent. of funds to be distributed shall be awarded to those institutions that have benefited the least from the distribution of the other 90 per cent. of funds.

(3) This section applies to—

(a) the Arts and Humanities and Research Council,

(b) the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council,

(c) the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council,

(d) the Natural Environment Research Council,

(e) the Medical Research Council,

(f) the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council,

(g) the Economic and Social Research Council, and

(h) the Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils.'.

Simon Thomas (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

I am looking forward to working with you on the Committee, Mr. Gale, to see how we can possibly improve this dreadful Bill.

However, I welcome this part of the Bill because I completely agree with the establishment of the arts and humanities research council. The purpose of the amendment is to probe some of the ideas that were mentioned in the debates on the two previous clauses, especially what may happen under the dual support mechanism when the Bill's proposals on variable tuition fees—top-up fees—come into play.

I tabled the amendment because I am worried that a two-tier system of higher education—teaching universities and colleges, and research institutions—will develop in the United Kingdom. The current meld of the two from which we benefit so much in terms of undergraduate and postgraduate teaching will be

undermined and weakened in many parts of the country and, over time, will decline. Instead, there will be a concentration of research money, institutions and expertise in certain areas; for example, the golden triangle around Oxford, Cambridge and the Thames valley. The amendment was tabled to try to ensure that the Government do not achieve what they want in that respect. We will see how far we get.

The amendment would change the funding of the research councils, assuming that the arts and humanities research council is established by royal charter. I remind hon. Members that at present the dual support mechanism means that there is a payment from the funding councils in Wales and England. Two different funding councils make payments to fund the general cost of the basic research infrastructure, including laboratories and equipment. Arts and humanities do not need laboratories and equipment, but they need offices, IT and so on, from the general funding councils. I assume that that will continue.

The other element is provided by the research councils and depends on the research assessment exercise, which is much cursed by academics, certainly those in Aberystwyth and Lampeter. Every department is assessed on the basis of its research capabilities and excellence and those that achieve a five or five-star assessment are eligible to apply for grants from the research councils, although they do not necessarily get them. As the Minister said, the way that the application system works is that proposals are made; I think an awful lot are recycled.

Under the Royal Society exchange scheme between parliamentarians and scientists, I have had the opportunity to spend some interesting times in the last couple of months with a scientist in Aberystwyth called Dr. Gareth Griffith. As an arts and humanities graduate, I found it an eye opener to visit the laboratories and the infrastructure, good and bad, where Dr. Griffith works and to try to appreciate the immense time and effort that he spends in making applications to research councils and for external research. For example, he is applying to carry out research on a type of cocoa fungus, which could be useful for the Department for International Development in overcoming the problem that the fungus causes in developing countries such as Brazil and on the west coast of Africa.

All sorts of interesting work is going on in our universities, as we well know. It is interesting to be directly exposed to that, and to have an idea of the immense amount of administrative time and effort that goes in to so much academic work nowadays. Much work is done on applying for money and trying to get extra bits of resources to patch together a decent research department in order to attract the best students and lecturers and to build success. The problem is that if a department cannot quite get there and is drowning at the shoreline, as we Welsh say, it will never be good enough to make an application to the research councils; it will always be able to get

something from its funding council and to maintain some level of infrastructure, but it will not be able to break through.

The Government have tried to do something with student support and access in the Bill, which we will debate later. It is interesting that they have recognised that some institutions cream off the best students, and that some students may be prevented from attending some institutions by barriers other than academic ability. Through the Office for Fair Access, the Government seek a different way to ensure that there is a spread of ability throughout the higher education institutions of England and Wales, without artificial barriers.

With these amendments, we are trying to do much the same for the research councils, at least in principle. We recognise that there are good departments that undertake interesting lines of research that could benefit the economic development and cultural welfare of this country. They are not quite able to access the research council funding because they are caught in the double bind of not being able to get the good research in order to get funding and a five-star grading and, therefore, never quite break through.

For example—I can only give examples from Wales, the area I know best—I contacted the research councils and asked, ''What sort of allocation is there between England and Wales, because Wales has about 5 per cent. of the population, but about 6 per cent. of the students?'' We have always educated a lot of students in Wales. I wanted to know what proportion of research council money was generally being spent in Wales and in England.

About ten years ago, an eminent politician and physicist who will be known to the Welsh members of the Committee, Dr. Phil Williams—sadly, he died last year—found that Wales was being short-changed by the research councils. He found that about 2 or 3 per cent. of funding was coming to Wales, even though it had 5 per cent. of the population and 6 per cent. of students. I understand that the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs is looking into that and that the research councils are gathering information for that Committee, but they do not have that information yet. I am concerned that we may be creating systems when we should be collecting relevant information about where the money will be allocated in order to ensure that it will not feed those institutions that other parts of the Bill, and OFFA, are trying to change.

Jonathan R Shaw (Labour, Chatham and Aylesford)

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the HEFCE will provide a capacity fund of £20 million to support research in emerging subject areas in which the research base is not strong and established? Does not that answer some of his concerns about the need to pump-prime areas that we want to progress?

Simon Thomas (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

Yes, it does. I am aware of the initiative. My amendment is simply a probing amendment to elicit an explanation of how this pans out. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that that is exactly what he said it was; pump-priming. In principle, my amendment is an ongoing mechanism,

which, over time, could change the funding system. The system the hon. Gentleman describes attempts to get people on to a springboard so that they can attain that research council funding. There is no principle at stake here about whether we go down this or that route, but it is important that we recognise the current lack of equity in research council funding.

That lack of equity is due to the fact that some institutions started from a lower base. They received less funding than the more established institutions. They have always struggled to attract lecturers, teachers, staff and students to hit those gradings of five and more within the research evaluation exercise. The hon. Gentleman will know what institutions I am talking about because they have featured in other parts of our discussion on the Bill. The more historic institutions also find it easier to attract private money to match-fund. It is much harder for a tiny university such as Lampeter to attract private funding. It is interesting to look at a university like that because its research into ethics precisely reflects what the Minister was saying earlier about biotechnology, genetic engineering, human fertilisation and so on.

In conclusion, I should like to look at a couple of the research councils, but as I said earlier, I do not want to criticise them per se. My amendment recognises that they will give money to the best research. I am concerned that that is a bit of self-perpetuating mechanism that can go against what we are trying to achieve, at least in the better parts of the Bill. The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council has managed to fund eight postgraduates at the university of Wales, the lowest figure for any university. The university of Wales is a collegiate university, made up of five or six different colleges. In other universities such as York the figure is 83, in Cambridge it is 210 and in Oxford it is 86. I do not want to continue with those numbers. There is a discrepancy; I say no more than that.

The Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council is supporting only 19 grants in Wales. That brings to mind the history of the Diamond synchrotron. Many of us hoped for sentimental reasons that it would come to Aberystwyth as the theory of synchrotron radiation was developed by George Schott in Aberystwyth itself. But it did not go to Aberystwyth, which is an objective 1 area, and neither did it go to Liverpool and the Wirral, which was also in the running as an objective 1 area. It went to an area that is already quite well off with such institutions.

Finally, the Medical Research Council does not support any major centres in Wales. We have a well-advanced school of medicine in Cardiff and developments in Bangor and Swansea, too. There is obviously a need to get those developments up and give them a boost so that they can compete for medical research council money. I hope that the amendments will spark a response from the Minister and perhaps a debate about the purpose of the research councils.

This Bill replaces the Arts and Humanities Research Board with an arts and humanities research council. We must ask a wider question about the research councils' purpose and ensure that research money does not go to the same institutions time and time again. All institutions should have fair access, just as the Bill tries to ensure that students have the same level of access. We should think of innovative ways—either pump-priming or within the funding system—to ensure that. Research councils can and will enrich an even wider range of institutions. In doing so, we shall ensure that neither the other measures in the Bill nor this narrow aspect of it will help to create a two-tier level of education. There should always be the potential for every institution in England and Wales to undertake serious and highly regarded research. We all want to see that; I hope that the Minister does too, and that he will talk about how the research council can achieve that.

Chris Grayling (Conservative, Epsom and Ewell)

I followed the hon. Gentleman's remarks with interest, but I disagree. I understand where he is coming from; I understand smaller and regional institutions' concerns about the direction and support of research funding. However, I do not believe that his amendments would provide an adequate solution to those concerns, and I shall explain why.

There is no doubt that the Government are consciously channelling funding in to a smaller number of institutions. The structure of the research assessment exercise, the focus on five-star departments and the gradual erosion of resources for departments that have a lower level of achievement have significant implications for the education system in the regions. There is no question that that will cause significant problems for many universities and other higher education institutions. The provisions that create an arts and humanities research council are a counterbalance to that. They will channel funds to smaller institutions so as to maintain their research capability. The strong message coming from the smaller institutions is that they are concerned that without a research dimension to what they do, they may find it much more difficult to maintain the quality and substance of teaching staff. The Government must consider that carefully. The Minister, in making changes to the four-star institutions, clearly has the issue on his mind.

I recently visited Coventry university, which described its research support work for the motor industry in the midlands as extremely important both to the institution and to industry in that area. There is no doubt that many regional universities have strong links in research and teaching with key local industries. If the Government's approach to research finding makes it more difficult to carry out such research, that has implications for our regional economies, industries and the institutions themselves. The Government's balanced approach to the distribution of funding to research centres is important; we must ensure that we have strong international centres of research excellence at the forefront of their field on the global stage.

There are also areas where focus on the smaller number of research centres has a direct, adverse effect on services. A specific example is the health service. The research assessment exercise has concentrated medical research in individual disciplines in a smaller number of departments. The problem is that if a medical school loses a department researching a specific clinical area, the potential consequence is that if the area disappears, so do the consultants, who spread their time between research work, teaching and providing clinical care in the adjoining NHS hospital. The patients may suffer if that happens, so it is important to find a balance.

The amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr. Thomas) takes us in the wrong direction. It takes away the ability of the research councils to channel their funding to those projects they deem the best and most effective. The peer review system that says—regardless of the institution or where it is situated in the country—that funding for a research project will be provided based on merit, on the assessment of peers and on their judgement of the quality of the work, has to be the right way to go. For us, effectively, to bottom-slice part of the funding allocation and say where it must go—regardless of whether those institutions have projects of merit or departments with the critical mass to carry out those projects—would be the wrong way to sort out this problem.

The councils are doing a good job of channelling funding. I am not sure I agree with the assessment of the hon. Member for Ceredigion. For example, the Arts and Humanities Research Board has provided grants for work done by the university of Wales in Aberystwyth, or in Cardiff. More particularly, it is providing funding across a wide range of institutions. There are projects for Anglia polytechnic university and the university of Central Lancashire, as well as for the Russell group of universities, our most successful universities.

Simon Thomas (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

I hope the hon. Gentleman recognises that I was trying to raise the debate rather than put an argument one way or another. Nevertheless, he has raised an important point. I think one thing we need to bear in mind is that although research in arts and humanities is labour-intensive—the best staff and students and so forth need to be attracted—science research is also capital-intensive, in a different way from much arts and humanities research. We need to bear in mind not only what the Arts and Humanities Research Board has been achieving, but also the concentration of science-based research in specific institutions. He acknowledged that at the start of his remarks.

Chris Grayling (Conservative, Epsom and Ewell)

I accept that situation and would anticipate, in the current climate, individual institutions focusing their research efforts more on specific areas where they have a unique selling point, a particular local or regional need or an industry into which that research can feed. It is important that those

regional centres remain, and it is excellent that they deliver high-quality research to meet the needs of their area.

I would not wish to see an engineering by politicians in the allocation of grants. Ultimately, if we move away from a system of peer review and from a system that says that if a university is excellent in an area, it will be funded—if funding, instead, is by formula—we risk, given the trends in funding council channels, having an engineered system through the research council funding channels as well. We are well served by letting the academic world take decisions about the best projects to fund. I hope the Minister will have some comments about the issues that the hon. Gentleman raised, but I do not think that these amendments do the job that he hoped they would.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

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.

To 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

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 R Shaw (Labour, Chatham and Aylesford)

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.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

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 R Shaw (Labour, Chatham and Aylesford)

The hon. Gentleman will remember the Adjournment debate in Westminster Hall on the issue in which the two of us and two other hon.

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?

Phil Willis (Liberal Democrat, Harrogate and Knaresborough)

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—

Roger Gale (Conservative, North Thanet)

Order. I have a sneaking feeling that these are issues that we might debate later.

Jonathan R Shaw (Labour, Chatham and Aylesford)

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.

Roger Gale (Conservative, North Thanet)

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 (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

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.

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.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

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 (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

I agree with the hon. Gentleman, which is why it is important to continue that development through this Bill.

Jonathan R Shaw (Labour, Chatham and Aylesford)

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 (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

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

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.

Anne Campbell (Labour, Cambridge)

The Government's policy has my unqualified support, especially as I represent an area with one of the country's top universities. Would the Minister agree that it is important that researchers and teaching staff do not feel excluded from research? It is important that all universities have the infrastructure to allow people with top research qualifications to pursue their interests.

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

I agree, although it might not necessarily be in the same institution. There is a clear link between scholarship, teaching and research, as we have repeated over and over again.

Let me deal now with the concerns that were expressed last year. Hon. Members will now know that the funding councils—indeed, today, they will announce the result of the latest round of consultation on the research assessment exercise—have stabilised the amounts going into four-rated departments at £118 million and have made that funding real by linking it to inflation. On top of that, we have set up the research forum, which gives everybody involved—the National Union of Students, Universities UK and the royal societies—an opportunity to discuss common objectives and establish a common analysis of how research should proceed in the future.

On the specific points raised by the hon. Member for Ceredigion, he is mistaken that departments must have a five-star rating to qualify for research council funding. Research councils allocate funds on the basis of research excellence not simply of the RAE assessment of the institution.

