Andrew Adonis, the former Labour cabinet minister and senior adviser to Tony Blair is that rare creature, a British politician who having been introduced to Northern Ireland doesn’t turn away wearily after a short while. He has decided to champion our interests. He’s been mocked recently as a fanatical anti-Brexiteer who has had to face defeat. Undaunted, he has turned to other causes. His speech during a debate in the Lords about the Stormont standoff yesterday triggered an important statement from a government minister, that plans for a university for Derry were “ oven ready” if only a local minister was in place to sign them off. Will this news along with the prospect of a list of other goodies to improve real life tempt the local politicians away from their sterile power struggle? For shame and a real indictment of them, if not.
The case for a university for Derry goes back to my youth and was updated recently here in Slugger .
Only last September the outlook for a medical school on the Magee campus that would be the core of a whole new uni looked bleak, when David Sterling the head of the civil service and NI’s de facto governor criticised the handling of UU finances.
“Ulster University is not proposing to finance the Magee medical school from within its own resources and significant ongoing finances will be required from Government if this is to proceed. As you are aware all public services are under severe budgetary pressure and we simply cannot spend money we do not have…”
Sterling also drew comparisons with this UU project and one it had for the Springvale campus at a proposed cost of £71m which failed to materialise.
But funding from somewhere has at last been found after an on- off- on roller coaster of statements over the past six months. The case seems to have been won with pressure from the UK government to create an incentive for the return of Stormont.
Adonis’ speech provides a wider context than Derry itself. The speech and the minister Lord Duncan’s reply is worth carrying at some length. Adonis lays into the management of Ulster University whose vice chancellor Paddy Nixon is about to leave to take up appointment as vice chancellor of the University of Canberra, after just under five years at UU, Allaying the suspicion that he got out when the going was good, Foyle MP and SDLP leader Colum Eastwood praised Nixon as “an engaged and passionate advocate for university education and for Derry over the last five years”. Andrew Adonis clearly didn’t share that assessment in his speech
Lord Adonis
… We had debates last year on higher education provision in Northern Ireland, with which there is a general problem. There is far too little of it at the moment. There is a big outflow of students from Northern Ireland simply because there are insufficient higher education places in the Province. In the last year, 17,440 Northern Ireland students—28% of all students there—studied in England, Wales and Scotland. As I know from my conversations in Belfast and Derry, many of those students study outside Northern Ireland not by choice but simply because they cannot access the places that they want in Northern Ireland. This is doing huge damage to the society and economy of the Province. Two-thirds of students who study elsewhere in the United Kingdom do not return after graduation, so this situation is leading to a systemic outflow of some of the most talented people in Northern Ireland. They never come back simply because the politicians there have not been able to agree on a satisfactory level of higher education provision.
The situation in Derry is particularly serious because there is no dedicated university for the second city in Northern Ireland. As your Lordships know, the big debate about higher education provision in Derry goes back 60 years. However, far from getting better, the situation is getting worse. Commitments given in the last 10 years have not been met. The number of places The number of places available to students in Derry at the Magee campus of Ulster University is pitifully small. There are only 3,429—barely more than were available 10 years ago. The medical school, which we have debated in the House several times, is not proceeding. What now needs to be done to give it the consent required to make it possible for people to undergo medical training in Derry, which does not happen at present?
The finances of the University of Ulster are clearly in a shambolic state. The proposed new campus in Belfast, which is almost certainly located in the wrong place anyway, is more than £100 million over budget and more than three years late in delivery. To cap it all, the vice-chancellor of the University of Ulster has just announced that he is departing for Canberra after only four years, so the university is now without a strategy, without leadership, with a massive deficit, and not providing places in the second city of Northern Ireland, which desperately needs them.
Given the enormous damage being done to the life chances of young people in Northern Ireland, particularly in the city of Derry, I consider this situation as big an infringement of human rights as the issues relating to abortion and same-sex marriage about which we legislated last year. I do not believe it is satisfactory for Parliament, which is responsible for safeguarding the human rights of the people of Northern Ireland, to allow it to continue. I seek a commitment from the Minister that, if devolution is not restored in the immediate future, as we all hope it will be, the Government will come forward with concrete proposals for boosting higher education provision in Northern Ireland in general and, in particular, for an action plan to ensure medical places this year in the Magee campus of the University of Ulster in Derry, and proposals for a dedicated university for that city.
Lord Duncan of Springbank, NIO minister.
. I will start with the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and the question of higher education provision in Derry/Londonderry. The issue at the heart of this is a decision taken by the Executive to cap the number of students. By doing so, they created a problem for provision in Northern Ireland, which is one of the principal reasons why so many students from Northern Ireland end up being educated in the rest of the United Kingdom. That decision needs to be addressed. I have looked with some care at Ulster University’s proposal for the Magee campus for the graduate school of medicine. To coin a phrase, I believe that it is oven-ready, and I believe that it could be moved forward in short order. However, it needs an Executive, or other powers, to move it forward. Again, I believe in endorsing the view that that is the only way to ensure the indigenous retention of medical practitioners; indeed, I will look at other academic disciplines as well.
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Former BBC journalist and manager in Belfast, Manchester and London, Editor Spolight; Political Editor BBC NI; Current Affairs Commissioning editor BBC Radio 4; Editor Political and Parliamentary Programmes, BBC Westminster; former London Editor Belfast Telegraph. Hon Senior Research Fellow, The Constitution Unit, Univ Coll. London
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