Scotland Bill

My Lords, perhaps because of my previous interest in Scottish higher education, I have been somewhat targeted by universities in Scotland. I must say, from the start, that I find myself in the difficult position of being in opposition to the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Tillyorn, who was my chancellor. I was targeted for making what have been called ““unhelpful comments”” in Committee. I quite like making unhelpful comments in Committee. Of all the representations that I have received, not one adequately addressed the EU anomaly. They were silent on that. They were, of course, concerned, institution by institution, with the need to protect their income but that is ultimately a matter for the Scottish Government, not for this Parliament. The Scottish Government could easily devise a funding formula that enabled English domiciled students to be supported at Scottish universities. The other thing that I have found offensive—I use the word carefully, but I do use it—is the argument that if there is not this discrimination, Scottish universities will be swamped by English students. That has something akin to the ring of ethnic cleansing about it. I say that as someone who has, fortunately, had the great privilege of being educated in an English, a Welsh and a Scottish university. As my noble friend Lord Morgan said, anything that turns away from that great value just does not understand the nature of higher education as a universal good. Let us come down to the grubbiness of it. When I was a Scottish Office Minister I was in charge of the first comprehensive spending review. As we developed the argument, I asked the simple question: what would happen if Scottish universities were funded out of the block grant on the basis of Scottish students? My officials turned to me and said: ““Minister, we would at least have to close one Scottish medical school. The best card we have up our sleeve to defend the Barnett formula is that we educate English students out of the Scottish block””. Just think what the implications for higher education would be if that became the reality: much more than the problem of solving English students being properly financed to attend Scottish universities. That is in the past. Issues like this can usually be reduced to very simple propositions. The simple proposition here is that what is intended is deeply and grossly unfair and nothing that I have read or heard persuades me otherwise.