There is an issue in Wales. By and large, Welsh applications are successful; indeed, they do very well. The problem is that institutions do not get enough applications in to research councils. Recent research showed that Wales, which has 5 per cent. of the UK's population, receives 3.3 per cent. of UK funding, and Welsh higher education institutions have agreed a target of 4.5 per cent. to reflect the subject mix at Welsh universities. A lot of work is being done to reach the desired level, but ring-fencing and preferential treatment will not help. It is not too difficult, in judging the amendments, and particularly new clause 5, to let one's head rule one's heart, as the hon. Member for Daventry said.

There is consensus among all political parties about the need to ensure that we fund excellent research and that we do not put taxpayers' money into research that is less than excellent. That involves another level of funding. We have talked about dual support, but there is also triple support in the form of the higher education innovation fund, which will allocate another £90 million. HEFCE and the funding councils

for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are specifically allocating money to excellent, emerging research at three and three A rated departments.

We have an opportunity to resolve the problem that the hon. Gentleman raised in respect of Wales and, as my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State has said, the Government recognise the issue. Although this is a White Paper matter rather than a Bill matter, taking forward our proposals to ensure that we maintain our excellent, world-class research base is crucial to this country's economy and that, I am afraid, is one reason why the Committee should reject the amendment.

Simon Thomas (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

I want to respond briefly to one or two points. The amendment did not find much favour, and I am glad that my arguments had a slightly better reception.

It is important to recognise that some research departments need to build capacity so that they can compete for the money. I accept that they do not necessarily need a five rating to do so, but that is the case in Wales, and few departments with a rating of four or below get much of the money. That exacerbates the situation, and institutions that feel that they are not being looked on favourably do not try to compete, thus falling into a vicious circle. That is true not only of Wales but of regions in England. Indeed, the amendments were about all of England and Wales and sought to ensure that we did not concentrate research moneys only in one area.

Before withdrawing the amendment, I want to clarify one point. On the whole, I welcomed the comments by the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell, but he said that the amendments were an example of engineering by politicians. To be frank, however, the Minister has explained that there is an awful lot of engineering going on anyway. The amendment would have ensured that the research councils themselves would take that bottom-slicing—probably an apt term—and be responsible for the spending of that money, rather than politicians or Ministers.

The hon. Member for Daventry made an important point when he talked about a coterie, with like appointing like. We have seen examples of that—recent discussions about new fellows of the Royal Society, for instance—in which certain people were not seen as suitable types for joining the club. We have seen all too many such incidents in the past and it is important to break through that.

The hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford made an important point about staff pay. I met somebody during the Royal Society exchange who had been on a continuous research contract for 12 years, but who had never received security of tenure and was now being paid less than some postgrad students, simply because the research money coming in from that avenue was particularly well-endowed. That person was not receiving that money, despite being there for more than a decade. We should bear in mind such examples when we consider how bad pay levels are for some research staff and fellows.

We have had a worthwhile debate about what research councils are about and how they work in the context of the rest of the Bill. I suspect that the rest of

the debate on the Bill will be about undergrads, but it is important to consider the enrichment that the money in question brings to all our institutions and the contribution that that makes to our cultural and economic life. Given the replies and the nature of the debate, which I found encouraging, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Tim Collins (Conservative, Westmorland and Lonsdale)

I beg to move amendment No. 125, in

clause 3, page 2, line 12, leave out subsection (2).

Roger Gale (Conservative, North Thanet)

With this it will be convenient to discuss clause 8 stand part.

I should explain to the Committee that both the amendment and clause 8 deal with extra-territorial activities. The amendment will be taken now; clause 8 will be debated now, but will be voted on at the appropriate time in the course of our proceedings.

Tim Collins (Conservative, Westmorland and Lonsdale)

I begin by immediately reassuring both the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry that the amendment is, of course, probing. Subject to reassurances that I hope and expect the Minister will be able to give us, we shall not press it to a vote.

The amendment and clause 8 relate to activities by the arts and humanities research council outside the UK. I am sure that we all recognise that research in those fields needs to be done outside the UK. Perhaps significantly—given my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry's point about the internet—such research is also highly likely to involve academics and researchers who are based outside the UK. However, it would be helpful if the Minister reassured us on two points.

First, we are talking about the expenditure of UK taxpayer resources. Given that, would the Minister say whether, in a normal year, he expected the preponderance of arts and humanities research that the UK taxpayer would support through funding to be conducted either by UK citizens or within the UK, or both? I am not expecting the Minister to give percentages or precise figures on that, but some comment would be helpful.

Secondly, we need to address duplication that might otherwise arise. I am sure that the Minister and other members of the Committee are familiar with the already considerable panoply of institutions that have a role in the field. Those include the UK Research Office, which has a role in representing research work that is in part conducted overseas, and, increasingly, the European Union. At the end of 2002, the European Commission officially launched the sixth research framework programme, which, for the first time, specifically provides for inputs from all relevant academic subjects, including the humanities. In 2003, the Arts and Humanities Research Board was admitted as a member of the European science foundation. There is also a continuing debate about the possible creation of a European research council.

We would like a reassurance that the Government are alive to the dangers of possible duplication and that excessive amounts of the money that taxpayers

provide through Parliament for academic research work will not be consumed by more liaison committees or by attempts to identify separate funding streams.

In that context, in April last year, the AHRB hosted a conference at Carlton house terrace, purely on European funding. If we are not careful, there will be more meetings and seminars incurring more expense; not to discuss research work or even to meet other researchers, but to discuss how to gain access to more funding, partly to pay for the meetings to talk about access to funding.

That concern is confined not just to those in academic research. There is growing anxiety in local, national and even European Government that more effort is being devoted to liaison between different levels of decision makers than to getting things done.

I seek two straightforward assurances from the Minister, which I hope he will be able to give, in which case I will not press the amendment to a Division.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

I support my hon. Friend. I, too, have some concerns about European funding. In respect of the research framework programmes and student exchanges, Britain has not taken its traditional stance on matters European, and has, properly, been in the forefront in terms of traffic and the receipt of grants. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale is right to put down a marker to say that we do not want money taken to an international level if it can be sensibly administered nationally. I draw the analogy with overseas aid, where it is clear that bilateral programmes from the UK are more successful than some of the multilateral programmes delivered through other institutions.

Secondly, as the Minister knows, I am a supporter of the international activities in arts and humanities research. I do not row back from that, but there is an important accountancy point; if moneys are being spent abroad on behalf of the British taxpayer it may not be easy to capture or control them to the satisfaction of the Public Accounts Committee, for example. The Minister may need to reflect on that. I am making a general point, because it will save my making a speech later. The matter arises from the council's expenses. Whether the new council is run by the DTI or by the interests of the Minister's Department, it is important that Ministers keep a friendly grip—perhaps I should say an interest—on the council's running costs to ensure, as my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale said, that taxpayers' money goes into research and not into meetings to discuss whether research should take place.

I do not suggest in any sense that either the research councils or the AHRB has been profligate, but it is terribly important that Ministers should satisfy themselves on a continuing basis that things are being done with a strict regard to economy, with the money going to delivery and not to the process.

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

Hon. Members will be aware of the increasing importance of collaboration in research projects. That is why I will ask the Committee to resist amendment No. 125, which I accept is a probing amendment, and to support clause 8, because we are dealing with its proposals in this debate.

I give the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale the two assurances that he seeks. Yes, the funding will be predominantly for UK-based activity. In terms of duplication, I will take an even more personal interest in the matter than usual, as the hon. Gentleman has raised the issue. However, some UK research bodies will access European money, so there may be duplication, but it is not our money that pays for the duplication. Indeed, there is cost-effectiveness in that respect. However, I accept the hon. Gentleman's points and I assure him that we will try to avoid duplication whenever possible.

I was asked about the percentage and although I do not have the exact figure for what is being spent on international collaboration, 3.76 per cent. of the research funding allocated by the AHRB was for collaborative projects; I am sure that the lion's share of that will be international collaboration.

Such collaboration is extremely important, and needs to be continued. The research councils are actively engaged in funding international scientific priorities through subscriptions to international organisations such as the European Space Agency and the European southern observatory; through support for facilities outside the United Kingdom, including the British Antarctic Survey and oceanographic research ships; and through research programmes such as those in the Gambia, where we are studying a variety of diseases including HIV/AIDS, measles and malaria. The amendment would remove the certainty that expenses associated with such activities were provided for by the Secretary of State.

Clause 8 largely duplicates provisions in the Science and Technology Act 1965, which provides the legal basis for ensuring that nothing in this part of the Bill restricts the activities of the arts and humanities research council to the UK or to any part of it. The council would thus be able to fund research that involved collaboration of the sort that I have described with researchers and academics across national boundaries, as well as at a European and wider international level.

I hope that the Committee will agree that we are dealing with an important facet of the work of the research council, reject the amendment and agree that clause 8 should stand part of the Bill.

Tim Collins (Conservative, Westmorland and Lonsdale)

I am most grateful to the Minister. He has given precisely the assurances that I sought. Indeed, many hon. Members may have thought that he made a powerful case for more than 3.76 per cent. to be devoted to international collaboration. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Simon Thomas (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

I beg to move amendment No. 199, in

clause 3, page 2, line 14, after 'State', insert

'and each of the devolved administrations'.

Roger Gale (Conservative, North Thanet)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 200, in

clause 3, page 2, line 16, after 'State', insert

'and each of the devolved administrations'.

No. 201, in

clause 3, page 2, line 19, after 'State', insert

'and each of the devolved administrations'.

No. 202, in

clause 3, page 2, line 20, at end insert

'and each of the devolved administrations'.

No. 203, in

clause 4, page 2, line 24, after 'State', insert

'and each of the devolved administrations'.

No. 204, in

clause 4, page 2, line 26, after 'State', insert

'and each of the devolved administrations'.

No. 205, in

clause 4, page 2, line 31, after 'State', insert

'and each of the devolved administrations'.

No. 206, in

clause 6, page 3, line 8, after 'State', insert

'and each of the devolved administrations'.

No. 207, in

clause 6, page 3, line 11, after 'State', insert

'and each of the devolved administrations'.

No. 208, in

clause 6, page 3, line 12, at end insert

'and each of the devolved administrations'.

Simon Thomas (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

I hope that we will be able to deal with these amendments in much the same way as the previous group.

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

We will if the hon. Gentleman withdraws them. [Laughter.]

Simon Thomas (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

Exactly.

The background to the amendments is the relationship between the new research council and the devolved Administrations. Earlier, the Minister noted that we are legislating for matters that are devolved to Scotland and that a similar motion will have to be debated by the Scottish Parliament. That leads me to ask what we should do with regard to Wales and Northern Ireland. They are not quite the same constitutionally, but the matter is relevant and real when dealing with their relationship with the councils. We have already debated the funding gap for research councils in Wales. The aspiration of the National Assembly for Wales is to see the amount increase to 4.5 per cent. My aspiration is a little higher again. Nevertheless, people have an expectation.

I have concentrated on the arts and humanities research council. Having been criticised on a previous amendment for including everyone, I hope that I will not be criticised for including only one body in these amendments. I want to find out what will be the reporting mechanism between the arts and humanities research council—and, by implication, the other research councils—and the devolved Administrations.

The most important amendment, I suggest, is amendment No. 204, which would ensure that the new research council gave a report on its functions during the previous year to the devolved Administrations as well as to the Secretary of State. If the Bill goes through in its present shape, higher education as a whole will be further devolved to the National Assembly, and it is vital that the Assembly has a grip on what is happening in the research councils, that it knows what sort of expenditure is going on and that it has a good relationship with them.

It could be argued that that will happen naturally, and that the research council will want to talk to its stakeholders and to the National Assembly, the other co-funding partner that will be giving money to HEFCW. A natural relationship will emerge. However, it is always best when going through such things in Committee that we probe and tease out whether what we assume will happen is what Ministers want to happen.

That is the purpose of the amendments, and their aims are pretty self-explanatory. In a nutshell, the amendments will ensure that the arts and humanities research council gives the Assembly an idea of its programmes and expenditure in advance, takes account of what the Assembly has to say about those estimates and those programmes and then reports formally to the Assembly at the end of the year in a formal way, in the same way as it would report to the Secretary of State for Wales. The same would apply to the Scottish Parliament and the potential is there for the Northern Ireland Assembly. I hope that the Minister can say something positive about the relationship between the new research council and the devolved Administrations in the United Kingdom.

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

As the hon. Gentleman predicted I cannot accept the amendments. They are probing amendments and I believe that I can give the hon. Gentleman the assurances that he seeks. The AHRC will be required to report annually on the research that it commissions in territorially specific subjects as well as on the regional distribution of its research funding. Further, it will send copies of its formal annual report and accounts to the relevant Ministers across the UK who would then be free to place them in their respective parliamentary assembly libraries and research centres.

A new UK-wide forum of Ministers, shadowed by an officials group, now plays an important role in monitoring the effectiveness of the research funding system and will provide the devolved Administrations with a valuable opportunity to pursue and discuss the performance of the AHRC with the DTI and the Office of Science and Technology. The draft royal charter—the hon. Gentleman may not have had a chance to absorb it all as it is a bit wordy—takes account of the need to support cultural and territorial research in different parts of the UK. We have given a commitment that the quinquennial review of the AHRC will examine its performance in dealing with such research.

To reassure the hon. Gentleman further, let me remind him and other hon. Members that we are not starting from scratch when we set up the AHRC. It will join a family of existing research councils with which the devolved nations already have a well-established and constructive relationship. I expect that relationship to continue when the AHRC is established.

Members of the Committee may not be aware of the detailed recommendation of the review of the AHRB. It concluded that the current system of four-way reporting and accountability to the funding councils in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland was unsatisfactory and that the inherent instability in the AHRB led to awkwardness in the arrangements for funding, accounting and governance. It led the review to conclude that the current arrangements could not continue indefinitely. Those recommendations were endorsed by Ministers in each of the devolved Administrations. Bearing in mind these points and the safeguards that I have explained, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his amendment.

Simon Thomas (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

It is useful to have that explanation on the record and it will inform the AHRC. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Roger Gale (Conservative, North Thanet)

Just before we come to amendment No. 9, I have told the Clerk that Mr. Hood should be informed that, subject to the debate on the amendment, there will be no need for a clause stand part debate.

