Like all good ministers, David Willetts is spending the recess doing some heavy lifting for the government. Quite literally, in this case, as the minister for higher education and science hefts a vast file of papers into a postal sack and carries it across his office, ready to be despatched from his Havant constituency HQ back to his office at the Department for Business, Innovation and Science. The man known as ‘two brains’ can do brawn when he needs to.
Willetts is back in Hampshire after a week spent doing some heavy lifting of a different kind: he’s been on a tour of North America to sell Britain’s science story. He complains of jet lag, but at the mention of science the minister’s eyes widen as he recalls his speech to the American Association of the Advancement of Science. “I made the case for British science,” he explains, before quickly adding: “Delicately, not telling them they were rubbish…” As one of the most polite government ministers around, the thought of the cerebral Willetts making enemies across the pond seems highly unlikely.
Instead, he was there to talk up the successes of our professional science community. “In America, there’s a perception that Britain is just a nation of bankers. The fact that we’re very good at science and that we still make things and still apply the technologies… it was a good opportunity to get the message across.”
It’s a message Willetts delights in. In recent months he’s admired an ‘invisibility cloak’ being worked on at Imperial College and declared that humankind will walk on Mars in his lifetime, while the development of a radio telescope programme called Square Kilometre Array – “It’s a radio astronomy project trying to track the light from the earliest days of the universe after the Big Bang” – and the ever-increasing power of computers – “We’re working on complete modelling of the human brain” – have the minister waiting with baited breath.
“American science is big and powerful, but Britain has some distinctive strengths. We don’t always have the same amount of resources and energy as America to put behind things, but that make us smart, ingenious, nimble, cost-effective.”
The boast about what can be achieved on limited resources is made with pride, but it’s also pointed: Willetts has, according to reports, been fighting hard to keep hold of his science funds during a round of budgeting at BIS. Willetts held firm, with the press interpreting this as a victory for him and business secretary Vince Cable over the Treasury team of chancellor George Osborne and chief secretary Danny Alexander: “We needed to get the budget back under control and in an agreed position with the Treasury. It took a while” – he grins – “but we got there.” Surely the man in charge of science policy sees the outcome as an example of common sense? “And standing by the original pledge that I made and the chancellor made of ring-fencing the science budget at £4.6bn a year,” he interrupts. “That was a promise we made back in 2010 and we’re sticking to it. That’s a cash protection.”
It doesn’t sound, though, as if everyone was so sure. Willetts admits that he has had to make the case for British science at home as well as in the US.
“It’s essential. Inevitably, when money is tight because of the fiscal crisis that we inherited, nothing can be taken for granted. Everybody has to make savings and also make the case for what they are doing,” he admits. So, does George Osborne see science as an ‘optional’? “The chancellor completely gets the importance of science,” Willetts insists. “It’s something we’re very good at. You’re not funding something mediocre, you’re funding something that is world-class, probably the most productive science base in the world. It’s really going to contribute towards Britain’s economic success in the 21st century. That doesn’t mean that every scientist has to be told, ‘You are here to raise GDP’. They’re not. They’re often driven by intellectual curiosity.”
The same can be said for Willetts. His ‘two brains’ title is well earned – he’s authored numerous pamphlets, worked in Margaret Thatcher’s policy unit in his 20s and was running the Centre for Policy Studies at 31. And while others plugged into the in-flight entertainment during his recent flight to America, Willetts ticked off Alan Ryan’s book on John Dewey and American liberalism and a century-old essay by sociologist Thorstein Veblen on higher education in America. Light reading it wasn’t.
So when David Willetts settles on an idea, you can bet he’s given it some thought. Climate change, for example. The walk from Havant station to his constituency office, over a crossroads where two Roman roads once met, may not be underwater, but parts of the surrounding Hampshire countryside looked notably wet from the train window – the military were even called into nearby Winchester to help with the floods. Is this global warming in action? Willetts is sure of the answer.
