MP Andrew Murrison quits university role over vice-chancellor’s pay deal

WESTBURY MP Dr Andrew Murrison has written to the Secretary of the Court of Bath University to resign as an ex-officio member over the excessive pay of its Vice Chancellor, recently revealed as the country’s highest paid University head.

The MP has also written to the Vice Chancellor of Bristol University with which he is also associated ex-officio and from which he obtained his bachelor’s degree and doctorate, to determine why its VC is receiving such a generous package compared with the salaries of academic and support staff and in the light of the mounting debt burden placed on students, including his young constituents.

Dr Murrison said, “Universities really need to be asking whether the eye-watering sums some are dispensing to Vice Chancellors are really necessary to attract what they represent as talent. As a pack they are looking increasingly like a self-serving cartel at a time of mounting student debt and wage restraint elsewhere in the public and quasi-public sectors.

“I cannot in all conscience continue to be associated with the governance of Bath University in however titular a capacity whilst current practice remains unchallenged.”