Tim Collins (Conservative, Westmorland and Lonsdale)

I beg to move amendment No. 9, in

clause 3, page 2, line 18, leave out subsection (5).

Subsection (5) states:

''Programmes and estimates under subsection (4) must be given—(a) in the form required by the Secretary of State, and (b) at the times required by the Secretary of State.''

It being twenty-five minutes past Eleven o'clock, The Chairman adjourned the Committee without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned till this day at half-past Two o'clock.

Laxton, Mr. Lewis, Mr. Mountford, Kali Mudie, Mr. Plaskitt, Mr. Purnell, James Rendel, Mr. Shaw, Jonathan Thomas, Mr. Touhig, Mr. Twigg, Derek Willis, Mr.

Standing Committee H

Higher Education Bill

Jimmy Hood (Labour, Clydesdale)

I understand that this morning the Chairman allowed hon. Members to take off their jackets. The Clerk reliably informs me that it is warmer this afternoon than it was this morning, so if hon. Members wish to take off their jackets, they are welcome to do so.Clause 3 Expenses of Council

Clause 3 - Expenses of Council

Tim Collins (Conservative, Westmorland and Lonsdale)

May I put on the record how much I am looking forward to serving under your chairmanship, Mr. Hood? I am sure that your wisdom and forbearance will be appreciated by all hon. Members.

In that connection, I wonder whether you would permit me, although it is slightly unorthodox, to make a point of order before I proceed. There has been a dramatic development during the three hours since the Committee adjourned. A Labour Member of Parliament, the hon. Member for Wirral, West (Stephen Hesford), issued a press release this morning entitled ''MP gagged by Whips on top-up fees''. The hon. Gentleman said that he was promised membership of this Committee by the Labour Whips until last week—

Jimmy Hood (Labour, Clydesdale)

Order. That is not a point of order for the Chair. Will the hon. Gentleman please speak to the amendment?

Tim Collins (Conservative, Westmorland and Lonsdale)

Very well, Mr. Hood. We shall pursue the matter elsewhere.

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

Interesting.

Tim Collins (Conservative, Westmorland and Lonsdale)

Indeed. When the Minister reads the press release I think that he will find that his majority is three and not five.

Government amendment No. 9—[Interruption.] I was getting excited because of that press release, but perhaps a little too excited. Opposition amendment No. 9 would delete subsection (5), which states:

Programmes and estimates under subsection (4) must be given—

(a) in the form required by the Secretary of State, and

(b) at the times required by the Secretary of State.''

We had an amicable discussion this morning and some hon. Members went off to make various inquiries. In the constructive spirit that was on display this morning—[Interruption.]

Jimmy Hood (Labour, Clydesdale)

Order. Government Front-Bench Members should come to order because it is important that I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, as it is for other hon. Members.

Tim Collins (Conservative, Westmorland and Lonsdale)

I am most grateful, Mr. Hood.

I was merely saying that this morning we had a generally constructive debate, as both sides of the Committee will acknowledge, and in moving my amendment I was keen to be equally constructive and helpful to the Minister. The Bill may have been drafted in advance of knowledge of the Government's latest initiative that we learned about this morning, which seems inconsistent with the wording of subsection (5) that we propose in our amendment should be deleted. In The Guardian this morning—I suspect that it is regarded with almost as much affection on the Labour Benches as it is on the Opposition Benches—the lead story was entitled ''Labour in retreat on targets'' and it stated:

''The government will today signal a change of direction . . . promising to release the energies of state schools and hospitals by lifting the dead hand of central control.''

That is a wonderful and welcome U-turn. It then stated that the Prime Minister wishes

''to escape the reputation for control-freakery that became established in the early years of his administration.''

In that new spirit of liberating the public sector from control-freakery and excessive control, we turn to subsection (5) which states:

''Programmes and estimates . . . must be given—

(a) in the form required by the Secretary of State, and

(b) at the times required by the Secretary of State.''

One begins to see that that is not entirely consistent with moving away from control-freakery and some may say that it is a classic example of control-freakery taken to a great extreme. Given that the earlier subsections of clause 3 sensibly require that the arts and humanities research council should report to the Secretary of State on how it spends public money, which is an entirely sensible and worthwhile objective, I shall be interested to hear from the Minister why it is that instead of setting out those reports in ways that are mutually agreed or that are in accordance with certain times of the financial year, the council should be required to do so in a manner and at times specified by the Secretary of State. Does not that give the Secretary of State rather too much arbitrary power in such matters and unnecessarily reduce the autonomy of the council? Does not it risk leaving the council with the status of supplicant to and servant of the Secretary of State rather than esteemed adviser to him, which we would all prefer?

I understand that the article in The Guardian is not an isolated report and that the Secretary of State for Health has been explaining the change in direction at the heart of the Government's new approach to the public services. I gather that the Secretary of State for Education and Skills will make announcements along the same lines either today or tomorrow. The

amendment was drafted in ignorance of what The Guardian would say this morning and the new direction that the Government would set out. None the less, I wonder whether the Government might accept that it has turned out to be unusually prescient and helpful to the Minister. By embracing our amendment, he can demonstrate even more so than we had ever suspected that he is at the cutting edge of new Labour and the new transformation, that he is one of those who will wield the sword Excalibur to chop off the head of control freakery. I invite him to do that by accepting the amendment.

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

I join the welcome to you, Mr. Hood, to fabulous Committee H—H for happiness and humour. I, too, am delighted to serve under your chairmanship.

While the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins) quietly sits down with a glass of water and a tablet to help him calm down after that wonderful peroration, I should explain why the Government believe that clause 3 is an important element of the Bill.

Jonathan R Shaw (Labour, Chatham and Aylesford)

Does my hon. Friend agree that history provides a warning to Tory MPs who suggest using swords in Parliament or in the press, whether or not they seek to represent South Thanet?

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

I agree with that. I shall turn the sword into a ploughshare and try to plough on with the debate. I refute the allegation that Labour Members treat The Guardian as some kind of tribune of the people. I believe that the phrase

''dead hand of central control''

was actually a journalist's phrase rather than that of any Minister this morning. The Government are keen to remove unnecessary restraints.

If I could just bring the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale back to earth, clause 3 requires that the arts and humanities research council give the Secretary of State programmes and estimates of its expenses. The amendment seeks to remove subsection (5), which says that the programmes and estimates must be provided in the form and at the times required by the Secretary of State. The reason for the requirement is simple: it is consistent with the arrangements for the seven other research councils, which are governed by terms that I believe stem from the Science and Technology Act 1965. I am not certain about the legislation, but the requirement has been in place for some time. As all the research councils submit their programmes and estimates—there is no question about that—it makes sense for the Secretary of State to ensure that they are delivered in a uniform and coherent manner so that we can ensure that they are all governed by the same arrangements.

I am advised that research councils are requested to provide, on a monthly basis, financial estimates against their budget for the year, and, in addition, they provide more detailed information on a quarterly and annual basis. They set out in their individual operating

plans for each year the intended distribution of funds against budget objectives, and, where significant, against specific research programmes. Rather than simply allow the research councils to submit that information in any way they like, it is sensible for the Secretary of State to set out a coherent pattern so that all the research councils submit the information in the same way. In terms of the monthly requirement, that is the arrangement that exists at the moment, and that is the arrangement that will extend to the arts and humanities research council.

David Rendel (Liberal Democrat, Newbury)

Can the Minister give us further information about what happens to the reports when they reach the Secretary of State? What does he do with them?

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

I should think that he studies them carefully. I believe that they are published for the benefit of the House, but perhaps I will write to the hon. Gentleman and let him know the exact details of what happens.

Tim Collins (Conservative, Westmorland and Lonsdale)

The Minister just said ''he'' studies them carefully. Surely the Secretary of State in question would be the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, and therefore she.

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. As the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry is also the Minister for Women, I should like to record the fact that we are talking about her. However, the arrangements will apply to future Secretaries of State, and the gender may well change at some time in the future.

I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his amendment, which he made an entertaining speech in support of, and if he does not, I ask the Committee to reject it.

Tim Collins (Conservative, Westmorland and Lonsdale)

I am disappointed that the Minister did not feel able to take the opportunity to race ahead with his new Labour credentials when it came to this matter. Since he is perhaps slightly out of kilter with his Government, I register my disappointment, but I see no great necessity for pressing ahead with the debate. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 4 - Returns, reports etc. by Council to Secretary of State

Tim Collins (Conservative, Westmorland and Lonsdale)

I beg to move amendment No. 11, in

clause 4, page 2, line 25, leave out

'give the Secretary of State'

and insert 'shall submit to Parliament'.

Jimmy Hood (Labour, Clydesdale)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 10, in

clause 4, page 2, line 28, leave out subsection (3).

No. 12, in

clause 4, page 2, line 30, leave out subsection (4).

Tim Collins (Conservative, Westmorland and Lonsdale)

The amendments, all of which have broadly the same effect, address an issue that is similar to those we have just discussed, although not exactly the same. The Minister may well tell us that, once again, these are the arrangements that are in place for all the other research councils and therefore that they are, by definition, the best of all possible solutions in the best of all possible worlds.

The present arrangements require various reports to be made to the Secretary of State. Our amendments propose that that information be submitted to Parliament instead, because we believe that it is important that Parliament's role as the primary guardian of the interests of the taxpayer is respected and understood. It is for Parliament, collectively, not through powers subordinated or transferred to the Secretary of State, to be in full possession of all the facts relating to the functions, efficiency and operations of what Members on both sides of the Committee agree will be an extremely important new creation: the arts and humanities research council.

The work done by the National Audit Office and the Comptroller and Auditor General is widely welcomed by Members on both sides of the House. For their purposes, and to strengthen their role, it would be helpful for it to be clear, whenever Parliament has the chance to debate these matters, that we think that we should steadily but consistently increase the amount of material that is reported to Parliament, rather than simply to a Secretary of State.

Subsection (3) states:

''The Secretary of State must lay a copy of any report''

he receives before each House of Parliament, but that is not quite the same as the council reporting to Parliament in the first instance. That is why our amendments would delete subsections (3) and (4) and ensure that the report goes direct to Parliament in the first instance.

We also note—this is the purpose of amendment No. 12—that, under subsection (4), the copy of a report that is laid before Parliament may include any comments that the Secretary of State may have on the report. Again, the Minister may tell us, and I am sure that he will do so in all sincerity, that the Secretary of State would merely wish to register items of interest, express the odd opinion or perhaps draw to the attention of his or her fellow Members of Parliament matters of special interest or concern. However, we perhaps all believe that it is helpful if Parliament reaches its conclusions on the basis of an unvarnished report from the arts and humanities research council, so that it can then consider and deliberate. The Select Committees of the House might wish to call the Secretary of State before them to express opinions at that point. If we ensure that the Secretary of State will control the timing of the presentation of the report, will be the recipient of the report and will publish it only when he has had a chance fully to consider it and to append comments, there is a danger that the clarity of the relationship between the council and

Parliament, and therefore with the taxpayer and the electorate, may become blurred in a way that could prove to be unsatisfactory.

I am sure that the Minister will say that in this, as in many other aspects of the Bill, the Government are merely seeking to mirror and reproduce the arrangements for other research councils. It is far from the purpose of Opposition Members to allege that other research councils are mismanaged or inefficient, but when we have an opportunity to consider these matters in Parliament, we may want to see whether we can make things even better than they are now. That is not to say that things are unsatisfactory, merely that they could perhaps be improved still further.

Therefore, I would welcome the Minister's comments on the question of reporting to Parliament as opposed to reporting to the Secretary of State. While he is considering that, perhaps he can give the Committee a little more information. How frequently, for example, would he expect the Secretary of State to lay a report before Parliament? Subsection (2) refers to the report being generated as soon as possible after the end of the financial year. Does the Minister therefore expect the presentation of the report to Parliament by the Secretary of State, perhaps with his comments, to take place within one, two or three months of receipt of the report from the council? Should we expect the council to produce a report only once a year, or might it produce a report more frequently in some circumstances? Can the Minister give an undertaking that, if the Secretary of State asks the council to produce reports more frequently, such reports would be laid before Parliament under the procedures set out in the clause? Finally, does the Minister take the view that it is unnecessary to review the research councils' present reporting structures because they have proved to be so successful, or would he be prepared to consider reviewing them perhaps not immediately, but over a four or five-year rolling period?

It would be helpful for all those concerned with what I am sure will prove to be an extremely successful entity—the arts and humanities research council—if the Minister can offer us clarification on the questions that I have raised. If he can, at that point I shall sit down.

David Rendel (Liberal Democrat, Newbury)

I join the welcome to you to the Committee, Mr. Hood.

I got a little lost when the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale was asking all his questions, so I may be repeating one that he has already asked, but I do not think that I am.

Will the Minister also tell us, if he can, how many times over the past year a Secretary of State has added comments to any of the reports that have presumably been given to them by all the other research councils, before laying them before the House?

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

I shall argue that we want this research council to be consistent with the other seven, and that the procedures should be consistent with other non-departmental public bodies. The

procedures in the clause, including those in the two subsections that the amendments would remove—the lead amendment would amend another subsection—are entirely consistent with those policies. The research councils do not distribute research funds in their own right; they distribute them on behalf of Government under the auspices of the Office of Science and Technology.

The amendments would leave the arts and humanities research council in a different position from the rest of the research councils, but I take the point made by the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale that that is not a total argument for rejecting the amendment. However, the onus is on my hon. Friend to give a good reason why we should leave the arts and humanities research council in a different position.

This is not a bureaucracy argument; reports will always come before Parliament, but at the moment can they do so via the Secretary of State, with any comments attached that the Secretary of State might wish to add. In answer to the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel), no Secretary of State has ever added any comments to research by the research councils. That is not to say that they will never want to. At the moment it is—to use the term used by the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale—the unvarnished report that goes to Parliament, but it comes to the Secretary of State first. What would happen if it went direct to Parliament? Surely it is sensible for the Secretary of State to receive the report and then to be obliged, as the clause requires, to lay that report before Parliament with any comments, if there are any, and so far there has not been the need for any.

