About this Lecture

Please join as at 6pm, Thursday 5^th of December in the King’s Building, Safra Theatre, Strand, at King’s College, London for our ninth lecture and discussion, focusing on education reform, particularly in universities and nurseries.

We will cover:

• the universal right to free education, including higher education, and the existing barriers in the UK for home and international students, as well as pre-school children;
• the costs and benefits of reducing or removing tuition fees, including data and evidence from international comparisons, and options in the tax system;
• governance of universities, from the most to least democratic, including the rights of staff to vote for who is on governing bodies, and the voice of students on alumni;
• the financial crises faced by UK universities as a result of the current structure;
• the relationship of free nursery places to paid family leave (including maternity and paternity) and to the gender pay gap.

You can download the full programme with sources and background here. This is part of a series on Current Issues in Labour’s Economic Policy, and up next is big tech media (12/12).

About this Event Series

How should Labour achieve its economic objectives, for growth, prosperity and equality in Britain? This series is based on Labour’s economic policy and legislative plans. There will be a one hour lecture with Prof Ewan McGaughey, followed by seminar discussion, joined by expert discussants including from the Institute for Employment Rights: see the Eventbrite pages. Attendees will participate in formulating a policy note for each topic, and draft amendments to Bills to fulfil the goals in each policy field.

Sources include Keir Starmer’s pledges, the Labour Manifesto, official policies, and Bills. We compare these to human right treaties that bind the UK, including the Universal Declaration (ratified by the two International Covenants of 1966), the European Convention and Social Charter. We compare existing UK legal sources to these goals, to international models, and to empirical data. Full background for each topic is in Ewan McGaughey,Principles of Enterprise Law: the Economic Constitution and Human Rights (2022) chapters 3-5, 8-17 and 20 (McG), available on the Cambridge Uni Press website.