Hansard

I am very pleased to close the debate on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives and as a member of the Health and Sport Committee.

I would like to start by reiterating comments that Liz Smith and others have made about how pertinent the bill is. It is true that Covid has focused all our attention on the importance of our healthcare sector. We cannot say enough that we are eternally grateful. Liz Smith also talked about the important work that universities do in research and innovation. The University of St Andrews has always been to the fore in that regard.

As others have said, the aim of the bill is to remove a legislative prohibition that prevents the University of St Andrews from holding qualifying exams and awarding degrees in medicine and dentistry. The reason for taking action at this time is to allow the university, jointly with the University of Dundee, to award undergraduate primary UK medical qualifications to Scottish graduate entry medicine students.

The first set of students are due to complete their four-year course and graduate in 2022. The premise of the bill, as set out in the policy memorandum, is that the prohibition is unfair and anti-competitive and no longer serves a purpose and that, therefore,

“In removing the prohibition, the Bill creates a fairer higher education sector and enables all of Scotland’s ... institutions to maximise the options and opportunities they offer to students in Scotland.”

The bill’s importance is evident from the well-documented background, which is that Scotland is generally short of general practitioners. Donald Cameron rightly raised that issue, suggesting that we are about 850 GPs short of the number we need. Therefore, any move to tackle that long-standing issue should be given due consideration, especially for people in rural communities. That is a situation that the Scottish Government has presided over. On the lifting of the prohibition being targeted specifically at the lack of GPs in rural areas, I note that my area, like Donald Cameron’s, suffers from that.

There was widespread general support for the repeal of the prohibition in both written submissions and oral evidence. One of the main reasons for that support was that it would bring the University of St Andrews into line with other medical schools in Scotland and allow it to award the ScotGEM PMQ jointly with the University of Dundee. As our convener said, ScotGEM argued that students enrolling in the programme of study were given a clear expectation that their degrees would be jointly awarded by the University of St Andrews and the University of Dundee.

The University of Dundee, however, supported the prohibition being removed only partially, for the purposes of ScotGEM, with it remaining in place for all other degree-awarding purposes. According to the policy memorandum, that was on the basis that there would potentially be adverse and unintended consequences for the education and training environment in Scotland. The committee explored that issue, asking, in effect, whether the bill would serve only to dilute the number of graduates across more universities. The cabinet secretary gave us assurances that that would not be the case.

We support the ScotGEM programme and we support the removal of the prohibition in order to allow the University of St Andrews to award degrees in medicine and dentistry. We recognise that the prohibition is unfair and that it was not intended to remain in place permanently. For that reason, a partial removal of the prohibition would not be appropriate. The issue of whether the University of St Andrews will compete to establish a new medical school is not provided for in the bill and it does not require additional legislative changes.

Discussions about proposals for a new medical school have been postponed, but we consider that it would be prudent, when they resume, for them to consider the wider evidence that we heard on NHS recruitment and the widening of access to medicine during our scrutiny of the bill.

We will support the bill at stage 1 at decision time this evening and we look forward to it progressing to stages 2 and 3.