I cannot understand why my hon. Friend thinks that that procedure is inefficient, improper or bureaucratic, and that point comes up in later amendments, too. It seems perfectly reasonable for a Government of whatever persuasion with responsibility for the distribution of funding by research councils to report to Parliament.

Tim Collins (Conservative, Westmorland and Lonsdale)

It may well be that the Minister can offer an assurance to many people on that point. He has explained that successive Governments have hitherto always produced the report, and so far there has been no precedent of which he is aware of producing commentary on that report before doing so. Is he prepared to give the Committee an undertaking that, in future, under the arrangements, the Secretary of State will always produce the report without amendment, deletion or insertion, apart from the comments that we have already discussed?

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

Yes. I hesitate for a second, but I think that I can give that assurance. My understanding is that those reports have gone to Parliament, and my understanding of the Bill at the moment is that the Secretary of State must lay before the House a copy of any report. Subsection (4) says that the report ''may

include any comments''. Parliament will see the unvarnished report, together with some comments by the Secretary of State.

I can also give the hon. Gentleman the answer to several other questions. The reports are submitted annually. The requirement is that it is submitted by 30 November; that is the period after the end of the financial year by which the research councils have to submit that information.

David Rendel (Liberal Democrat, Newbury)

What the Minister says raises some memories in my mind of the arguments that came up at the time of the Sharman report, when there were questions about how the accounts of various non-departmental bodies should be audited. The idea that the Sharman report came up with was that, since the money was originally voted by Parliament, all such bodies should report back through the National Audit Office to Parliament, rather than report back through their own private auditors. The situation that we are discussing seems similar, in a way. I am therefore surprised to hear the Minister argue as he does.

Jimmy Hood (Labour, Clydesdale)

Order. I think that the hon. Gentleman will find that accounts come under clause 6, not clause 4.

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

Thank you, Mr. Hood.

My final point is that we are talking about an established principle for the non-departmental public bodies, re-established as recently as 2002—if we do not want to go back to the rather ancient legislation that established the Office of Science and Technology and the research councils—when Parliament agreed in the Communications Act 2003 that Ofcom would be governed by exactly the same procedure. It is a sensible procedure, and the hon. Gentleman, having raised his questions and got his assurance, can quite safely withdraw the amendment. If not, I hope the Committee defeats it.

Tim Collins (Conservative, Westmorland and Lonsdale)

I found it quite useful that the Minister was able to give the assurance about the phrase that he and I have now both used—the unvarnished nature of reports—and on the basis that I am happy, on this matter at lest, to take his word for it, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 5 - Pensions

Chris Grayling (Conservative, Epsom and Ewell)

I want to touch briefly on the issues in clause 5. In this morning's sitting the Minister was very helpful in clarifying the situation as regards the transfer of employment rights between the Arts and Humanities Research Board and

the arts and humanities research council, and certainly managed to put on record a good reassurance for employees of the council.

I ask the Minister to spend a moment addressing the issue of the pension arrangements for the board—and, subsequently, the council—employees, given the uncertainties that currently exist surrounding pension provision and retirement ages in particular. I know that there is a degree of anxiety in the public services at the moment about retirement ages, and I would be surprised if the Minister had not come across similar concerns in his own constituency. I seek an explanation from the Minister of the structure and nature of the current schemes, given that the board, as it is currently constituted, is a company and charity, established after the Dearing report in 1997. It does not, as I understand it, currently have formal governmental status. Subsequent to the changes that have been discussed today, and the final enactment of the royal charter, it will become a non-departmental public body.

I want to establish for the record in this debate whether the pension provision that existed up to now is separate from that which would normally apply to people within the civil service, to people who fall under the Government employment umbrella. Will that change as a result of the transition to the new status of the organisation? Are the employees of the board, and subsequently the council, likely to be affected by the review currently taking place across many parts of Government about retirement ages—whether the age should be 60 or 65—given the uncertainty that this is causing for a number of employees? I should be grateful if the Minister could take a moment to clarify those points.

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

My understanding of the situation at the moment is that nothing changes. The employees concerned are already members of a public sector pension scheme. Therefore, all we are doing in clause 5 is ensuring that employment by the arts and humanities research council is included among the kinds of employment covered by the Superannuation Act 1972. That Act provides Ministers with the power to make the necessary contributions toward employee pensions under the various civil service pension schemes. The employees of the AHRB are already covered by the Superannuation Act 1972 and this clause will ensure that once they are transferred to the AHRC their pensions will transfer and be unaffected. This is a belt-and-braces job—my understanding is that the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 1981 would cover them anyway, but this is an extra reassurance necessitated by the terms of the Superannuation Act 1972. Nothing changes for the employees, including their pensionable age. It may change through negotiation and discussion in the future, but when they transfer to this new arrangements, they do so with all their existing pension entitlement.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Column Number: 52

Accounts and records of Council

Tim Collins (Conservative, Westmorland and Lonsdale)

I beg to move amendment No. 124, in

clause 6, page 3, line 8, leave out

'give the Secretary of State'

and insert 'provide to Parliament'.

Jimmy Hood (Labour, Clydesdale)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 123, in

clause 6, page 3, line 10, leave out subsection (3).

No. 129, in

clause 6, page 3, line 14, leave out from 'General' to end of line 16.

Tim Collins (Conservative, Westmorland and Lonsdale)

The Minister and other members of the Committee may have a small sense of Groundhog Day on seeing the amendment because it is similar to some that we have just debated. I am sure that the Minister will reiterate that he is not in a position to accept the amendment, which relates to changing reporting requirements from a report being made to the Secretary of State to a report being made to Parliament. We also seek to delete the strong language relating to things being prepared in the form required and at the time required by the Secretary of State.

Now that we are discussing amendments to clause 6, which deals with the form in which the Secretary of State is likely to require accounts to be presented, I wonder whether the Minister will take the opportunity to let us know a little about the expected accountancy requirements and specifications that are likely to be laid upon the arts and humanities research council. Are they likely to differ significantly, or at all, from those that presently apply to the Arts and Humanities Research Board? Given that the explanatory notes set out that one of the purposes of the provisions is to streamline the research councils and enable the arts and humanities research council to benefit from the structures that have been put in place for the other research councils, is there a particular template or a preferred accountant? Does Research Councils UK have a collective accountant who operates for them?

Later on in clause 6, not least in the provisions that would be subject to amendment No. 129, there are references to the Comptroller and Auditor General, whose role is to look after the public interest and to be accountable to Parliament, but what is the Minister's expectation of the accountancy arrangements that the arts and humanities research council will put in place? Would the Minister explain whether his Department—or the Department of Trade and Industry, which in future will have responsibility for such matters—intends to use the arts and humanities research council and other research councils as a means of demonstrating best practice? That would encourage universities, with which the research councils would undoubtedly have many dealings, but which are somewhat more independent than the research councils, to follow a particular template.

The Government have an opportunity to establish whether they believe that there is a preferred accountancy model. Is there a preferred accountant

that the Minister is encouraging research councils to do business with? Would there be a joint letting of a contract to one or more accountants, or would the research councils be expected to make their own separate arrangements? What is the current position? Perhaps the Minister will be able to clarify that.

Does the Arts and Humanities Research Board, which we established this morning has an observer position at the moment on the board of Research Councils UK, have different accountancy arrangements from the other research councils, or has there already been a degree of integration, consolidation and consistency in that field?

Given that amendment No. 123 suggests that the Opposition have some reservations about the requirements relating to the form and the time being required by the Secretary of State, it might be convenient to point out to the Committee that there is a reference in subsection (4) to 30 November, a date to which the Minister made reference earlier. He pointed out that, on past precedents, that was when the Secretary of State receives a report on the previous financial year.

Subsection (4) states that the accounts must be

''given . . . to the Comptroller and Auditor General on or before 30 November''.

Amendment No. 129 would remove that specification. Does the Minister hope that that date would move forward? His earlier remarks established that material comes to the Secretary of State on or around 30 November. It is conceivable that material might go to the Secretary of State and to the Comptroller and Auditor General on the same day. Is that sensible? What has been past practice?

Under current practice, the Secretary of State receives the material on 30 November. The Comptroller and Auditor General could therefore have the report on the same date, without comment from the Secretary of State. The Minister has pointed out the potential advantages of the Secretary of State or his officials making a commentary on that material before they receive it.

What is the Government's view on the accountancy practices of research councils? How do they expect things to change with the transition from the board to the council? Can the Minister reiterate why there needs to be such a prescriptive format for the presentation of those matters and why he wishes to reject amendment No. 123. Can he develop his argument about the importance of 30 November?

David Rendel (Liberal Democrat, Newbury)

I wanted to carry on from the point where I was interrupted earlier, Mr. Hood. You directed me to come in on clause 6, although I notice that clause 4(1) also mentions accounts.

Jimmy Hood (Labour, Clydesdale)

Order. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is not debating the Chairman's ruling.

David Rendel (Liberal Democrat, Newbury)

Not for a moment, Mr. Hood. I would not dream of ignoring your ruling, which is why I sat down as soon as you made it.

There is an interesting, if rather nice, constitutional point here about the precedents between the Government and Parliament. The Sharman report made it clear that Parliament votes the money for everything that the Government do, so reports on how that money has been spent should come back to Parliament. Clearly, Parliament may then question the Government about the way in which that money has been spent and how they handled the vote they were given. There is an argument to be made in line with the Conservative amendment. As that money has also been voted by Parliament—albeit indirectly—the reports should come back to Parliament in the first instance. Can the Minister comment on that matter?

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

I shall try to cover the points raised. The hon. Members for Westmorland and Lonsdale and for Newbury have strayed into wider areas, but I should like to return to the amendment.

Amendment No. 124 would remove the requirement for the AHRC to provide a statement of accounts to the Secretary of State and transfer that line of reporting to Parliament. That is the Groundhog Day element of the matter. It is sensible that the AHRC—like any other public body—should be accountable to the Secretary of State and provide statements to him. We have established that it is cheap to provide the money in that way.

Tim Collins (Conservative, Westmorland and Lonsdale)

The Minister advances an interesting and radical constitutional doctrine. He has just said that all public bodies should be accountable to a Secretary of State, not to Parliament. Is that his view?

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

I hesitate to point out that, ultimately, the statement will come to Parliament via the Comptroller and Auditor General. That was the hon. Member for Newbury's point. It is right that it should be provided to the Secretary of State first.

Similarly, in the case of amendment No. 123, as the Secretary of State will be allocating the funding, it is only appropriate that the AHRC provides statements of accounts for each financial year in accordance with the specification from the Secretary of State that we discussed in a similar amendment.

Amendment No. 129 would remove the requirement for the Secretary of State to transmit to the Comptroller and Auditor General a statement of accounts in a specified time period. As specified in clause 6, that time limit is there because it is consistent with the wording of the Government Resources and Accounts Act 2000. That Act requires Departments to send their accounts to the Comptroller and Auditor General by 30 November each year, and there is no intention of changing that requirement, which is governed by an act that governs all non-departmental Government bodies.

That does not differ from the AHRB arrangements. That is exactly how the AHRB operates, except that it has to go through a convoluted bureaucracy, because it is a company limited by guarantee. It reports as a company and to the Charity Commission as a registered charity. The provision will avoid making them go through that process. There will only, therefore, need to be a single report. In the

Government Resources and Accounts Act 2000, 30 November is the latest date set out in statute, but best practice is to lay accounts before Parliament before the summer recess, and that is what the AHRC will be expected to do. That answers the point: the latest date that accounts can be submitted is 30 November, but best practice is that they are submitted much earlier.

Tim Collins (Conservative, Westmorland and Lonsdale)

The Minister is elucidating the point very helpfully. As we all know, technology—in particular, information technology—is marching along rapidly. In the world of e-mail, it is much quicker to produce most documents than was the case some years ago. He referred to 30 November as being written into legislation in 2000. Is it his understanding that Government might be prepared to consider—not immediately or as part of this legislation, but in due course—the case for bringing the date forward? That would reflect the fact that it is now easier to produce reports than was the case some years ago?

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

My radicalism has run out. I do not think that I can go that far, but it is sensible for any Government to keep arrangements under review. If there is any technology that enables us to improve the accounting arrangements, we should use that.

The other question that the hon. Gentleman asked was about which accountants are used. The AHRB has its own accountants. That will be the arrangement that will apply after it has converted to a research council. Those accountants work with the National Audit Office.

Tim Collins (Conservative, Westmorland and Lonsdale)

The Minister has answered that part of the question. The other part of it was whether—either now that the AHRB is part of the research councils' family but not itself a research council, or in future when it becomes a research council—he would expect that the research councils collectively, including the arts and humanities one, would share the same accountant or, at least, the same accounting arrangements?

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

That would not be an expectation. That they use the same accounting arrangements is important, but I do not feel qualified to comment on whether they should use the same accountant. I am not sure whether there is sense in that arrangement, but I will pass the hon. Gentleman's comments on to the DTI.

The hon. Gentleman again asks us to make changes. It is a probing amendment, but I hope that I have given some answers. Making the changes would be inconsistent with the operation and accountability of the existing research councils, all of which have the same requirements. It would also be at odds with the well-established framework of accountability for non-departmental public bodies where public money is concerned. It is right that the statement of accounts be laid before Parliament, as would happen under our proposals. The amendment would prevent their submission to the Secretary of State first. The previous set of amendments removed the Secretary of State altogether.

The set of amendments under discussion does not provide for the Secretary of State to receive the statement of accounts, instead it goes to Parliament; it removes him from asking for the accounts in a form and at a time when he requires; but it reintroduces him into the process to transmit each statement of accounts to the Comptroller and Auditor General. That is slightly illogical, but for no other reason than that it would be inconsistent with the current sensible arrangements.

Having given the assurances and the information that hon. Members requested I hope that they either withdraw the amendments or that the Committee rejects them.