“I’m a layperson, not a scientist, but obviously I put all the layperson’s questions to scientists and ask them all the time what the evidence is, and why they think that this could be linked to climate change. And I have to report that there’s a clear and settled view among the scientists that climate change is happening and that it’s heavily driven by man, notably carbon dioxide.”
Willetts explains that “what the warming of the atmosphere does, and of the sea does, it means there’s more energy in the atmosphere and in the sea – somebody said to me it puts the weather on steroids”, and he is convinced that the argument stacks up. “The basic scientific propositions that more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere means warming, a warmer atmosphere can hold more rain and therefore the rain will be more intense… those are basic scientific propositions. If you don’t accept those, then there’s some pretty basic science that people are disputing.”
Senior figures in Willett’s party aren’t convinced, among them former chancellor Lord Lawson and environment secretary Owen Paterson. Willetts doesn’t think much of the sceptics.
“Trying to argue that climate change isn’t happening is foolish,” he bluntly states, an answer that is as rude as Willetts gets. “Where there is a genuine debate is how you respond to it. That’s where economics comes in. Obviously, one way is to try to slow down the process, and that’s important. The other thing is to invest clearly and try to adjust to the consequences of climate change. There’s some mixture. That’s absolutely a legitimate area for public policy, but on the facts…” He tails off. There’s a Royal Society report out soon, he says, that will offer a clear statement on all of this.
Perhaps it will give Paterson some pointers on where to allocate his Defra budget in future, but back at BIS the finances also required some attention. Science may have been saved, but other areas were not so fortunate. What went wrong? “We did have a problem, which was quite simple,” Willetts admits. “Our forecast spend in 2014–15 and 2015–16, on our best estimates, was higher than the budget that had been agreed before the summer with the Treasury.” He blames a “range of factors” across BIS, with higher education – another part of his brief – largely to blame. “All the pressures in higher education were upwards. There were slightly more students than we expected. In some ways, a problem of success – we’re having more students from low-income backgrounds who get more maintenance support.”
So while science survives intact, funding streams for students from low-income backgrounds have been cut back. “There are a range of targeted programmes and you have to rank them,” says Willetts, explaining the cuts.
“When I talk to the experts, the one they value most by far was the Opportunities Fund. That, we have pretty much been able to protect. At the other end of the scale, the one which appeared to be least effective was the National Scholarship Programme, and so we had to, given the fiscal pressures, remove it and keep the one that was more effective.”
There’s another funding headache caused by the rise in student numbers: as earnings increase less than forecast, fewer graduates are hitting the £21,000 repayment threshold. And that means BIS takes the brunt. “You write off more loans, as people are expecting in reality to pay back less,” Willetts admits. “The system is incredibly sensitive to changes every six months in your wages forecast… You have to ride with that process.”
He allows himself to daydream about how it might be: “There will be some point in the future when wages rise significantly, and every six months some future minister is announcing that the payment amount is going up and the amount you have to write off is falling.”
But that minister is not David Willetts. He says the department’s “best estimate at the moment – it does keep on changing – is that we’ll get back about 60% and write off about 40%”, but denies Labour’s suggestion that this is reaching the point where the current arrangements for funding higher education are more expensive than under the last government. “In the previous system… when it was just a grant, it was kind of a 100% write-off, wasn’t it? I occasionally read comments by some who say it’s an unsustainable system. It isn’t. It’s a very effective way.”
Another funding issue has been the huge drop-off in non-EEA students in the last year – there was a 25% fall in first-year Indian students alone in 2012–13. Home Office tough talk on immigration – and the UK Border Agency’s decision to revoke London Metropolitan University’s licence to sponsor international students back in 2012 – appears to have had a damaging effect, and while Willetts insists that “we’re not closed, and there’s no limit on the number of legitimate students who can come to study”, he knows that the policy back-and-forths on migration targets, and the clamping-down on students who don’t have the “necessary level of English and the right level of academic qualifications” have had a damaging effect.
