Enterprise and Culture Committee, 27 Jan 2004

Meeting date: Tuesday, January 27, 2004

Official Report 273KB pdf

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Higher Education Bill

Agenda item 3 is on the Sewel motion that will go before the Parliament on the Higher Education Bill. We have with us again Jim Wallace MSP, who will speak to the motion.

I will speak more briefly this time. With me as support are Andy Bishop and Isabell Donnelly.

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to the memorandum on an important Sewel motion. In the motion, we will ask Parliament to consent to the provisions in the Westminster Parliament's Higher Education Bill that will establish a new UK-wide arts and humanities research council. I emphasise that only the provisions in part 1 of the bill that relate to the AHRC's creation are the subject of the Sewel motion. Other parts of the bill are not covered. Members might have heard that the bill's second reading takes place today.

The provisions will enable the existing UK Arts and Humanities Research Board to be replaced by a UK research council that will be established by royal charter. That will place the arts and humanities research body on a similar footing to that of the seven UK science research councils.

As with the existing research councils, it is proposed that the new arts and humanities research council will be a reserved matter for the purposes of the Scotland Act 1998. Part 1 of the bill makes provision for direct funding of arts and humanities research by the Scottish Executive in addition to funding of research by the proposed new research council—again, that is to ensure that there is parallel treatment with science research.

The memorandum explains why the change is being made, and the considerable advantages that both the Executive and the UK Government believe will result. I emphasise that there has been detailed and extensive consultation with the academic sector. It is clear that there is widespread support for the change from the arts research community in Scotland, which has written to express its strong support for the change. It states:

"The Scottish academic community, after wide consultation, strongly supports proposals to establish an arts and humanities research council. This includes academics with specific Scottish studies interests, who are satisfied that there will be good safeguards for their subjects. Universities Scotland believes that, as in other research areas, Scotland will achieve a larger share of funding than our share of the UK population."

Current funding of arts research is devolved, but the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council and the other funding bodies provide financial contributions through the Arts and Humanities Research Board, which operates UK wide. The change will require us to transfer those powers to Westminster, together with SHEFC's budget for the AHRB of about £5 million. Parliament is asked to agree to Westminster's legislating to create the proposed new research council. Once the legislation is in place, there will be a process of transferring powers and funding, which will require an order under section 30(2) of the Scotland Act 1998 to be laid in both Houses at Westminster and in the Scottish Parliament. Depending on the progress of the Westminster bill, we anticipate that that will happen in the summer or autumn of this year. Parliament will therefore have another full opportunity to consider the implications of proceeding to reserve the new AHRC. If Parliament chooses not to take that step, that will create an unfortunate anomaly that would require us to establish a completely different structure for funding arts research in Scotland, which would be out of kilter with science research funding and different from the arrangements for the rest of the United Kingdom. It is clear that the arts research community here would be very much against that.

Members will note that some arts research is culturally specific and will need special protection when the matter is reserved. We have therefore worked to ensure that the royal charter that will establish the research council, and its other founding rules, will incorporate a range of safeguards that will help to monitor and protect such research. Some reassurance on that can be found in the figures for Scottish research that is funded by the AHRB, which is already competed for on a UK basis. Scotland has consistently won more funding than SHEFC has put in: between 1999 and 2002, Scotland won 14 per cent of the total that was available, compared with a contribution by SHEFC of 12.5 per cent to the UK pot. As well as small-scale research grants, a number of major projects are being funded here by the AHRB, including much research that is specifically Scottish in its themes. Four of the 17 research centres that are funded by the AHRB are in Scottish higher education institutions.

Another important reassurance is that Scottish ministers will have the same powers to fund arts research projects that they currently have to fund science research projects. That will allow us to fund research that we consider to have strategic importance.

In conclusion, I believe that it is important for Scotland's arts and humanities research to remain fully connected to the UK funding system in order to maintain our competitiveness. That will be achieved through being part of the proposed UK-wide arts and humanities research council. I hope that the committee, having considered the issues, will support the Sewel motion and the proposals that are contained in the memorandum.

Thank you. I note that the proposed research council will be funded by the Department of Trade and Industry. I understand that it funds the other research councils, but is it the best organisation to fund an arts and humanities research council? Does it have much—or any—expertise in that area?

It is not for us to work out how Whitehall orders itself.

Five million pounds of our money will go there.

The review of arts and humanities research showed that—perhaps more than one would realise from looking at the matter at face value—there are more similarities or synergies than there are differences between science research and arts and humanities research.