Tim Collins (Conservative, Westmorland and Lonsdale)

The Minister has once again been able to provide several important assurances and clarifications. I am not sure that we agree with him that our amendments were entirely illogical; after all we would not wish to make the post of Secretary of State entirely redundant. None the less, on the basis of his assurances and considering that he has advanced arguments that he has already used persuasively, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 6 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 7 - Northern ireland: reserved matters

Tim Collins (Conservative, Westmorland and Lonsdale)

I have two brief questions, as this is a relatively straightforward clause that relates to the inclusion of references to the arts and humanities research council in schedule 3 to the Northern Ireland Act 1998, which deals with reserved matters. Can the Minister offer the Committee some clarification of the status of the reserved matters under the 1998 Act? Does he imagine that the inclusion of the AHRC will be permanent alongside the other research councils, or will the British and Irish Governments and the various parties in Northern Ireland discuss it as part of a review of the Good Friday agreement? Are the provisions likely to be on the statute book for a very long time, or are they to be provisional and temporary?

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

I think that they will be permanent, not least because the devolved Northern Ireland Administration participated in the consultation on and examination of the issue. When we framed the legislation, we took into account that the Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (Mr. Spellar), had written to me in July last year to inform me that he was content to make the AHRC a reserved matter in Northern Ireland. That is with the complete agreement of all those interested parties in Northern Ireland, and particularly the higher education community and local

politicians who were involved in the original process. With that, I hope that the Committee will allow clause 7 to stand part of the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 7 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 8 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 9 - Charter of council

Chris Grayling (Conservative, Epsom and Ewell)

Again, I have a quick point for the Minister to clarify. The clause deals with amending or revoking the charter of the AHRC. As the Minister made clear in the debate this morning, the measures that we are discussing do not formally enact the charter; it is a matter that goes beyond this place. I would be grateful if the Minister could explain that framework to the Committee so that we can understand the context of the clause.

The clause deals with the powers to amend or revoke the charter and the operation of any amendment made. Although the creation of the charter is a separate process from the debate on the Bill, it is, none the less, a matter of concern and interest to Parliament, when mechanisms exist to amend the charter of the AHRC, if it is not necessary to bring amendments, changes or the ultimate decision to revoke back before Parliament as part of a further piece of primary legislation.

Therefore, I should be grateful if the Minister would take a moment to explain the legal framework and the relationship between the Bill and the charter, and say how any future changes might be made at a parliamentary level as opposed to a level that goes beyond this place and is represented by the charter's royal dimension.

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

I shall do my best. The Privy Council agrees the charter, so the council is established by royal charter. The clause states that nothing in this part of the Bill has an effect on any power that may exist to amend or revoke the AHRC's royal charter, which hon. Members have seen in draft form, and the operation of such legislation.

The clause is a technical measure that ensures that changes can be made to the charter in future, as they can for any existing research council, to take account of changes in the way in which the council must operate. The Bill provides for the creation of a research council. The clauses are needed to establish the council on the same basis as other research councils.

As regards the constitutional issues that arise from the technicalities of changing the charter, I am advised that this is a technical process that applies in all such

Bills. I hope that that rather convoluted explanation is enough to encourage hon. Members to allow the clause to stand part of the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 9 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 10 - Research in arts and humanities

Chris Grayling (Conservative, Epsom and Ewell)

I beg to move amendment No. 13, in

clause 10, page 3, line 39, leave out 'carry out or'.

Jimmy Hood (Labour, Clydesdale)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 14, in

clause 10, page 4, line 1, leave out paragraph (b).

No. 29, in

clause 10, page 4, line 11, leave out 'carry out or'.

No. 30, in

clause 10, page 4, line 21, leave out 'carry out or'.

No. 31, in

clause 10, page 4, line 33, leave out 'carry out or'.

Chris Grayling (Conservative, Epsom and Ewell)

This set of amendments addresses what is undoubtedly a puzzlement in the Bill and I seek an explanation about the wording in the clause.

The words in subsection (1), which apply to England, have been replicated in subsequent subsections for the National Assembly for Wales, Scottish Ministers and the Northern Ireland Department, although I assume that the last provision would change if powers were redevolved to a reconstructed Assembly. The words refer to the Secretary of State's ability to

''carry out or support research in the arts and humanities''.

Most of that, particularly the latter part, makes perfect sense. What does not make perfect sense is the words ''carry out or''. At the very least the wording appears strange, given the potential dimensions of the clause.

We have some sense of the Secretary of State's academic background. He is a Cambridge graduate and was a distinguished member of that university who became a senior representative of the students' union. He achieved a degree in maths and economics, perhaps making his skills more suited to the work of the Economic and Social Research Council than that of the arts and humanities research council. Indeed, I looked through the board's work to try to identify which projects he might wish to carry out. Perhaps the project '''Meeting the Other'—Cross-Sexual Encounters with the Other World in Old Norse Mythology'', a recent piece of work, would interest him. The board's website lists a number of interesting and diverse projects, such as the ''The history and current status of 'bad language' as a concept in German folk linguistics''. Perhaps the obvious one is ''The Absurd in Literature''.

The board funds an enormous diversity of projects from all parts of the globe in the arts and humanities. Some are very worthy; others, to those of us of a more sceptical and cynical mind, are of more questionable academic benefit. There is not a great deal of mediaeval history in the projects listed on the board's

website, but I am sure that, in its new guise, and with the guidance that the Secretary of State will give it, that may change in future. Knowing the Secretary of State's particular interest in mediaeval history, he may have had that in mind when thinking about the ability to carry out research in his own right.

I seriously question exactly what use the Secretary of State and his Department will make of the right to carry out research in the arts and humanities. I also have questions about the role of the National Assembly for Wales in carrying out research in the arts and humanities. The same is true of the Scottish Ministers, and certainly of the Northern Ireland Department. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and his Ministers are estimable people, but I am not entirely sure where this particular aspect of the needs of the nation fits into their portfolio.

Given the wording of the clause, can the Minister explain the purpose of giving the Secretary of State the right to carry out research? Why have the words ''carry out'' been used? That seems unusual. Why does paragraph (b) provide the Secretary of State with the power to

''disseminate the results of research in the arts and humanities''?

Why is that same power offered to the devolved bodies and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland? I should have thought that disseminating research was a matter for the academic world and learned journals. It does not make an awful lot of sense for the Government to have that power.

Tim Collins (Conservative, Westmorland and Lonsdale)

Has my hon. Friend noticed the contrast between the roles set out for the Secretary of State in this clause and the roles set out for the arts and humanities research council in clause 1? The council's role includes:

''carrying out, facilitating, encouraging, and supporting''

research; the Secretary of State has only half those abilities. The council's role includes ''advancing and disseminating knowledge'', but the Secretary of State will only disseminate knowledge. Does my hon. Friend think that it is interesting that the Secretary of State will not have the power to advance knowledge?

Chris Grayling (Conservative, Epsom and Ewell)

That is an interesting point. Nor, I see, does he have the right to encourage knowledge. He has been doing a lot of encouraging in recent weeks, and is probably very well versed in it—although I suspect not when it comes to encouraging research and in the arts and humanities.

This is an odd clause. In my experience of working on Bills, they throw up clauses that on the face of it seem strange and to some extent incomprehensible. The Minister undoubtedly knows why the clause has been included and will give us a cogent explanation, but I am intrigued to know his justification for the provision that will enable the Secretary of State himself to

''carry out . . . research in the arts and humanities''.

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

We have begun the process of the textual striptease that will take place in the debates on the three groups of amendments for this clause. It is proposed that we start by removing three words, then

delete two sentences per subsection, and then, in the final debate, delete practically the whole lot. The clause would be left entirely naked by the time we had finished the striptease process.

The hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) talked about the Secretary of State as being the Secretary of State for Education and Skills. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale pointed out earlier that most references to the Secretary of State mean the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, who is quite a different person. I would love to carry out one, but I would have great difficulty in carrying out the other.

On the famous ''carry out'' amendments, the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell is right, because the provision applies to Secretaries of State in all Departments that have any contact with the research councils. I asked the same question about carrying out. We are talking about the difference between a Department carrying out research itself within that Department, and a Department getting another body to carry out research for it. For instance—this may be the only example, but it is certainly a good one—''carrying out'' is used for almost all the research undertaken by the Department for Transport under the authority of section 5(1)(a) of the Science and Technology Act 1965. There is a similar provision in the 1965 Act. The Department does all of that research in house, and that is why the words ''carry out'' are there, as well as ''support''. That is the simple explanation.

The hon. Gentleman also wishes to remove the part of the clause that states:

''(d) establish advisory bodies for the purpose of assisting the Secretary of State in matters connected with research in the arts and humanities, and

(e) if the Secretary of State establishes such a body, appoint its members on terms which include the payment of remuneration, allowances or pension benefits''.

The Secretary of State often needs to establish advisory bodies on pieces of research. As that happens with the other seven research councils, we see no reason why it should not happen with arts and humanities. I understood the confusion of the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell in his rather entertaining speech, but it would be perilous to remove the paragraphs.

Chris Grayling (Conservative, Epsom and Ewell)

The Minister is jumping a debate. My point was about paragraph (b), which states:

''disseminate the results of research in the arts and humanities''.

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

I apologise. I thought that amendment No. 14, which would remove paragraphs (d) and (e) from subsection (1), was part of this group. I am happy to point out the terms of the hon. Gentleman's amendments.

Jimmy Hood (Labour, Clydesdale)

Order. Amendment No. 14 would leave out paragraph (b).

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

I am now sure that we all absolutely know where we are going.

If one thinks about the Department for Transport, for example—I can think of several other Government Departments to which this would apply—the dissemination of information is not done by the Secretary of State himself but within the Department. That is what is referred to in the clause. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw the amendment. If he will not, I hope that the Committee will defeat it.

Chris Grayling (Conservative, Epsom and Ewell)

Having heard the Minister's comments, I am not entirely certain that I fully understand the situation. In fact, it seems rather worse than I had anticipated. I accept that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry has ultimate responsibility for the councils, but I had not fully understood that even carrying out research would fall within the DTI's remit. Doubly bizarre is the fact that, clearly, not just the DTI but potentially the Departments for Transport and for Culture, Media and Sport, the Northern Ireland Office, the Scotland Office, the Wales Office and, indeed, even the Department for International Development would apparently have the right to carry out research in the arts and humanities. It seems strange, to say the least, that such work would be carried out by a Department.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale said, the opening words in clause 1 about the remit of the arts and humanities research council refer to

''carrying out, facilitating, encouraging and supporting''.

Had clause 3 referred to any of those words or mentioned commissioning, it would have made more logical sense.

I find the paragraph totally bizarre. It is an unnecessary element in the Bill. I am delighted that the Minister saw the same incongruity that I did, but I am disappointed that he failed to persuade his officials that it should be removed. However, I do not see the point of detaining the Committee by forcing the matter to a Division. I had rather hoped that civil servants and Ministers in the Department would have better things with which to occupy their time than organising complicated research on what are sometimes wild, wacky and strange issues. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Chris Grayling (Conservative, Epsom and Ewell)

I beg to move amendment No. 15, in

clause 10, page 4, line 4, leave out paragraphs (d) and (e).

Jimmy Hood (Labour, Clydesdale)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 113, in

clause 10, page 4, line 15, leave out paragraphs (d) and (e).

No. 114, in

clause 10, page 4, line 25, leave out paragraphs (d) and (e).

No. 115, in

clause 10, page 4, line 37, leave out paragraphs (d) and (e).

Chris Grayling (Conservative, Epsom and Ewell)

We now come to the point that the Minister addressed in his previous remarks. It is obvious from reading the White Paper and the regulatory impact assessment that the Government are

again creating more different bodies and organisations that are designed to play a role in the higher education arena. It is a matter of great concern because every time that the Government establish a new organisation, that organisation requires a building, a secretariat, IT equipment and accounting support. It has to produce publicity material and an annual report. Even when such bodies have relatively informal status as set out in the clause—

''advisory bodies for the purpose of assisting the Secretary of State in matters connected with research in the arts and humanities''—

the probability is opened up that we shall once again see a proliferation of administration in Government. Costs are incurred that detract from front-line service, which means funds are not available to spend on our universities. That money should be spent on improving the situation in those universities, on extra research and on supporting individual students—postgraduates and PhD students—in their work.

I seriously question whether there is a need for additional advisory bodies. We are already finalising the creation of a new body to fill a gap that has been recognised by Government, with the support of all parties, to provide a proper focal point for research in the arts and humanities. That has been missing until now, and missing at the expense of an undue focus in the other direction on science, technology and related areas, which is necessary for the nation for strategic reasons.

The board provides a welcome element of the research mix. It provides a body that can filter funds provided by the central Exchequer to those on the ground carrying out research. That body can advise on which research should be supported. Indeed, its very remit is to advise on which research should be supported. Its remit is to identify academic excellence, research needs and gaps in our knowledge base, and it will attempt to find individuals in the project that can plug those gaps.

All that is estimable and enormously desirable, but given the fact that we are creating just such a body, which is there to be an expert body in the arts and humanities, to know who is good in that field, what is working well and to provide the mechanisms to judge where to put future investment in that research, why is it necessary to establish additional advisory bodies for the purpose of assisting the Secretary of State in matters connected with research in the arts and humanities? That would incur, not simply in the case I highlighted, all the associated costs that go with the creation of advisory bodies. Paragraph (e) refers to the appointment of members

''on terms which include the payment of remuneration, allowances or pension benefits to or in respect of them.''

We go beyond that, because not only are we establishing such bodies for England, but we are paving the way for similar bodies to be established in Wales, under the auspices of the Assembly, in Scotland, under the auspices of Scottish Ministers, and in Northern Ireland, under the auspices of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and, ultimately, the Assembly. Therefore, we have a national research council that is channelling work, investment and knowledge throughout the country. It

is happy to deal with four different political bodies, but will be given the power to set up additional advisory bodies. Theoretically we could have four, 8, 12 or 16 further bodies specialising in this area.

