‘Invisible Man’ Gavin Williamson to FINALLY face MPs today over growing university lockdown crisis

Beleaguered Gavin Williamson broke cover today to confirm that some university students will have to cut short their term and self-isolate for a fortnight in order to be allowed home for Christmas.

The Education Secretary said students in ‘specific circumstances’ would have to quarantine before the festive period amid growing anger at the handling of campus lockdowns.

He addressed the Commons after being dubbed the ‘Invisible Man’ by Labour after being notable by his absence as students were locked into halls of residence.

Thousands of students across Britain are now self-isolating for a fortnight after more than 500 cases of Covid-19 were confirmed across at least 32 universities.   

Mr Williamson told MPs today was is ‘essential’ that measures were put in place to ensure that students can return home for Christmas ‘while minimising the risk of transmission’.

‘Where there are specific circumstances that warrant it, there may be a requirement for some students to self-isolate at the end of term and we will be working with the sector to ensure this will be possible, including ending in-person learning if that is deemed to be necessary,’ he said.

‘My department will publish this guidance shortly so that every student will be able to spend Christmas with their family.’

Mr Williamson’s disappearance during the crisis so far is likely to raise further questions over his future, after he faces the wrath of parents, teachers and MPs over the return of pupils to schools and the A-Level and GCSE results fiasco last month.

He said he does not believe students should face stricter measures than others in society.

He told the Commons: ‘Students as well as the wider community accept when we are living in a global pandemic we have to operate in a society with restrictions.

‘But I do not believe that we should look to inflict stricter measures on students or expect higher standards of behaviour from them than we would from any other sector of society – there must be a parity.’

And he added: ‘We will never be in a position where we can eliminate all risk.

‘But we will not condemn a generation of young people by asking them to put their lives on hold for months or years ahead.

‘We believe that universities are very well prepared to handle any outbreaks as they arise.’

Labour said its research showed Mr Williamson has not made any public appearances in recent days and nor has he tweeted since September 10 – more than two weeks ago.

On Monday, the South Staffordshire MP took to Instagram to post about a litter pick in his constituency that he had taken part in, rather than the situation at the UK’s universities. 

Responding in the Commons, shadow education secretary Kate Green said the situation as students return to university was ‘desperately worrying’.

Ms Green told MPs: ‘Across the country, many find themselves isolated in cramped accommodation, parents worried about their well-being and safety, and university staff who have worked so hard over the summer to prepare are anxious and angry that the Government didn’t keep its part of the bargain.

‘They’ve all been let down by the Government just as it let down many of these same students with its handling of exam results last month.

‘What students, staff and their families need now is reassurance.’

Education chiefs are considering asking students in high infection areas to isolate for two weeks at the end of this term, even if they are not showing Covid-19 symptoms, according to the Times.

Ministers hope this will help prevent the spread of the virus from university areas, some of which are currently under lockdown, to other parts of the country.

Junior skills minister Gillian Keegan said today she ‘expects’ that students will be able to return home for Christmas, adding: ‘Of course that is something that absolutely we’ll be working towards.’   

Mrs Williamson is expected to the MPs today that students should not face further restrictions.

He is also expected to reveal plans to reduce the risk of transmission when the current term ends in December – one of which is the rumoured two-week self isolation proposal. 

Up to 4,000 students are currently self-isolating for two weeks following outbreaks at universities across the country.

University of Exeter students living in the city have been told to self-isolate for the next two weeks – as the government insisted locked down freshers would be able to visit their families over Christmas.

The Government yesterday said all students in isolation at university should be allowed home for the festive period amid a growing row over coronavirus lockdowns on campuses. 

The University of Exeter became the latest to lockdown its students yesterday, ordering them to stay indoors and only mix with people within their household. 

It is believed that more than half of the cases confirmed in Exeter over the last week can be traced back to the university.  

Elsewhere, 1,700 students are under lockdown at the Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) campuses of Birley and Cambridge Halls.

All lectures, seminars and classes for first-year students at the university will now be online for the next 14 days.

Yesterday, MMU’s vice-chancellor said its isolating students will be given financial compensation of more than a week’s rent and a care package including ‘basic food’.

The National Union of Students has received reports of security guards outside blocks, universities telling students they will deliver food and then it not arriving and others left ‘wondering where the next roll of toilet roll is coming from’.

And lawyers have encouraged students in isolation to seek their help for free, with Levins Solicitors of Liverpool tweeting: ‘To the MMU students at Birley campus and Cambridge halls: get in touch and we will do our best to help, pro bono.’

But amid fears over what will happen by December, a Downing Street spokesman said today: ‘We would expect all students to be able to go home at Christmas.’

Meanwhile the University of Aberdeen has asked private landlords to report students caught breaching coronavirus restrictions and warned students caught breaking the rules would face ‘robust’ disciplinary action. 

NUS president Larissa Kennedy told ITV’s Good Morning Britain today: ‘I’m hearing from some students across the country where there are security guards outside of these blocks where students are being kept, stopping people from leaving, coming and going, where students are being discouraged from getting deliveries and told by the university that they’ll deliver food and that delivery has not arrived and so they’ve gone for the day without food.

‘I’ve heard from other students who, they’ve turned up with an amount of toilet roll, told with no notice that they’re going to be locked down and wondering where the next roll of toilet roll is coming from.

