asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will announce the recurrent grants allocated to universities for the academic year 1987–88 by the University Grants Committee, along with the provisional allocations for future years.

The University Grants Committee's initial allocation of recurrent grant to universities in 1987–88, along with provisional indications of the basic distribution for 1988–89 and 1989–90, is shown in the table. Copies of the general letter of guidance that the chairman of the UGC has sent to all universities have been placed in the Library. The general letter will be followed in about a week's time by an institutional annex about student numbers and funding for individual universities. These annexes will also be placed in the Library.The total grant distributed by the UGC as announced in the table does not include items which it is the UGC's practice to allocate separately, such as local authority rates, the overseas research student awards scheme and the committee's small central reserve. Nor does it include provision which is to be allocated separately in respect of certain initiatives, some of which were referred to in my right hon. Friend's announcement on 6 November 1986 at columns 487–91, in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key).The total recurrent grant available to the UGC in 1987–88 is £1,432 million, of which £150 million will be distributed later in addition to the amounts shown in the table.