Education (Student Support) (European University Institute) Regulations 2010

My Lords, like the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, I thank my noble friend Lord Lucas for tabling this Motion, and I must say that I share his concerns. When the Merits Committee, a cross-party committee known for the impartiality of its recommendations, sees the need to highlight the lack of coherent policy behind a piece of legislation, we know that the Government are on thin ice. The committee states that the SI has been developed without consultation with key stakeholders and that the Minister’s department has not presented any solid evidence to support the policy objectives of their funding decisions. Indeed, there is something odd about the Government’s attitude to the timing of this cost cutting. The Prime Minister has been at pains to tell us that nothing should be done, that all cost cutting must wait until next year for fear of snuffing out the economic recovery, yet here goes the department doing something that is apparently completely at odds with that assertion. Now we all know, in fact I think most of us know better than the Government, how important it is to cut costs and to cut them promptly, but the huge importance of the process of engagement with and influencing of Europe critically hinges on having talented and highly skilled civil servants appropriately placed, as my noble friend said, within the bureaucracy in Brussels. This order appears to be only one of two sets of regulations on the number of scholarships to be made available for students to study at the College of Europe. Can the Minister give us any more information about how, given the imminence of Prorogation, and when the Government intend to table the second lot, which apparently will reinstate half the places that are being cut? My understanding is that the Government propose to remove student support for postgraduate students attending the College of Europe in Bruges, Natolin in Poland and Bologna in Italy, but that funding will remain in place for UK postgraduate students attending the European University Institute in Florence. So can the Minister explain the Government’s logic for differentiating between the European University Institute in Florence and the other institutions which are not so favoured? I also look forward to hearing his answers to my noble friend’s questions about the analytical work that was done before all these decisions and counter-decisions were made. How many students have gone on to fill permanent positions in EU institutions? What sort of work are they doing? And as the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, asked, can he reveal who was consulted? We hear, for instance, that despite media coverage in January, the Europe Unit at Universities UK was not consulted, yet it is the key group representing European higher education in this country The College of Europe only deals with those with the very highest potential, and I understand that the number of students who have attended it from the UK, as from any other country, has reflected that. But perhaps that is because only a small number of those with such potential exist or indeed are needed by the European institutions. Is the Minister confident that these cuts have not been made in a misguided assault on a perceived elitism? We thought that the Government disagreed with us over the whole issue of the timing of cost cutting, so we are baffled by this issue. We are equally baffled that the Government seem prepared to risk prejudicing the interests of the UK in Europe without, apparently, any consultation with key stakeholders and without presenting solid evidence to support the policy objectives of their funding decisions.