UCU Commons newsletter #20, 17 June 2026

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Welcome to the UCU Commons newsletter, a curated set of links and information about what's happening in UCU Commons, our union, and our sectors more generally. As always, we welcome any feedback you may have on this or any other matter.

 In today's issue:

What UCU Commons have been doing

UCU Scotland (UCUS) President Chris O’Donnell led a delegation to meet with the new Tertiary Education Minister for Scotland, Ben Macpherson, on Thursday 4 June. Chris says, “We met with the Minister to highlight that Scotland’s HE environment is in crisis. New and more sustainable funding streams are required. The introduction of new Fair Work measures, won by UCUS and the Green Party in the Tertiary Education Bill, needs to be implemented. Conditions must also be put in place to hold University employers accountable for the management of public funds. In addition, we pressed on the Minister’s appetite for governance reform and for working together to combat changes to regulations affecting students and staff entering the UK”.

Tilly Fitzmaurice has written a response to Lorna Finlayson’s piece ‘Irreversible’, which appeared in the New Left Review on 29th May. Tilly says: “Climate change is indeed irreversible. But this doesn’t change the fact that if we want any chance of a livable world after ‘the flood’, we must knuckle down, work, care, organise and, most importantly, hope. People in some of the most at-risk places on earth are defiant in their pursuit of legal action, protection of their communities and demands for accountability from wealthy polluters. By the same token, if we prematurely announce that the UK Higher Education sector is ‘dead’, that gives rhetorical licence for our enemies to do the same. The writer Rebecca Solnit puts it best when she says ‘you shouldn’t mourn those who are not dead’”.

Lisa Rüll represented UCU Women Members’ Standing Committee as an online delegate at the annual Fawcett Society Conference on Saturday 13 June. Lisa reports, “Entitled Misogyny Matters, the event featured speakers and panels addressing ‘Is misogyny on the rise? The answer was broadly — as analysed through the contexts of home, work, and public life — that yes, misogyny is rising, but it's also a deep-rooted experience made more damaging through the accessibility of misogynistic content and its amplification within contemporary politics and communication. Indeed, misogyny feeds the roots of everything from transnational terrorism and radicalisation to the marginalisation of women in mainstream political discourse. Some speakers were more inclusive in their language than others, noting how misogyny feeds into racism and anti-trans rhetoric, highlighting that social justice has to be on all fronts. We need to especially work on creating the healing spaces to address the damage of misogynoir. But there was no opportunity to challenge essentialist narratives, despite my adding several questions calling for inclusivity in our fight against misogyny in the Q&A channel. Indeed, the event included Jess Asato MP as keynote speaker, who is a public supporter of FiLiA, a known trans and sex worker-exclusionary group. We also heard a video address from Equalities Minister Seema Malhotra, who said in a recent speech to Parliament on the new Code of Practice “Most people have the common sense to step in when necessary, when a person of the opposite biological sex enters a single-sex facility in error, for example, or to know when to alert a member of staff”. We can and should make our feminist spaces more inclusive if we are to effectively challenge misogyny”. 

Following UCU’s Congress, where much business fell off the agenda, UK-elected HE rep, Matt Barnard has submitted a motion to this week’s NEC on Friday 19 June. It is in response to the remitted motion, ‘Exit X’ by University of Southampton. Matt says, “It’s frustrating that this fell off the agenda, as I do think it would have passed and it’s something difficult to do without a Congress motion. My motion to NEC asks for a report into X usage by UCU to build understanding of what the implications for leaving might be, and hopefully build consensus for an exit”. Matt has written a blog post on this motion and the rationale behind it on our website.