“It has played disappointingly badly on the Indian sub-continent,” he admits. “I’ve been with the prime minister to India on several occasions, and we both make the point that legitimate students can apply, with no number controls. But it’s a striking contrast: in China, that is completely understood. The number of Chinese students coming to Britain continues to surge, which shows it’s not a matter of British policy. It’s about the different ways it’s perceived and reported in India.”
What does that mean? Is Home Office rhetoric interpreted in different ways in different countries? Willetts struggles for an answer.
“I don’t know… you might speculate…. This is something I do look into,” he tries to reply, before suggesting that university recruiting agents operate differently in India. “The structure is rather different there than in China, and that might, in turn, have fed a different type of reporting. There tend to be more small-scale agents in India… but for whatever reason, India has a very lively press. Its press coverage has been surprisingly negative. We’re working flat-out to try to communicate the basic message.”
Perhaps George Osborne could lead a tour? After all, last year’s trip to China was considered a highly successful bridge-building experience. “Yes, I think that’s a good idea,” Willetts agrees. “I went on George’s trip to China and the PM’s a month later. You can always do more. This government, we do look outwards, and especially towards these emerging powers, India, China, Mexico, Turkey, Indonesia... It’s very important that we build up good relations with them, and they look to collaborate with us on science and research.”
When it comes to relations closer to home, Willetts is an interesting case – a Conservative minister who clearly gets on well with his Lib Dem colleagues. He still shares a car home with Vince Cable, and speaks warmly of a man who so many Tories see as a thorn in the government’s side. “I have great respect for Vince, and we will be fighting the next election on a shared record. Of course there will be different prospects for the future, but this coalition has been through a lot together and if you look at the biggest single challenge, getting the public finances in shape, you’ll find that at the tough moments Vince, with his high profile, was always making it very clear that we inherited a budget mess and had to sort it out. Clearly, as you look to the election and beyond, we’re aware there will be different party policies, but I really enjoy working with him day by day on the business of BIS.”
Those differences in policies are being shaped, on the Conservative side, by a Policy Unit of which Willetts was once a part.
“Jo [Johnson, MP] is doing a good job. The challenge – and I say this with no implication that he is failing to rise to it – is to be thinking strategically for the prime minister,” says Willetts of Johnson’s task. “Prime ministers get so caught up in the day-to-day, there is always something, that week’s or that day’s crisis or pressure point. A crucial role for the Policy Unit is to look beyond those, but not in the sense of general abstract strategy that’s unrelated to the mundane, but to always be judging the mundane against a strategic test: how does it measure against our long-term ambitions?”
Willetts’ own strategic challenges have been assisted by Nick Hillman, who until August had served as his special adviser. After moving on to take over the running of the Higher Education Policy Institute, Hillman has left something of a void. Has the minister found a new spad? “No, I haven’t. It looks like Nick has become irreplaceable.” Willetts laughs. “Nick is a great guy. That process is underway but it’s proving rather long and complicated. I will at some point, but not yet.”
Could that be because, as some papers have reported, Downing Street is attempting to block the appointment and park its own spad in BIS? Willetts is having none of it. “As a member of the cabinet, I’m entitled to a special adviser and will be having one.”
That depends, of course, on whether Willetts remains in cabinet. Before each coalition reshuffle, without fail, he has been tipped to lose his post – for no other reason, it seems, than the PM needs to bring in fresh faces and Willetts, an MP since 1992, is too emollient a character to kick up a fuss from the backbenches. Which is probably why, before each predicted reshuffle, plenty of people also argue that it would be a bizarre decision to remove a minister who knows his brief so well.
“I was a bit surprised by the speculation last time. Who knows? The prime minister has an absolute right to move us around, but I just have to be judged by my performance. So I did find the speculation rather surprising, but I don’t think it came from anywhere authoritative,” Willetts admits.
With another reshuffle rumoured before the election, however, he can expect to be tipped to fall again. Does it worry him? He shakes his head, and replies: “You get on with the job…”
With the future of British science and higher education in David Willetts’ capable hands, there’s heavy lifting to be done after all.