Hansard

I am pleased to open the debate on the general principles of the bill. I thank the Health and Sport Committee for its careful scrutiny of the bill and for its support for the bill’s general principles. I also thank the Finance and Constitution Committee for its consideration of the bill.

I am grateful to the organisations and individuals who provided evidence to the Health and Sport Committee. The committee has delivered a fair report on the bill and the evidence that it received. The Government’s response to the report has been provided to Parliament; I hope that members had the opportunity to review it, ahead of the debate.

This technical single-purpose bill has been welcomed and supported by the majority of stakeholders. The bill’s purpose is to repeal an archaic, unfair and, arguably, anticompetitive prohibition that prevents the University of St Andrews from awarding medicine and dentistry degrees. The prohibition, which was put in place more than 50 years ago, was always intended to be transitionary, so it is no longer appropriate for it to remain in law. It was put in place by the Universities (Scotland) Act 1966 in order to give immediate effect to the separation of Queen’s College in Dundee from the University of St Andrews, so that it could form the University of Dundee. That purpose has clearly been achieved; the University of Dundee has long since become a reputable and well-established higher education institution.

The University of St Andrews has educated students and has contributed to the rich tapestry of our higher education world in Scotland for more than 600 years, but no other higher education institution in Scotland or the United Kingdom is prohibited by primary legislation from awarding degrees in any discipline. It is clear that the 1966 act did not intend to prevent future competition between the University of St Andrews and any other higher education institution in Scotland or the UK. By removing the prohibition, the bill will create a fairer higher education sector and will enable all our valued institutions to maximise the options that they offer to students in Scotland.

The bill has been introduced to enable the University of St Andrews to award, jointly with the University of Dundee, primary medical qualification degrees to students on the Scottish graduate entry medicine programme—ScotGEM—in advance of the first cohort graduating in 2022. ScotGEM is Scotland’s first graduate entry programme for medicine, and formed part of a package of initiatives that were announced by the Scottish Government in 2016 to enhance the national health service workforce of the future.

It was always intended that the degree would be jointly awarded; as such, it is highly valued by its students, as the committee heard. The degree is delivered in collaboration with the University of the Highlands and Islands and a number of partner health boards. It has a specific focus on general practice and remote and rural working, with the aim of retaining as many doctors as possible within NHS Scotland, following their graduation.

I acknowledge that a small number of stakeholders have raised concerns about what they consider to be the potentially negative impact on the University of St Andrews being able to offer its own PMQ degree in the future. Those concerns are precisely why medicine and dentistry are controlled subjects. It is so that policy decisions can be made by the Government of the day, in collaboration with others, on the number of undergraduate medicine and dentistry students there are at any time, and on distribution of those students across higher education institutions and across clinical placements in the NHS.

Although the University of St Andrews might well have the ambition to offer its own PMQ degree in the future, the bill neither determines nor provides for that. I am pleased that the Health and Sport Committee’s stage 1 report acknowledges that important point. The question of a higher education institution being able to offer a degree in either of the controlled subjects of medicine or dentistry—and, if so, the number of places that it is able to offer—is subject to separate financial and regulatory controls and to decision-making processes that involve the Scottish Government, the Scottish Funding Council, NHS Education Scotland, the General Medical Council, our health boards and others.

Given that the University of St Andrews, together with the University of Dundee, has already been awarded the ScotGEM programme, the immediate effect of the bill will be to allow St Andrews university to award the ScotGEM PMQ jointly with Dundee university. During stage 1 evidence, we heard that that is the clear expectation of ScotGEM students. We also heard how passionately they feel about their unique identity as students of both universities.

Once again, I thank the Health and Sport Committee for its scrutiny and its agreement that it would be fundamentally unfair for any part of the prohibition to be retained, given that it was only ever intended to be transitionary.

Scotland’s higher education sector faces significant challenges, given the constraints on immigration, the consequences of European Union exit and the likely decrease in the attractiveness of studying abroad that will result from the coronavirus pandemic. There are also significant challenges to overcome in creating and growing a more sustainable medical workforce.

Removal of the prohibition will allow greater flexibility in addressing those challenges, by creating a fairer higher education sector, thereby enabling all Scotland’s valued higher education institutions to maximise the options and opportunities that they offer to students in the future. It is fair and right that ScotGEM students will be able to graduate with the jointly awarded degree that they believed they were studying for, reflecting both their studies and the incredible work that has been done by the universities of Dundee and St Andrews in establishing such a successful and innovative programme.

I move,

That the Parliament agrees to the general principles of the University of St. Andrews (Degrees in Medicine and Dentistry) Bill.