News from UCU

UCU has voiced concerns about the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s (EHRC) updated Code of Practice. This is unworkable guidance which puts trans, intersex, non-binary and gender non-conforming staff and service users at risk. UCU is strongly encouraging members to write to their MP and encourage them to sign a UK parliament early day motion to reject the code of practice. You can use this handy email template to contact your MP. UCU general secretary Jo Grady's full statement here. UCU is working on updated guidance which will be disseminated as soon as possible. Bijan Parsia says, “While slightly less absurd than the interim guidance, this still reflects a deeply broken view of the Equality Act, the actual effect of the silly Supreme Court decision, basic governance, and how public toilets have always worked. It is bizarre that the government would be so in thrall to a small group of bigots that they would not only enshrine incoherent eliminating rules against trans people but would co-opt all of society at great cost to enforcement. Encouraging people to police everyone they deem not of the ‘right sex’ sets up an industry of vexatious lawsuits, systematic harassment, and risk of violence. Even if this were dictated by a court decision, the right response would be a statutory fix, not the embracing of this perverse and pervasive enforcement of neo-Victorian bigotry”.

Members in FE are experiencing unbearable teaching workloads which are being pushed beyond safe limits, with some regularly working up to two unpaid days a week. Given this, we’re very glad to see the launch of UCU's FE workloads are not working campaign this week, which aims to raise awareness of unsafe workloads. UCU has also produced a list of concrete ideas for practical action for branches.

UCU General Secretary Jo Grady and UNISON General Secretary Andrea Egan met with Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson on Wednesday 20 May to set out the crisis in higher education. UNISON and UCU have now written to Phillipson with four concrete demands:

• A minister-led higher education workforce plan.
• A review of higher education sustainability, examining issues of funding, regulation and governance.
• A rethink of current policies affecting international student recruitment, including removal of the proposed levy.
• An end to the use of subsidiary companies to remove staff from the Teachers’ Pension Scheme (TPS).

We look forward to Phillipson’s response.

In our sectors

A recent report by the Policy Exchange argues that universities should reduce their student numbers by 30%. Sophia Woodman says, “I was dreading reading this piece. Policy Exchange’s funding sources are obscure but reputedly consist of largely right-wing US groups and the fossil fuel lobby. They have previously produced evidence-free drivel that pushed the moral panic about the ‘free speech’ crisis on UK campuses — remember all those ‘cancelled’ people who were being splashed all over right wing media? So, any engagement with their material, in my view, just encourages them.

Luckily for all of us, WonkHE has done an excellent take-down of the report, so you can read that instead, and even have a laugh. As WonkHE points out, the report is authored by people who are variously responsible for the dreadful state of UK universities so should certainly not be trusted with any ‘solutions’. The principal author was an adviser to Tory ministers Jo Johnson, Gavin Williamson and Michelle Donelan. WonkHE summarises the main theme as an incoherent ‘nostalgia’— ‘a technocratic nostalgia for a pre-2012/15 more managed system, a structural nostalgia for a pre-1992 smaller and more stratified university sector, and a set of newer play-to-the-audience culture-war interventions stapled to a diagnosis of institutional failure’. In short, read the WonkHE piece to understand the type of right-wing arguments going the rounds and ensure you are equipped to dismiss them. So, no, there’s no good reason HE students should be reduced by 30%”.

Universities have hit back at new ‘value for money’ rules from the Office for Students (OfS), rightly pointing out that they are disproportionate. Rob Clarke says, “In a highly-marketised system, it perhaps becomes necessary to have consumer protections to ensure fairness for those paying tuition fees. Students should not have to tolerate courses vastly different to those they were accepted onto, it should be transparent if the fee they pay is skimmed to pay commission to the agents that circle our sector like vultures. But in all this, the OfS misses the more fundamental point that the solution to HE’s many current ills lies not in regulating a failing system, but in a return to education that is valued not in primarily financial terms, but as a social good that is available to all and beneficial to both the individual and to society — and to ensure that everyone in academia is treated fairly on that basis. With its ideologically-led approach, the OfS is not fit to be the arbiter of that fairness”.

We hope you have enjoyed this round up. Want to get involved? Join UCU Commons and work with us towards a more effective union for post-16 education here. 

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