My Lords, I warmly support the amendments dealing with disability, mental health, access and participation. There is far too much mental illness and mental stress in our universities. They should be places of excitement and fulfilment and places for developing the mind, but too many students struggle mentally with the pressures on them—such as the need to prove themselves and to achieve because they might be, for example, the first in their family to have the opportunity of going to university. On disability, after the marvellous speech by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, there is very little to add except to say that he is right.
For a while, I was a member of the committee monitoring access and participation at the LSE, and several issues came home to me very strongly and demonstrated the importance of what we are talking about with these amendments. First, particularly in our older universities and places such as the LSE, there needs to be a will not only to make things happen functionally but to believe in the importance of what is being done and to make it a success.
We had a first-class team of people at the LSE who were highly motivated in working with young people from inner-city schools, particularly in London, with weekend schools, vacation schools and so on. It was very exciting work, but I was interested in knowing how many of those youngsters ended up at the LSE. The answer was that sometimes it was a disappointingly small number, although certainly a lot of them were helped to gain better opportunities in higher education than they would otherwise have had.
To be successful in this regard, the people dealing with admissions have to be prepared to be courageous and look for potential and not only proven ability. Very often, the youngsters whom you want in the institution to make a success of the institution—for the sake not only of the institution itself but of the students—are young people who not only have not had parental support but have not had the same kind of scoop in their school education that other children take for granted. Therefore, the admissions people have to look for that potential. However, once you have brought in more of the people who would not otherwise have had the opportunity, you cannot just leave them to swim. That is very cynical, and it relates to the issue of mental illness. However sensitive the staff and however informally it is done—but formally, if noble Lords understand me—you must have in place systems that make sure that a particular student is getting the kind of support and compensations in attention that other students can take for granted.
These are terribly important amendments and I hope that the Minister has it in his heart and his intellect to take them seriously.