One of the purposes of the measure is to put the arts and humanities research body on a similar footing to the science research councils, which come under the auspices of the DTI. Through the bill, we are trying to eliminate boundaries. I suspect that the differences in methodology and approach between science and the arts are narrowing. For that reason, it was thought appropriate that they be badged or brigaded together.

I am aware that significant additional funding for the AHRB, which will become the AHRC, has been pledged by the Westminster Government even before the passage of the Higher Education Bill. That should be good news for our universities, if they can continue to punch above their weight in terms of the money for research that they are able to secure from the new council. Can we be confident that Scottish universities will in future be able to get from the proposed new council funding that is greater than the investment that the Executive makes into the overall pot of cash?

I certainly hope so. I have a reasonable expectation that that will be the case because those funds are bid for and until now Scottish higher education institutions have, under the Arts and Humanities Research Board, done disproportionately well because of the quality of their bids. I do not expect there to be any diminution in the quality of the projects that are proposed. I sincerely hope that that quality will ensure that we continue to punch above our weight and that we get more out of the pot than we surrender.

I presume that we are not investing 10 per cent of the overall funds that will be available to the new research council.

The figure that I gave in my opening remarks for our contribution to the pot was 12.5 per cent—£5 million. However, between 1999 and 2002 we won 14 per cent of the total funding that was available. That is a reasonable difference.

My second question relates to the threshold changes. Will the increase in the threshold from £10,000 to £15,000 have a short-term economic impact on Executive expenditure? Will that cost us anything?

That is an entirely separate question. The committee will recall that the partnership agreement committed us to increasing the threshold for repayment of loans. Members will also recall that one reason why the Executive did not go down the road that the Cubie committee proposed—having a higher repayment level for the graduate endowment—was that if there were two separate levels for repayments, money that was earmarked for student support would be spent on administration. We did not think that that was a very good deal. To ensure that we do not get ourselves into that position by default, we will match the changes in the repayment threshold south of the border in order to ensure that there is one administrative arrangement. That is a cost that we have anticipated.

The memorandum states that SHEFC supports science research and that it is planned that the same will happen in respect of arts and humanities. How will that happen—what will be the resources for that—if, as the memorandum states, the £5.4 million that currently goes to the Arts and Humanities Research Board will be transferred

"from the Scottish Executive to the OST"?

I am not clear about that.

The memorandum also states:

"This will be a once-for-all transfer".

I presume that that means from 2005-06 because money for the previous years has already been earmarked for Scotland. From 2005-06 onwards, money will not come from London, but will stay there.

That is correct.

What will SHEFC be able to do with funding that it decides to target, after the £5.4 million or the uprated equivalent sum is no longer being paid?

We already have science research councils at UK level, but there is still provision for science research funding to come from SHEFC and from the Scottish Executive budget. As I said, there will be provision in the bill for direct funding by the Scottish Executive of arts and humanities research. We will have the competence and power directly to fund arts and humanities research over and above what is successfully bid for through the research council. That would be done in the normal way of—

Would that be from within SHEFC's resources, minus the other money?

Yes. That money will be transferred and will not be renewed. Obviously, we have the power to set SHEFC's budget and, under the bill, we will have the competence to continue to make separate funding available for arts and humanities research.

I understand that this is not an exact parallel but, to indicate what might happen, can you tell us what sort of science research funding SHEFC has funded on its own, say in the past three years?

I have been advised that around £10 million to £15 million per year has gone through SHEFC.

That is a substantial amount.

It is.

Will you give us an idea of the nature of your consultations with the academic community? Has there been consultation as part of the Executive's overall consideration of the bill's implications? Have views been expressed to you by the new universities, which tend not to do quite as well from science research council funding because of the bidding processes? Do you have any concerns about recent moves to concentrate research funding on an even smaller number of elite institutions? Do those moves have any implications for the future of arts and humanities research?

On your final question, we have said that we do not intend to focus funding on a limited number of higher education research institutions. In 2002, the UK Administrations carried out a joint review that considered whether there was a case for converting the board. The board was established in 1998, but SHEFC became part of it and started to contribute to it only in 1999. The review concluded that there would be benefits and improvements as a result of establishing a research council for arts and humanities on the same basis as the science research councils.

There have been a number of discussions with the academic community. The Executive consulted widely on the proposal to convert the AHRB into a research council after the publication of the UK review document in 2002. There were discussions with deans of arts faculties and letters were received in support of the proposal. The conclusion that we reached was that the university sector overwhelmingly supported the proposal.

