Plenary, 12 Feb 2004

Meeting date: Thursday, February 12, 2004

Official Report 704KB pdf

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Higher Education Bill

The next item of business is consideration of motion S2M-787, in the name of Jim Wallace, on the Higher Education Bill, which is United Kingdom legislation.

Motion moved,

That the Parliament agrees that the provisions contained in the Higher Education Bill which have the effect of creating a UK Arts and Humanities Research Council and which confer powers and functions on Scottish Ministers, so far as those provisions relate to matters within the legislative competence of the Parliament, should be considered by the UK Parliament.—[Mr Jim Wallace.]

I oppose the Sewel motion on the usual ground that Sewel motions are inappropriate. This one in particular is inappropriate. I draw Parliament's attention to the position that the Conservatives have adopted. They took a principled position such that their one and only Scottish Tory MP did not vote on the bill on the ground that it was exclusively to do with England and, perhaps, Wales. It certainly is not to do with Scotland. The very fact that we have a Sewel motion on the Higher Education Bill gives the lie to that view.

I draw the Parliament's attention to the fact that some English Conservative members have lodged amendments to the bill at committee stage. Those amendments will have significant implications for Scotland if they are agreed to. If we agree to the Sewel motion, we will hand over Scottish education—with respect to the measures in the bill—to the hands of an English Parliament that has not borne in mind the detail of what is required in Scotland. We are actually giving away £5.4 million of our budget to someone else to decide where it will go. I therefore oppose the Sewel motion, and I will encourage my colleagues to do so in a few minutes.

It is curious that Brian Adam describes the Westminster Parliament as an English Parliament. It does not say much for what his colleagues—such as Salmond the Sassenach, as someone described him—are doing there.

The Sewel motion is limited to that part of the Higher Education Bill that relates to the establishment of an arts and humanities research council on a similar basis to that of the science research councils that already operate. The new research council will be established by royal charter, and will be put on an equal footing with the six existing UK science research councils. The bill will make the new AHRC a reserved matter, but it will also make provision for the direct funding of arts and humanities research in Scotland by the Scottish Executive, in addition to the research that might be funded through the new council. That position will parallel that of science research.

After extensive consultation, the bill has been widely welcomed. There is widespread support for the change within the arts research community, which has long argued that the creation of an AHRC is in the best long-term interests of research in Scotland, and will lead not only to opportunities to win additional funding, but to increased prestige for arts and humanities research.

Scotland consistently wins more under the current arrangements of the Arts and Humanities Research Board than is put in by the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council. We certainly punch above our weight and there is no reason to think that we will not do that after the arts and humanities research council is established. Not being part of the council could be damaging to arts and humanities research in Scotland. I therefore urge colleagues in the Parliament to support the motion.

The question on motion S2M-787 will be put at decision time.