Clause 23 - Condition that may be required to be imposed by English funding bodies
Higher Education Bill
12:00 pm
Mr George Mudie (Leeds East, Labour)
As always, my hon. Friend makes a valid point. That leads me immaculately to the point that I was about to make. I am a bit impatient with the universities. The ink was not dry on the 2002 public spending review when this matter surfaced. I was corrected by the Minister this morning because I was being less than generous to the Government, which is not my fashion. I said that £2.5 billion was put into the universities under that review, when it was actually £3 billion. Other sums were given for research. Because of those villains who sit on the other side in the Chamber, for 18 years universities were demoralised. Investment was slashed. Whichever part of the public service one looked at it was under siege. When the
Labour Government came in, they had a tremendous job of rebuilding to do in the public sector, both of morale and infrastructure.
Some members of the Cabinet have been too critical of the public sector. They were still at school or at university on grants when people such as my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington and I were defending the public sector from Mrs. Thatcher. In contrast to the past six years, we had 18 years of investment being run down. I cannot think of any part of the public service that I go to that would not thank me for having doubled its money or given it a big cheque. We all therefore get understandably upset when such criticisms are made.