Since I have taken on responsibility for the portfolio, the issue has been raised with me. People have sought assurance that I support the proposal and the issue has been raised in a number of individual and collective meetings that I have had with principals. There was a meeting between my officials and the universities on 21 November 2003 that involved a number of sector representatives, including deans of arts faculties, Universities Scotland and the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

One concern that was raised when I took over responsibility for the portfolio was about Scotland-specific cultural issues. We have been working to ensure that such issues will be covered in the royal charter and the founding rules and regulations. Written into the charter will be the fact that research, as well as being Scotland specific, will be obliged to have regard to the distinctive regions of the United Kingdom. That was the only concern that was raised and I believe that it has been addressed. Certainly, any discussions that I have had have been one-way traffic, because I have not heard a contrary view.

Do you accept that there is a move towards concentrating science research council funding on a smaller number of institutions? You said just now that SHEFC does not want a policy that targets resources in that way. How can SHEFC influence the policy once it has passed over—in perpetuity—the £5.4 million to a body that it does not control? Might it have some say in what the body does?

As I indicated earlier in a response to Richard Baker, the proposed council will have to fund, on the basis of competitive bidding, the best projects in the arts and humanities wherever they originate. We will not limit Scottish higher education institutions' bids. Scottish HEIs must compete and win research awards. Their performance to date shows that they are capable of winning a disproportionate share of the awards. There will be rigorous peer review of the projects and they will be judged against well-established criteria—relevance, quality, innovation and originality.

We will not put restrictions on Scottish universities. I am not saying that it will happen like that south of the border, but we will not discourage Scottish universities from putting forward their projects—far from it. I do not see why any change of attitude south of the border should detract from the proven quality of the bids that Scottish HEIs have a track record of submitting.

You rightly referred earlier to the fact that the bill is being debated elsewhere today. Is the proposed arts and humanities research council the only area of the bill that will have a direct effect on Scottish HE?

Our view is that it is the only area of the bill that requires a Sewel motion.

The point is whether the bill directly affects Scottish universities.

As I have indicated on a number of occasions, there are potential implications for Scottish universities of a different funding regime south of the border. That is why we set up an HE funding review as part of phase 3 of the overall HE review. The funding review is looking into some of the possible implications for cross-border student flows and the retention and recruitment of staff, to name but two areas. However, a Sewel motion is not required to cover that.

I hope that my question flows on neatly from what has just been raised.

Is your question about the subject of the Sewel motion?

Absolutely.

The minister's opening remarks and the memorandum that we received set out the rationale for the proposed new research council and for the Sewel motion. Earlier, the minister expressed explicitly the benefits of Scotland being part of a UK-wide research community, and the memorandum sets out the rationale for and the benefits of Scotland participating in a UK-wide research council for arts and humanities. Would the minister like to take the opportunity to note explicitly the fact that there will also be benefits for other parts of the United Kingdom from Scotland contributing to that research output? Indeed, Scotland punches above its weight in many other research fields in its participation in research councils.

There are benefits to the UK not only from Scotland's participation in research councils but from the change of the present board into a research council that will have a royal charter. That is certainly the view that emerged from the UK Administrations' review and we recognise that the step will help multidisciplinary research and will contribute to an arts and humanities perspective in the development of research policy in other spheres. Such a UK-wide approach promotes collaboration between Scottish researchers and their counterparts in the rest of the UK and so benefits both Scotland and the UK. The Westminster and Scottish Administrations have agreed to move forward on the basis of that wide view.

The proposal both implicitly and explicitly recognises the existence of a UK-wide research community and the strengths for all the component parts of pooling our research capacity and building on our potential on a UK basis. Do you agree that the UK Government ought expressly to recognise that there is a UK-wide research community when framing the bill's wider aspects and other aspects of higher education policy? Indeed, the committee made that observation in its Scottish solutions inquiry. In other words, the recognition of a UK research community in one aspect of the bill must be reflected when the UK Government develops other elements of policy that impact on research output.

I am very wary of speaking on behalf of the UK Government. Indeed, I am sure that the UK Government itself would be wary of my speaking on its behalf on—

With respect, the question is whether the Scottish Executive and the Scottish minister would want to make those points to their UK counterparts.

I assure the committee that, since I became minister, I have had regular discussions with Charles Clarke and Alan Johnson on a range of higher education issues including the one that will be the subject of this Sewel motion. I think that Susan Deacon is aware of the time-honoured phrase that such communications are best kept confidential. That said, I know from the committee's report that the committee was concerned that the best level of engagement was not happening at an earlier stage. However, since I became minister, I cannot complain about UK ministers' willingness to enter into dialogue.

That concludes the question-and-answer session and I thank the minister and his officials for their attendance.

The same options are open to us as there were with the previous Sewel motion. However, I suggest that we take no further action on this item. Are members agreed?

Members indicated agreement.