Dear Colleague,
This will be the last update of the year as Parliament heads for Recess early next week and I know many universities are winding down for the holiday period. The pace of developments in the sector have been quite astounding this year, with Brexit and immigration intrigue and the Higher Education and Research Bill, plus additional turmoil in Scotland and Wales. I hope that the group has helped to add value to these debates by facilitating discussions on Brexit and the Bill in recent months. We are in the middle of compiling a paper written by MPs on how the sector will be affected by Brexit which we will be sharing with the Minister and parliamentary colleagues on both sides of the House will be using in the debates in the months to come. I’m grateful to all who got in touch to provide the group with additional information and hope to share the paper with you all after the Christmas break.
Our last meeting of the year took place earlier this month, a highly informative and interesting discussion, led by our co-Chair Lord Norton of Louth and with excellent contributions from Professor Steve West and Dr Anne Haase. A subject truly of interest across the political party divide, the meeting had representation from the Lib Dems, Labour, Conservative and SNP parliamentarians. You can read the note of the meeting on our website and the group hope to follow up this work in a future meeting.
We return for our next meeting on 31 January which will be on the Government’s industrial strategy and how universities and our science and research can be involved in every aspect of its development and implementation. Formal invites will be sent in the first week of January and I hope to see many of you there.
Finally, if any member of the group has an opinion or particular piece of work that they would like to share I just wanted to leave you with a reminder that the group’s blog is up and running and hopefully provides you with a direct opportunity to share directly with both sector and parliamentary colleagues.
I hope you all have a wonderful festive period.
Roberta Blackman-Woods MP
Chair, All-Party Parliamentary University Group