Every time such an example comes before the House in Committee the Minister argues that it is innocuous and will provide an element of help in this area or that area. It happens again and again, and each time, costs and the cost of running Government mount. Money that should be diverted to front-line services—in this case to deliver excellent academic research and support departments that must be world leaders for the future of our nation—is being used at the centre by Government. That is wrong; it is a waste, and I do not see why the Government cannot simply channel all of their contacts with the research world through the council, and seek from the council the advice they need on that world. They should rely on the AHRC as the national expert to which they turn. There is no need to create additional bodies.

Phil Willis (Liberal Democrat, Harrogate and Knaresborough)

I am trying to follow the hon. Gentleman, and I have a lot of sympathy with what he is saying. What would happen to the British Academy under his proposals—would it be disbanded?

Chris Grayling (Conservative, Epsom and Ewell)

I do not see the necessity to write into the Bill the ability to establish advisory bodies. If there is a need to treat the British Academy as a specific one-off, let it be so. What we are doing here is providing the powers for the United Kingdom Government and all three of the devolved Assemblies-cum-Administrations to set up advisory bodies in a blanket way, with no restrictions, no financial limitations upon them. We are opening the door for more initiatives, more schemes, more good ideas that create another panel to do something-or-other in the future. This is a blanket open-door to create yet more organisations, coming from a Government who have been responsible for a proliferation of organisations. The hon. Gentleman will have read the regulatory impact assessment document, and I find it striking that on almost every page, there is a new organisation, a new ring-fenced fund, something additional within the system that means that money will not flow directly to the front line, and that is to be regretted.

Simon Thomas (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

The hon. Gentleman says that this is an open door, and I can see the point that he makes, but one does not have to go through an open doorway. These are enabling powers. They do not insist that anyone sets up any type of advisory body in any part of the United Kingdom. Therefore, the point that he is making about regulatory assessment is surely a little over-egged.

Chris Grayling (Conservative, Epsom and Ewell)

It remains my view that powers to:

''establish advisory bodies for the purpose of assisting the Secretary of State'',

when the Secretary of State already has a substantial advisory body for just that purpose, is opening the door to yet more bureaucracy. Given the fact that we are dealing with a Government that has a track record of pushing up spending on central units, task forces,

teams and advisory bodies at an extraordinary rate, to the extent that the cost of government has risen in recent years at a rate that is inexcusable and should be reversed, I see no reason to pass another Bill that gives them the power to do that.

Phil Willis (Liberal Democrat, Harrogate and Knaresborough)

May I persevere on the issue of the British Academy? The funding for the British Academy under these clauses is being transferred, effectively, to the Secretary of State. There would, therefore, need to be some piece of legislation, or regulatory device to enable resources to flow from the Secretary of State to the British Academy. How would the hon. Gentleman resolve that problem? Does not this clause set up a framework that will enable that to happen? Indeed, is it not the case that, should any of the constituent bodies of the United Kingdom want to set up similar research bodies in future, this is the enabling legislation for that? Or is it more sinister?

Chris Grayling (Conservative, Epsom and Ewell)

I suppose that the answer to the hon. Gentleman's question will come in the Minister's response. [Interruption.] A traditional support mechanism. The point is that the wording of this section is ''establish advisory bodies''. We are not talking about transferring existing bodies, or changing the funding arrangements for existing bodies, but about establishing advisory bodies. My reading of that is that it is a power to create something new and fresh. That is where I have a dispute with the Government. It is surely not necessary, when we are already in the process of establishing a substantial infrastructure of support, advice and knowledge on research into the arts and humanities, to have a blanket power to establish new bodies. If we are simply dealing with a single situation, let the Bill say that. It does not say that. It allows sweeping power to a Government that has been very good at using sweeping powers to create more and more initiatives at the centre. That is not necessary.

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

The hon. Gentleman over-eggs this issue. He talks about a proliferation of expenditure and of committees. Clause 10 replicates the powers already held by the science research councils, so if there is a proliferation, we have not seen it. Regarding our arts and humanities, the ability to create these kinds of bodies is necessary to keep up with developments. As an example, who would have thought 10 years ago that we would need to have the kind of advisory bodies that we have now on cloning, including its religious aspects, and on the ethical issues of surrogacy? Those are very important issues. The Government need those bodies to advise on priorities, strategies and specific issues.

The hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell says that we have a track record of spending on all types of advisory bodies, but does not mention that we have a track record of spending on research. The Dearing report of 1997 was scathing about the reduction of our research base over the previous 10 years. The £1.25 billion that is the latest tranche of money under the spending review aimed to rectify that situation. I doubt whether in any of our competitor countries—the US or

elsewhere—would be arguing about the need to set up advisory bodies. The basic obsession would be ensuring the proper funding for research. We are proud that we put huge investment into research. That money has not been siphoned off into a proliferation of expenditure on advisory bodies.

There are a number of important strategic advisory bodies. I have mentioned some in the field of arts and humanities. While I would love to agree with the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis), I do not think that the British Academy is an advisory body in the context of this debate. However, we do have a number of such bodies. There is the Scottish Science Advisory Committee, which reports specifically to the Scottish Executive. There is the Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission, which reports to both the Secretary of State and the devolved Administrations. If anyone, including the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell, has felt that they are unnecessary or a waste of expenditure, they have not raised it before. In fact, I think that almost everybody, across all parties in the House of Commons, would think that their work was necessary.

Simon Thomas (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

Would the Secretary of State give way? [Interruption.] I promoted the Minister a little prematurely, but then again the Secretary of State has been promoting himself recently as well.

The Minister mentioned the Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission. I believe that that is the body that has lately advised the Government on GM crops. That underlines the importance of the advisory boards and the vital role that they play in public policy making based on good scientific research.

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

I wish that people would get my title right, but the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about the issue. That is an important example of the need to have an advisory body. The research councils would not perform that function, nor should they. In fact, they would benefit from the advisory groups that are set up under the clause. Clause 10 enables the Secretary of State, and each devolved Administration, to establish and appoint members of similar bodies for the arts and humanities, as they do for the other research councils. I hope hon. Members would be satisfied that those powers are necessary.

It would be a failing of considerable magnitude not to allow the Bill unamended, because the basis of the argument of the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell is misplaced. It is easy, in any environment, to talk about Government spending money on and paying salaries for advisory boards. I understand that that is fair game for all politicians. We must look at the essential element—what that money provides. In this case, there is no evidence of proliferation over the past 40 years with the other research councils. There is evidence that the work that the advisory bodies do is necessary and important. I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his amendment.

Chris Grayling (Conservative, Epsom and Ewell)

I have listened to the Minister's response with interest. I obviously understand the issue that he raised about the number of ethical areas that have arisen in the past 10 years, where Government have sought guidance. The point about the situation is that the Government are delegating responsibility to the councils for the distribution of funding for research, for deciding research priorities and for considering where the gaps are. The additional advisory bodies impose an extra layer in that decision-making process. The Government refers first to an advisory body on, for example, mediaeval history to ask it what should be done, and then offer a mandate to the arts and humanities research council as to what it should do, which then goes through its own process of decision-making. Surely, in a simplified, streamlined system without a proliferation of organisations, issues concerning ethics and changes of knowledge and technology within the different councils could and should be addressed by them in dialogue with the Government. Is it really necessary to have advisory bodies?

That is the nub of the question behind the amendment. It has become all too easy in recent years, when there is a difficult issue to address, for the Government to create an organisation of experts to think about it. Sometimes, there is a strong argument for saying that that process could and should happen within the existing organisational structures so that the additional layers of cost imposed by the creation of a multiplicity of organisations are not incurred.

I do not intend to delay the Committee and there will be plenty of opportunity for a future Conservative Government to address the proliferation of advisers. For now, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Chris Grayling (Conservative, Epsom and Ewell)

I beg to move amendment No. 26, in

clause 10, page 4, line 9, leave out subsection (2).

Jimmy Hood (Labour, Clydesdale)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 27, in

clause 10, page 4, line 20, leave out subsection (3).

No. 28, in

clause 10, page 4, line 31, leave out subsection (4).

Chris Grayling (Conservative, Epsom and Ewell)

The final stage of the Minister's striptease exercise comes now with this group of probing amendments, and I want to ask some serious questions.

The amendments would remove subsections (2), (3) and (4), which offer the National Assembly for Wales, Scottish Ministers and the Northern Ireland Department the power to

''carry out or support research in the arts and humanities . . . disseminate the results . . . further the practical application of the results''

and to set up the advisory bodies. The arts and humanities research council is a United Kingdom body set up to further, encourage and develop research throughout the United Kingdom. I hope that, in the context of the words of the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr. Thomas) who represents Plaid

Cymru, the funds distributed by the council will go to institutions around the United Kingdom and will pick up expertise wherever it is in all our higher education institutions, which are first rate in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, as well as England. I share the sentiments espoused by the hon. Gentleman.

There is a serious question about the burden placed on the organisation in terms of the political reporting lines that it goes through. Subsections (2), (3) and (4) require it to work not only with the Secretary of State in London to give it a United Kingdom perspective, but with the Assembly in Wales, Ministers in Scotland, the Northern Ireland Office and perhaps subsequently the Assembly. There is a question about the degree to which it is sensible for a single nation—I believe that we are still a single nation—to have such a diverse involvement in the shaping of issues, many of which are not only national but international.

I read out a sample of research projects and many are not about the United Kingdom or Wales, but about Neapolitan literature, aboriginal rights in Siberia, trends in modern culture and literature, and so on. They are not usually specifically Welsh, Scottish or English projects. For example, they may include a project by academic or research students, at universities in Wales and so on, with a particular interest in and doing some work on Norse mythology. Such projects are of international and national importance; they are not projects of Welsh, Scottish, English or Northern Irish importance.

Simon Thomas (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

The hon. Gentleman may like to know that a recent project at the University of Wales in Aberystwyth—I came across it last Friday night after watching ''The Return of the King''—was a research project on ''The Lord of the Rings''.

Chris Grayling (Conservative, Epsom and Ewell)

That gives rise to many questions, including that of where the Lord of the Rings is.

The hon. Gentleman makes a very serious point because that is a cultural phenomenon that goes far beyond Wales and England; it is an international phenomenon. There is therefore a question about the degree to which it is prudent to make the devolved Assemblies a reference point for the AHRC—individual, national focal points within the United Kingdom as opposed to the United Kingdom itself as a national focal point. It will place extra burdens on the organisation, requiring more people to travel to and fro, or to be based in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, dealing with officials in Departments in those countries as well as the Secretary of State and her colleagues in the Department for Education and Skills in London. Is that truly prudent? As the AHRC is a United Kingdom body, should it not mean that it is only a United Kingdom body? Its work does not necessarily need the participation of politicians in different parts of the United Kingdom.

I would be grateful for the Minister's clarification about the links he envisages and an explanation of why it is necessary to spread out the political contacts of the organisation to the degree foreseen in the measure.

Simon Thomas (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

I have waited my turn until now, when we have got to the meat of the matter and the last strip of cloth from the Conservatives' amendments has been unveiled and they stand arrayed in their anti-devolutionist glory. That is what their amendments add up to.

The hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell spoke to them in a very measured and considered way. He talked about the impact of regulation and the fact that the research council is a United Kingdom body, but he cannot conceive that, if the Secretary of State in England retains powers to initiate research in science or arts and humanities, the modern devolution settlement means quite rightly that those powers are devolved for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and the Bill explains that.

The Minister mentioned the Scottish example, which has been used to develop strategic research development grants in Scotland through the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council in science. Who is to say what similar need will arise in Scotland or Wales or Northern Ireland for similar pump-priming? The debate that I had with the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Jonathan Shaw) was about the need—

Jonathan R Shaw (Labour, Chatham and Aylesford)

It seems a long time ago.

Simon Thomas (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

It was this morning. The debate was about the need to divert resources from time to time to help develop the research capacities of particular institutions or parts of the United Kingdom. The clause allows us to do that and it should therefore be supported. I hope that the Committee will resist the siren voices of the Conservatives, which seem to suggest that the matter is about getting rid of regulation, when it is really about getting rid of devolution and democracy.

The clause rightly allows the National Assembly to consider research needs in Wales. If there is a gap that needs to be closed to allow institutions to enter the Research Council circle of funding and develop their ideas, we will be able to do it.

In my constituency I have the National Library of Wales, which is a research centre in arts and humanities. Next door to it is the Canolfan Uwch-efrydian Celtaidd. I do not know the English title but I assume that it would be something like the Centre for Advanced Celtic Studies. It is one of the major centres of Celtic study in the world. It is possibly related to the element of Norse that we discussed earlier as well. It receives money from the National Assembly and from research councils, and it shows how we can develop arts and humanities research particular to Welsh needs that reflects on a wider international stage as well. I hope that the Committee rejects the amendments and supports the Bill as it stands.

Jimmy Hood (Labour, Clydesdale)

Before I call the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel), I just say to those on the Government Front Bench and their colleagues behind them, that if I can hear them whispering, they are whispering too loudly.

David Rendel (Liberal Democrat, Newbury)

I rise to support what the hon. Member for Ceredigion has just said. The amendments are an attempt to remove devolution from the Bill, which would be sad to see.

We can see some of the reasons behind the amendments, and I suspect that Conservative Members are concerned about subsection (3), which relates specifically to Scotland and provides no excuse for Scottish Members of Parliament to avoid voting on the Bill on the ground that it has nothing to do with Scotland. The subsection quite clearly states that it has something to do with Scotland.

That is even more interesting, given one hon. Member's attempt to raise a point of order earlier today. You quite rightly explained that it was not a point of order, Mr. Hood. He announced that the Government's majority on the Bill had sunk to three, since the voting pattern of the Conservatives on the matter—

Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.

On resuming—

David Rendel (Liberal Democrat, Newbury)

I was speaking mainly to amendment No. 27. You will remember, Mr. Hood, that I was saying that the point of order raised earlier by Conservative Members showed that the Government's majority on the Bill might now be down to three. That raises an interesting situation, as four of the Government's majority on Second Reading was due to Conservative Members, one voting with the Government and two abstaining. One of those who abstained was the sole Scottish Conservative Member. If the clause were removed, that might help the Government—I hope that they will not vote to remove it—because it would enable that hon. Member to abstain again. However, that would not necessarily help the Liberal Democrats, because we want to put pressure on that hon. Member. Leaving the clause in the Bill would enable us to put pressure on him, particularly as it now looks as if that one vote may make all the difference to the whole Bill at the end.

