Hansard

We recently celebrated the news that five of our universities continue to be rated in the top 200 in the whole world—an astonishing achievement for a country our size.

Only last week in this Parliament, Scotland’s colleges showcased their remarkable innovation and excellence across the broadest range of skills and technology imaginable.

Our universities support the learning of more than 230,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students and contribute an annual economic impact of more than £7 billion gross value added. As a driver of the economy, they come behind only the financial services and energy sectors. We should not forget—as I think the minister rather did—that colleges, in spite of swingeing cuts, continue to deliver 20 per cent of higher education and contribute £6 to the economy for every £1 invested. If we are to prosper in the future, that must only increase, for our future lies in high-tech, highly skilled jobs in industries that are driven by training, research and innovation from our universities and colleges, underpinned by knowledge and new thinking. In a globalised world, there is no other path that we can take.

How worrying, then, is the situation in which we find ourselves? Brexit poses nothing but difficulties, challenges, uncertainty and potential pitfalls for higher and further education, which is why we will oppose the Tory amendment at decision time tonight. Its Pollyanna formulation—that Brexit brings opportunities as well as challenges—attempts simply to elide responsibility for the unnecessary risk that the Tories have created for our universities and colleges through their Brexit fiasco. For today’s debate, we have had briefings from universities, collectively and individually, Colleges Scotland, the National Union of Students, the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Institute of Physics, but not one has a good word to say about Brexit—not one. They are concerned, worried and uncertain, and the Tories’ rather hopeful claims of opportunity have completely passed them by.

First, there is the issue of students. We have 13,500 non-UK EU students—almost 9 per cent of undergraduates—in our universities. They not only enrich our universities’ student body but currently can stay and work here when they qualify, which helps us to meet the demand for the highest of skills and the most imaginative of innovation. As has been mentioned, the Scottish Government has at least been able to provide those students who are already here with the assurance that their fees will be met for the duration of their course but, as has also been noted, no such assurance has been given for next year’s entrants, who are now applying. Universities have had to publish prospectuses and seek students while unable to tell them whether their fees will be paid. I know that that situation is not of the Scottish Government’s making, and I acknowledge that, as the minister said, she reached out quickly to the higher education sector. However, in the end, that really is not good enough. Universities have been left in an impossible position. Application closing dates are imminent or, in some cases, even past, so the Government must decide and decide soon.

Then we have university and college staff. Academia is one of the sectors that have relished the free movement of people, which goes with the grain of centuries of intellectual exchange. Around 16 per cent of our universities’ staff are from the EU. That is more than 4,500 people who now face uncertainty about their long-term future. They need assurances from the UK Government now, and not just for the next few months or couple of years, because otherwise they will consider leaving. It is not just the formality of their immigration status that matters; their sense of being valued and wanted has been badly shaken.

Then there is research. In 2013-14, almost £90 million of research funding, which was 13 per cent of Scottish universities’ total funding, came from European Union sources. The Prime Minister has given assurances that research funding will not suffer, but there is no detail and, frankly, there is not much confidence in the sector. That applies not just to the universities but to companies such as Sunamp in my constituency, which does world-leading research and development in renewable heat. Its work is driven by innovative chemistry from the University of Edinburgh and it looks to horizon 2020 for next-stage development. As the minister said, £165 million of horizon 2020 funding has already been won in Scotland, but what will replace that in future? Even if those funds are underwritten in the short term, in the long term, how do we replace access to an €80 billion fund to support research?

Once again, the issue is about people and not just money. As Liz Smith illustrated, we are already hearing about research collaborations thinking twice about UK partners, certainly as project leaders if not as participants, because they are now unsure of our dependability and commitment to partnership.

All that is true of the college sector, too. There are 3,500 student places dependent on European social fund funding of £13 million per year, which is a significant contribution to the sector. Although it is true that fewer EU citizens come to Scotland to study in our colleges than come to study in our universities—there are hundreds rather than thousands—it is also true that thousands of students in our colleges are EU citizens who already live here and have chosen to access further education to pursue their careers. They are now unsure of how long they will be able to do that, what their status will be or whether they are welcome.

I close with a comment on an EU programme—Erasmus, the European exchange programme, which the cabinet secretary rightly mentioned. I hope that we can maintain Scotland’s place in Erasmus, because it epitomises the internationalism that has underpinned our universities and colleges for centuries.

I am reminded of the example of John Mair, who was from North Berwick in my constituency. He was schooled at Haddington grammar in my home town and was a student alongside Erasmus at the Collège de Montaigu in France. He graduated in Navarre in Spain, taught at the Sorbonne and then returned to Scotland as principal of the University of Glasgow, before moving to St Andrews. He was the originator of the idea of the union between Scotland and England, and of the fundamental principles that underlie human rights law. Mair is an example who epitomises the internationalism of Scottish education: a historic strength that pre-dated the EU but which sat so well with it—