Schedule 5
Charities Bill [Lords]
11:15 am
Andrew Turner (Shadow Minister (Charities), Home Affairs; Isle of Wight, Conservative)
We are examining a particularly important change to the way in which universities are regulated. I am completely astonished that universities that have lain on their backs with their feet in the air and have allowed themselves to be regulated even more by HEFCE. Anyone who remembers the huge row that took place in the 1990s, when the University Grants Committee was abolished and replaced by HEFCE, will be amazed that universities got so wimpish and so incapable of opposing. They are now so incapable of protecting their position that the hon. Member for Cheltenham is absolutely correct when he says that it is possible for the occupant of a teaching post paid for by the university to be removed at the instigation of HEFCE. In those circumstances, one wonders how long university dons can keep the protection of free speech.