Chris Grayling (Conservative, Epsom and Ewell)

I hate to disappoint the hon. Gentleman, as he seeks to find possible motives for this set of amendments, but I assure him that the amendment is based on principle and concern rather than political strategy and intent.

David Rendel (Liberal Democrat, Newbury)

Whatever the reasons for tabling the amendment, I should be delighted to see the subsection remain in the Bill. If it does, the pressure on that Conservative Member to vote next time round will be greater. I hope that we will put that pressure on him and enable him to vote in what I consider to be the right way.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Don Touhig): We have a change of act on this side, Mr. Hood, but as with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education, there will be no striptease. Rather, I shall try to strip away the arguments put by the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell. We have been here before. It is Groundhog Day, with three of us facing one another, as we have on matters of this nature in the past. I pay tribute to you, Mr. Hood, as our Chairman, and to your co-Chairman, and I look forward to serving on this Committee under your guidance.

The amendments would place arts and humanities research in the devolved Administrations in an unreasonable position, and one that is very different from that for the science and technology research councils. They would remove the powers provided to the devolved Administrations to undertake activities in support of arts and humanities research and to fund such work.

We must consider how that the clause will benefit research. We should replicate what the Secretary of State proposes for England in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Those powers are among the key mechanisms by which we are implementing the recommendations of the review of arts and humanities research funding.

The hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell made the point that the review said that there should be a duty to promote research into the cultural aspects of the various parts of the United Kingdom. That should be safeguarded. It is important that we take that into account when considering the amendment.

The devolved Administrations support the transformation of the Arts and Humanities Research Board into a UK-wide research council. We discuss those matters with colleagues in those Administrations in order to ensure that the transfer will be as seamless as possible.

Amendments Nos. 26, 27 and 28 would leave the devolved Administrations with no option other than to use an intermediary organisation to achieve their broader policy objectives in arts and humanities. Understandably, members of those Administrations do not consider that to be an acceptable position. When debating clause 1, the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale said that arts and humanities research deserves parity of esteem. I hope the hon. Gentleman will withdraw the amendment as a consequence.

The hon. Member for Ceredigion made an important point. People from my part of the country feel that the Conservatives in Wales say one thing about the devolution settlement, but in Committee they seek to amend any legislation that impedes its development. He will forgive me if I chide him a little. He speaks about devolving powers to Wales. His party is not in favour of devolving those particular powers to Wales. That is a mystery to me.

The hon. Member for Newbury also made an important point. We should remember that we are Members of the United Kingdom Parliament. People from all parts of the country have a right to speak on

matters that come before the House. It is a pity that the Conservative and Unionist party can no longer call itself the Unionist party because of its attitude to Scottish Members voting on matters. I will be careful not to stray too far in case I test your patience, Mr. Hood.

In that part of the Bill, we wish to ensure that the devolved Administrations have the same opportunity and ability to support research and development as the Secretary of State has in England. I hope that the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell understands that point. That is the proper way forward. We recognise the need for parity of esteem for the devolved Administrations.

Chris Grayling (Conservative, Epsom and Ewell)

I have been listening carefully to the Under-Secretary's comments. I am delighted to see him again. It is the third time in 12 months that we have debated related issues. We seem to follow each other around. It is a pleasure to debate with him again and to return to some of the arguments and issues that we have discussed previously. One of those is the risk of duplication of work in bodies in different parts of the United Kingdom.

I am reassured by the Minister's comments. Those measures concern commissioning research, and will ensure that resources that are available within devolved Assemblies are made available to Research Councils UK. I add a caveat. There is a danger that that will become not simply a method to deploy research money strategically for the benefit of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, but a vehicle to centre research upon those countries. I hope that the three Administrations would not direct their research solely into matters relating to Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, but use the resources available to support specific strategic objectives, economic or otherwise. If there were, for example, a specific link between one of the creative industries and a higher education institution in Wales, it would be of benefit to the institution and the local economy if the devolved Assembly made resources available to encourage research that was supported by both that industry and the institution.

Don Touhig (Labour/Co-operative, Islwyn)

I can tell the hon. Gentleman that we are very fortunate with the current state of the arts and media in Wales. S4C has done a great deal of work in the research and development of animation techniques. We have the international film school at the university of Wales college at Newport. We are outward looking. I have no doubt that my colleagues in Scotland and Northern Ireland take the same view.

Chris Grayling (Conservative, Epsom and Ewell)

I am grateful for the Under-Secretary's comments. As with all these things, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. I hope that there are the right outcomes, but, as the Under-Secretary well knows, I part company with him over his broader comments. The structure of the Bill relates specifically to the UK—meaning Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Needless to say, the expectation is that the Secretary of State will do England. Some incongruities are created in the devolution settlement when powers are spread out as they are. Having said that, that debate is not for this Bill.

Given the Minister's reassurances that this is a commissioning power, not a regulatory power, and notwithstanding my anxieties about the ability of the devolved Assemblies to establish bureaucracies alongside the Bill, I hope that it is purely about commissioning research for strategic purposes, therefore I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 10 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 11 - Qualifying institutions

Tim Collins (Conservative, Westmorland and Lonsdale)

I beg to move amendment No. 122, in

clause 11, page 5, line 10, leave out paragraph (d).

This is a probing amendment to enable us to discuss the Government's intentions on the scope of the qualifying institutions. We have moved from part 1 to part 2 and it is important to have an early discussion about the Government's provisions relating to a new system for reviewing student complaints. The starting point, as with so much else in the Bill, is the White Paper published a little more than a year ago, which, at paragraph 4.11, states:

''Reforms to give students a greater voice must include providing them with a fair, open, and transparent means of redress when things go wrong''.

We would all agree with that unexceptional statement. It continues:

''Last Autumn''—

that was autumn 2002—

''the sector was consulted on the establishment of an independent review of student complaints. The consultation revealed that there was substantial support from HEIs for an independent adjudicator to hear student complaints, and recognition that ultimately legislation would be needed to underpin whatever arrangements were put in place.''

That was the origin of this part of the Bill. The purpose of my amendment, which would delete paragraph (d), is to obtain some clarification from the Under-Secretary on the Government's intentions relating to scope. In a moment we will debate a Liberal Democrat amendment that would cover further education. However, paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) cover universities and constituent colleges, schools or halls in universities, and

''an institution conducted by a higher education corporation''.

We seek clarification from the Under-Secretary about whether the Government wish that provision to relate to higher education and all higher education students, including those who are pursuing HE courses in FE colleges, or whether they are sympathetic, in a way that will become clearer on debating the later amendment, to those who argue for a spread to cover FE more generally. It is important that we are clear about our terms. Early in the White Paper—on the second page—it says:

''The word 'University' is frequently used, for reading ease, as a substitute for 'Higher Education Institution'.''

I am sure that the Under-Secretary does not need to be reminded that many higher education institutions are not universities. It is important that students should be

clear about whether they have access to this new complaints procedure. I am sure that he will want to address that as and when the measures reach the statute book. However, it would be helpful if, in dealing with our amendment, he could say a word or two about the measures that the Government propose to take—assuming that this part of the Bill reaches the statute book—to publicise the new complaints arrangements and to do so in a way that will enable clarity among students and practitioners of higher education about who is and is not to be covered by the new arrangement.

The Under-Secretary will recognise that it is important, given that complaints can arise in distressing and urgent circumstances, that there is a great deal of clarity about who under the new arrangement will be the person or institution to whom a student in difficulties should turn. It would be helpful if he commented on whether the Government believe that they will have the full-hearted co-operation of all parts of the higher education sector in setting up the new structure.

The Under-Secretary will know that the phraseology used in the White Paper was carefully chosen, because there is a reference to ''substantial support'' from higher education institutions for an independent adjudicator. I read ''substantial'' as rather less than ''universal.'' Since the clause addresses the coverage of these new institutions, and if there are several institutions, as I suspect there are, that have suggested they are not initially persuaded of the merits of the new proposal, now is an opportunity for the Under-Secretary to explain whether he believes that those institutions will none the less seek to implement with enthusiasm and alacrity both the spirit and the letter of any legislation that Parliament chooses to pass.

In tabling the amendment, we seek clarification from the Under-Secretary on exactly which institutions and students he expects to be covered by the measures. What steps does he intend to take to ensure that all those concerned know where the borderlines are and who is are covered by the new institution as and when it is established?

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

First, may I say that this is the first time I have served under your chairmanship, Mr. Hood, and how pleasant it is? From those sittings that I have been able to attend, the debate has been thoroughly constructive, and I do not intend to spoil that now. I will be speaking very much within the terms of the inquiries of my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale.

On this rather narrow amendment, it would probably be inappropriate to stray too far into the overall scope and remit of the adjudicator. I have already indicated my respect for Dame Ruth Deech, whom I know personally as well as professionally. She is an immensely able person. My worries about the clause are not conceptual but relate to the fact that

there should be adequate resources to meet the work load, especially bearing in mind the fact that everyone must bed down with the system to start with. The office should not bite off more than it can chew. I have some reservations about scope if we are moving into further education colleges.

There are interesting definitional issues, which the Under-Secretary will need to clarify, about which students are covered. For example, not only is approximately 11 per cent. of the higher education student body resident in further education or franchised institutions, but there are people in higher education institutions at universities who are not doing higher education work: they are doing further education, mixed or short-term courses. It is important to clarify that.

The clause also relates to the institutions themselves, because not every institution has a unitary structure. Oxford and Cambridge notoriously have collegiate structures, and issues of liability may need to be considered. Something occurred to me only this afternoon, which I have not had time to check, about some legislation on student unions that I was involved in—it works, incidentally, much better than anyone had anticipated. We perhaps need to know whether the range of the adjudicator's coverage extends to complaints about student unions, which are part of the university but are not run by it.

There may be other issues, for example, with regard to a contractor who works for the university, but is not part of its establishment, whose conduct has damaged, or allegedly damaged, an individual. Those are beginning to sound like lawyerly points, which I am not qualified to expatiate on, but Ministers must give thought to how this measure will work in practice. That is my major concern.

The subsidiary concern is that we should explore the areas that are covered by this provision. As I understand it, it is not a matter of first instance. It is a question of advising students to use the domestic complaints procedure of the institution itself, and to take it on to a higher level only if they are dissatisfied. I mention that, because I had recent parliamentary question and answer exchanges with the Under-Secretary about the old student charter. He quite reasonably—I was not offended by this—said that it had in effect fallen into desuetude. That is the technical phrase that I think we should use. The charter had been discontinued, and it was up to institutions to do their own thing. In one sense, that may well be right. Nevertheless, this measure is imposing an element of central control, or at least accountability on the system. The Under-Secretary needs to explain the relationship between those.

The other area that chimes in with that concerns the various jurisdictions—with regard not only to level and institution but to type of complaint. I do not imagine that Dame Ruth and her staff will be terribly keen to examine issues such as the temperature of the pizza, or whether there were two added toppings in the university refectory. That would be facetious and inappropriate.

However, rather more seriously, the Under-Secretary needs to walk the Committee through the type of complaints that are appropriate to be referred to the adjudicator, those that are entirely proper to the academic world and how they are to be dispatched—because they are precluded from the Bill—and those that might relate to the courts. They might relate to the law of contract—and I seek, perhaps, the advice and support of my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) in this—and whether there is a proper case for a student to sue a university. I realise that even—

Jimmy Hood (Labour, Clydesdale)

Order. I draw the hon. Gentleman back to the amendment, because I feel that he is also trespassing on the clause.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

I am grateful for that, Mr. Hood. I think that it might just be helpful at this point for the Under-Secretary to say what is covered by the provision and how it chimes in with other areas including recourse through the courts. However, this might not be the place to do it and I leave it to his discretion and to yours, Mr. Hood. In addition, although I know that this is already subject to a separate amendment, there is a question about its interaction with the disability inclusion in the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001, and how that is to work.

I will make one final point about enforcement. In a sense this is prompted by my experience of SENDA, in which there are rather different regimes at school, college and university levels—one recourse being through the courts, and another through a special educational needs tribunal, for example. If there are different vehicles for recourse or redress, it may well be that according to the ease and cost of those, there are different take-ups of the particular remedies. They may work in different ways, and arguably may be inequitable.

However, it is quite important that the Under-Secretary explains how redress will be achieved in those various fields, and how the adjudicator's judgments are to be reached and acted on. There may be good reasons for this, and I do not want to debate the substance of it, but if a college feels unable to comply with an adjudicator's decision we need to know who gives teeth to it and what further recourse is available.

Those are genuinely motivated concerns on how this measure should work. I think that across the Committee we all want the measure to work in the best way possible. The only caveat that I issue to the Under-Secretary is that we need to ensure that the institution is adequately resourced and working properly before we think of extending it to cover further ranges of potential difficulty.

Simon Thomas (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

I will speak briefly, because I agree with many of the concerns already raised and I am looking forward to the Under-Secretary answering some of those. I have two points to make on what a qualifying institution is. First, what is the position of

private universities? I think that there is only one in the UK at the moment, but in a tuition fee world there is potential for things to change.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

I am sorry to come back so quickly. The Under-Secretary may also need to consider a point about which he and I have corresponded: the question of corporate universities such as Unipart university or Barclays university. They exist within companies, but call themselves—if only for marketing purposes—universities, although they may not have the right to a university title. They might or might not be within the remit of the issue.

Simon Thomas (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

I assume from what the hon. Gentleman said that those universities award degrees from other institutions, but run the training themselves. I agree with him on that point.

My second point is that it would be useful to hear about the position of overseas students and students from the European Union. My reading of the Bill is that there is no differentiation at all in relation to the origin of a student, and that an overseas student studying at a qualifying institution would have exactly the same rights as a European Union student. It would be useful to have that explained so that we know what the remit of the Office of the Independent Adjudicator will be. As we progress to the next couple of clauses, we will see that its work will grow and grow.

