Universities should use money not paid to striking lecturers to compensate students, says education minister

Universities should use the money they would have paid to striking lecturers to compensate students for disruption to their courses, an education minister has said.

Sam Gyimah, the Universities Minister, said he expected all universities affected by industrial action to make sure that money not paid to lecturers is spent for “student benefit”.

A bitter row over pensions between university bosses and union officials resulted in walkouts at dozens of institutions on Thursday in the first wave of action that is set to continue in coming weeks.

Lecturers are poised to escalate their protests and if a resolution cannot be found action will culminate with a five-day walkout in the week beginning March 12, by which time 64 universities will be affected.

The strikes are threatening to wreak havoc on students who are due to sit their exams.

Mr Gyimah said students who have their education disrupted should be compensated.

He tweeted on Sunday morning: “Students are rightly concerned about compensation during University and College Union strikes.

“I expect all universities affected to make clear that any money not paid to lecturers - as a consequence of strike action - will go towards student benefit including compensation.”

University heads are due to meet for talks with the University and Colleges Union (UCU), which represents academic and campus staff, on Tuesday.

However, a leaked email disclosed that the vice-chancellor membership body Universities UK (UUK) will not go back on plans to make controversial changes to the pension scheme, which lecturers say could make them £10,000 worse off each year in retirement.

UCU has said it would be at the meeting but warned that unless employers were prepared to discuss the current proposal on the table it did not see how the dispute could be resolved.

Strikes planned for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are going ahead.

In a statement, UUK said: "It is of paramount importance that both sides make every effort to meet - despite the ongoing industrial action - to stop any impact and disruption to students."

UCU general secretary Sally Hunt said: "Because this is so serious for students and for staff we will of course attend. I am however very concerned that UUK has explicitly ruled out discussing the imposed changes that have caused the strikes.”

The dispute centres on proposals put forward by UUK in January for the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) which would see it move from a "defined benefit" scheme, which gives workers a guaranteed income in their retirement, to become a "defined contribution" scheme, in which pensions are subject to fluctuations in the stock market.

UUK maintains that the pension scheme has a deficit of more than £6billion that cannot be ignored and that it has met union officials more than 35 times to discuss reforms.

UCU argues that the current proposals would leave a typical lecturer almost £10,000 a year worse off in retirement.