Any Member who in their constituency capacity has dealt with a serious case of conflict between a university and a student, as I am doing at the moment, will know how difficult it can be to resolve such problems. Clearly, we need a clearer system of dealing with that. Some questions remain, and it would be useful if the Under-Secretary explained them.

Ivan Lewis (Labour, Bury South)

I welcome this first opportunity to serve on the Committee under your chairmanship, Mr. Hood. I feel like a substitute who has just come off the bench towards the end of the game, with my team well ahead and the manager prepared to give me an opportunity. I also pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Minister for Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education for agreeing to assist me by taking on the less significant parts of the Bill, which will not generate any media attention.

It was interesting listening to Opposition Members referring to advisory groups. The Leader of the Opposition is advised by his three immediate predecessors; we understand why Conservative Members would not be keen on too many advisory groups.

Some important issues have been raised about the amendment. First, there is widespread agreement in the sector that this is a long overdue reform. That does not mean that there is unanimous agreement or total consensus, but there is sufficient agreement that this is the direction in which we ought to be travelling. We ought to applaud and commend the sector for having

taken voluntary steps and gone a considerable part of the way so that we are able to have this debate.

The points raised by the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale and others focused on what the amendment focuses on: the definition of higher education institutions. It is important that we clarify that. As defined in the Further and Higher Education Act 1992, they are universities—including colleges or institutions in a university, institutions conducted by a higher education corporation, and institutions designated for funding by a higher education funding council. In the context of the amendment, it is important to say that there are 23 designated institutions in England and Wales. It would be wrong arbitrarily to exclude students in those institutions from having access to the complaints process.

In addition to that definition, it is important also to refer to higher education students in further education colleges who are taking courses leading to an HE degree if the complaint is relevant to a specific action of the HE institution. If someone is studying an HE course in an FE college and the complaint is to do with the actions of the FE institution, it would not be a matter for this complaints process, but if the complaint referred directly to the course of study, which is the responsibility of the HE institution, it would be covered by this complaints process. Any student studying in an HE institution, regardless of the course that they are taking, will also have access to this process.

The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale asked about publicity, promotion and clarity to enable students to understand exactly their rights and entitlements. The Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education, which is about to be established, will have responsibility. That will be part of its role, function and relevance. It will have a desire to publicise its activities to students. We also expect that individual institutions will make absolutely clear to all their students the different stages in addressing a grievance.

Several other issues were raised: the definition of a complaint; the ability of students to get redress while a complaint is being considered; the actions and extent of the powers of the adjudicator; and the status of private universities. Those matters will be directly addressed by other amendments in the course of our debates on complaints, and it would be more appropriate to deal with them then. With that, I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.

Tim Collins (Conservative, Westmorland and Lonsdale)

We are delighted to hear from the Under-Secretary, who has broken his Trappist vow of silence. He has done so successfully and persuaded me that it would be sensible to withdraw the amendment. Therefore, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Phil Willis (Liberal Democrat, Harrogate and Knaresborough)

I beg to move amendment No. 51, in

clause 11, page 5, line 10, at end insert

'; and

(e) any institution offering further (post-16) education'.

May I say how delighted I am to see you in the Chair, Mr. Hood, and to see the Under-Secretary leap to his feet to defend the Minister? I have no wish to press to a vote any of the amendments that my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury and I have tabled. We simply wish to probe the Government on the whole issue of student complaints, and I hope that in that spirit we will have a good exchange and engage the Committee on several key issues.

We have not tabled the amendments, which may come back on Report if a satisfactory exchange is not forthcoming, in order to say to universities or FE colleges that they are failing in their duty to address student complaints. It would be wrong to send out a message that massive numbers of complaints by HE or FE students are not being properly dealt with through appropriate procedures. It is fair to put that on the record. I assure the Association of Colleges that this amendment, about which it seems to be incredibly concerned, is not an attack on it. The association makes it clear that some 94 or 95 per cent. of its students say in survey after survey that they are very happy with the product they receive, and similar satisfaction appears to come out of surveys of HE institutions as well.

The debate is about those on the margins, or on the edge. My contention is that the number of complaints is likely to grow as we enter a market in both further and higher education, and as the cost to the consumer—the person buying the course—increases, their need for satisfaction with what they are receiving will increase. I promise you that I am not straying, Mr. Hood—you would not allow me to. When OFFA is introduced into the system, and there will be plans and perhaps some social engineering in terms of how we get people into our universities and colleges, a whole area of complaint will arise around the issue of admissions. That is not tackled anywhere in the Bill, and certainly not in the clauses on complaints.

What worries me about setting up an Office of the Independent Adjudicator simply for higher education is that it makes further education students seem like second-class citizens. It is clear that if, under section 72(1) of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992, 55 per cent. of students in an institution are on higher education courses, the institution is covered as far as the new adjudicator is concerned under the Bill. If the proportion is less that that, it will be excluded. That could give rise to a ridiculous situation whereby students from higher education institutions studying for foundation degrees in FE colleges are not protected. The Under-Secretary has constantly said that he expects the growth in numbers of about 250,000 people between now and 2010 in the higher education marketplace to be caused mainly by those on two-year foundation degrees, most of whom will receive their degrees in FE.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

I would like to challenge the hon. Gentleman slightly on his point about there being no protection under the law. I do not think that he would wish to make difficulties for the Committee on the subject, but he may want to question whether the measures will work. If a student has a complaint in relation to a further education college, whatever course they are on, they have the option, if they feel that the college has not met their complaint adequately, of having recourse to the learning and skills council. It is important that that point is clarified before the debate proceeds.

Phil Willis (Liberal Democrat, Harrogate and Knaresborough)

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that clarification. What he mentions is, quite frankly, one of the reasons why I want further education colleges to be included. If he is saying that an instrument of Government, appointed by the Secretary of State—and that is what the learning and skills councils are—is the natural adjudicator and the final port of call for complaints, I am sorry but I do not agree with him. I believe that we ought to have an independent complaint system in both further and higher education. That is not to cast aspersion on, or to doubt the integrity of, those concerned. I just do not believe that that system gives the air of independence that we are seeking.

If we are looking ahead—and any piece of legislation has to; we will certainly be doing so with top-up fees on Thursday and for the two weeks after that—we will have to look at the system of delivery, and what level three and level four qualifications will be in future. There will be none of the simple demarcation lines that there have been in the past in further and higher education; we will be moving on. To be fair to both Ministers, they constantly make the point that we need a system in which students flow between FE and HE. Our policy, which we have laid out, is that we want a sort of scaffold in terms of courses and qualifications. Students could then move along and come down as they need to gain new skills on their journey and progress through lifelong learning.

The hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) has already pointed out that somewhere in the region of 11 or 12 per cent. of students doing higher education qualifications already do them in FE institutions. I have made the point that if another 250,000 students are added by 2010 we will see a rapid rise in the number of students in FE colleges doing higher education courses. On those grounds alone, there is a sound argument to say that FE should be covered by a single adjudication system—I shall come on to the issue of ombudsmen on a later amendment—rather than having separate systems for two sets of students. This position would point out quite clearly that if one is a higher education university student, one is elevated, and if one is an FE student, one does not have the same recourse to those complaint support mechanisms.

We already have, within FE, an unregulated market in terms of fees. If this Bill goes through we will have the anomaly of a regulated market, or a semi-regulated market, in higher education, but not in FE. I ask that the Government consider seriously whether FE

colleges and the students within them should be covered, rather than just higher education institutions—rather than having the situation in the 1992 Act updated to a 2004 Act—and whether all post-16 students should be covered by an independent adjudicator system.

Tim Collins (Conservative, Westmorland and Lonsdale)

There were a couple of things that the hon. Gentleman said that I could agree with. I agree that it is very important that we should all put on record that we do not believe that there is a serious problem in the relationship between colleges of further education and their students. I was also encouraged by how he started, when he said that this was only a probing amendment. However, I must confess that I was a little puzzled, because he then explained at some length why it was an extremely important amendment, and said that he reserved the right to return to this matter on Report, which implied that he was not really probing, but actually means it. If he does mean it, he should not.

The Association of Colleges made a very clear statement on this—in fact, the hon. Gentleman referred to it in passing himself—in which it says that further education colleges have established effective complaints procedures, and that the scheme is approved by the Learning and Skills Council. It also says:

''It would be extremely unsatisfactory for FE colleges offering HE to be subject simultaneously to two different complaint regimes.''

That is what the hon. Gentleman is proposing. The Association of Colleges also says that it would like confirmation that it is the Government's intention that the new student complaints procedure should apply only to universities and other higher education institutions. I hope that the Under-Secretary will be able to give them that confirmation.

Phil Willis (Liberal Democrat, Harrogate and Knaresborough)

One of the main thrusts of the amendment is that there would not, in fact, be two separate systems. There would be a single system covering all FE and HE students. The hon. Gentleman might disagree with that, but I would be grateful if he did not misreport me.

Tim Collins (Conservative, Westmorland and Lonsdale)

All I would say is that I am not misreporting the hon. Gentleman, I am accurately quoting what the Association of Colleges thinks about his amendment. I presume that we would agree that members of the Association of Colleges are capable of reading amendments. They are not supportive of this one.

Simon Thomas (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

In clause 12, under qualifying complaints, the hon. Gentleman will find that, under the present regime, those studying HE courses in FE institutions will come under this independent adjudicator. Therefore, there are two systems at work here, and I think the point made by the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough is correct. [Interruption.]

Tim Collins (Conservative, Westmorland and Lonsdale)

Not on FE matters, as my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry says from a sedentary position. The clear point here is that the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough said that the amendment was designed to probe. I hope that that is the case. I have to tell him that if he does push it to a vote, he will not have Conservative Members' support.

Ivan Lewis (Labour, Bury South)

It will be a struggle to debate the definition of probing, so I shall leave that until another time. The hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough raised a reasonable point, which generated a worthwhile debate. It is true that the Association of Colleges reflects the widespread view that is shared by the Conservative party that, if it ain't broke, why fix it? By that, I mean the existing complaints process within the further education sector.

I say to the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough that we agree about the progression of students from further education to higher education, although I suspect that he meant to use the term ''climbing frame'', not ''scaffold'' in that context.

The hon. Gentleman has a fixation about moving to a market system and linking it with the desire of users of public services in a modern world to have high expectations of those services. I assure him that, whatever model we choose to adopt or refer to, at the beginning of the 21st century users of public services rightly have high expectations. We as politicians cannot afford to ignore those expectations or to avoid sometimes making it clear that we expect providers of those services to be accountable and transparent.

If I have one criticism of the hon. Gentleman, it is that he frequently—almost entirely—sides with the provider, not the user. It is more important that we achieve the right balance between the providers and users of public services in the modern world. However, we certainly agree that further education students must not ever be regarded as second class. That is one of the reasons why I resent the fact that some politicians and commentators want to have a choice in our society between higher and vocational education. That is an entirely false choice in a modern world. We need more people who are skilled to a high level and more graduates to meet our social and economic imperatives.

Graham Allen (Labour, Nottingham North)

Towards the end of the proceedings, I wonder whether my hon. Friend will set some homework for the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough. If we do not currently have a market in higher education, what do we have? It may be an imperfect market, but there is a market, so we need to intervene. I asked my hon. Friend that question on the Floor of the House. Will he ask the hon. Gentleman to take it away for the next 48 hours and perhaps come back with an answer?

Ivan Lewis (Labour, Bury South)

I was not aware that part of my brief was to set homework for members of the Committee. I am delighted to see my brief expand even further and I urge the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough to take up my hon. Friend's challenge.

David Rendel (Liberal Democrat, Newbury)

I thought that recent reports in the newspapers stated that homework has now been discredited.

Ivan Lewis (Labour, Bury South)

Even if the Liberal Democrats did any homework, that would not make any difference unless they were studying various spending commitments that the Prime Minister likes to discuss from time to time on a Wednesday.

We share the aspiration that further education students should never view themselves or be seen by us as second class. Let us consider the complaints process to which further education students have access. Obviously, students can go to the institution. If they exhaust its procedure and are not satisfied, they can go to the local Learning and Skills Council. If they are still not satisfied, they can contact the national Learning and Skills Council and then, as a result of new legislation, they can contact through their Members of Parliament the parliamentary ombudsman, who is an entirely independent person.

Moreover, in many ways, further education students know more about the choices that are open to them—before they make them—than university students. Let us consider the role of Ofsted and the Adult Learning Inspectorate when inspecting further education institutions and the provision of reviews by the learning and skills councils, which is an ongoing monitoring of the quality of provision in further education institutions.

It is legitimate and reasonable for the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough to raise such an issue, but our view is the widespread view of the sector. As he knows, it is the view of the Association of Colleges, but it is also my experience that the existing complaints processes work exceptionally well in the further education sector. On that basis, I ask him to withdraw the amendment.

Phil Willis (Liberal Democrat, Harrogate and Knaresborough)

May I put the Under-Secretary right on one thing? Where an amendment would extend students' right to a complaints system, it can hardly be classed as being for the producer interest. I hope that he will take his homework away and realise that there is a difference between the two.

If the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) thinks that increasing the market in higher education by introducing costs into it does not in fact accelerate the move to a market system in higher education, he needs to think again. For the record, I abhor the fact that for the 30-odd years that I have been in teaching—working with youngsters from poor backgrounds—those youngsters have not been able to access higher education because of an unofficial market. I would like to do something about that, not make it worse.

Returning to the amendment, it is convenient for the Conservatives to misread the letter from the Association of Colleges. It is also wrong that the Under-Secretary does not recognise that both NATHFE and the Association of University Teachers, who work directly with students, support the amendments. If we are going to have a balanced argument, we should not consider the issue purely from the view of college principals and vice-chancellors. The debate on the Bill has all been about what vice-chancellors want, not about what students want.

However, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 11 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Further consideration adjourned.—[Mr. Twigg.]

Adjourned accordingly at seven minutes past Five o'clock till Thursday 12 February at ten minutes past Nine o'clock.