‘It just feels like these are disgusting conditions for students to have been trapped in.’ 

The number of students trying to get a shopping delivery means some say they are starting to run out of food, with parents turning up to halls with bags of shopping. 

Recruitment worker Tina McKenzie, whose daughter is currently isolating in Edinburgh tweeted: ‘My daughter is in quarantine in her halls in Edinburgh. 

‘They said they would deliver food – she advised she is vegan. The University of Edinburgh sent a Mars bar and croissant.’

MMU student Phoebe told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘I’ve had a test back and I’m actually positive, which is quite scary. I wouldn’t be surprised if I’ve got corona from this place. Before the isolation would be the period when I would have got it.

‘There’s just been non-stop parties, no social distancing, no wearing masks in the corridors, which would all contribute to the spread.’

Another MMU student, Tasiana, 18, told the New Statesman: ‘No one was in the flat when I arrived. I know a girl that lives in another block that didn’t meet her flatmates for days after moving in.

‘The majority of everyone’s time is spent in their rooms, attending online seminars. It’s hard to speak to my flatmates because a lot of them have eight-hour days of classes on Zoom, so people hardly leave their rooms. One of my flatmates still hasn’t come out of her room yet. We aren’t sure if maybe she is a bit nervous about social distancing.’

As thousands prepared to start the new term, at the University of Aberdeen, sanctions for those breaking the rules include a fine of up to £250 as well as possible suspension or expulsion, with private landlords urged to report ‘any incidents of a breach’ to the university. 

But third-year student Jack Boag, 20, said students have been ‘sold a lie’ and ‘treated like the problem’ – despite being encouraged to come back to university.

Mr Boag said: ‘In terms of the lockdown, I live in a private flat quite far away from the Covid hotspots, so it comes across as closing the stable doors after the horse has bolted.

‘We were told it would be a blended learning experience, and obviously that hasn’t happened. Coming up to Aberdeen from my home in Fife has been completely pointless.

‘We’ve been consistently told to come back to campus, we’ve been consistently told that it would be a blended learning experience, and now that we’re here it feels as if we’ve been sold a lie and treated as if we are the problem.

‘For first years who have just moved into halls with people that they’ve never met, that’s hard. My main concern is that landlords could quite easily take advantage of this.

‘The landlord/tenant dynamic is not an equal one, so it could become a tool for blackmail, essentially. I’m a private renter so they’ve been talking to my landlord, and while I can understand the university isn’t taking any chances, it’s worrying.

‘It seems when other universities are easing back, Aberdeen is doubling down and emphasising the punishments and what will happen if you breach regulations.’

Mr Boag, from Fife, said while he doesn’t have plans to move back home, he understands why many other students might feel differently.

He said: ‘I would have to go back to my grandparents who are vulnerable or my dad who is a key worker, so for me it’s not really an option, although I can see why it would be attractive for others.’ 

Ms McKenzie said she ‘followed up multiple times and sent a few dead salads’, adding: ‘I’ve sent her parcels and she has ordered takeaway. Lucky she has the money unlike less fortunate others.’

Labour even called for a delay to the start of the English term until the chaotic testing system can meet soaring demand. 

Daisy Cooper, Liberal Democrat spokesperson for education, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘I’m extremely worried about these young people.

‘Some of them will be vulnerable to mental ill health, and for some of them it’s the very first time away from home. 

‘So I think that the very first thing that needs to happen is that universities need to be given the support to identify which students may be particularly vulnerable.

‘The second thing is there needs to be an assessment of which young people want to stay at university and which ones may not want to stay there.’ 

She added: ‘If young people want to be returning at some point between now and Christmas, there needs to be a plan that the Government works up with universities so that we have a managed Covid-secure return of those young people to home.

‘Because what we can’t have is for those young people to be moving in the same numbers at the same time that they were at the start of term, but doing that at Christmas time.’

Health minister Helen Whately told Radio 4 that the Government could not rule out the prospect that university students may be unable to return home at Christmas.

She said: ‘We want them to be home for Christmas. Everybody wants to come home and spend Christmas with family. We want that very much to be the case.

‘Christmas is some time off yet and it is down to all of us to get this under control so we can spend Christmas with our families.’

In Manchester, the 1,700 students have been told they cannot leave the campus to visit the local testing centre, leading to fears the outbreak will spread.

Labour education spokesman Kate Green said today that the Government should ‘step up’ testing capacity to help ensure university students can return home for Christmas, 

She told Sky News: ‘Students will desperately want to be able to go home to be with friends and family at Christmas. And, of course, it’s right that we all have a part to play in keeping distance and keeping safe.

‘But the real key to this is getting the mass testing rolled out so that students can be tested, we can know if somebody is testing positive and make sure that they are isolated and don’t travel.

‘But it would mean the other students would be able to get back home for Christmas and that’s why the Government needs to step up too and make sure that that testing capacity is available.’

She also said the Government should support universities’ efforts to test for coronavirus, adding: ‘One thing that I think particularly in relation to students: much more effort could be made to support those universities that are already developing their own testing capacity, like Leicester, for example, or Cambridge.

‘And the Government could be really working much more closely alongside them to get that additional capacity that would relieve pressure elsewhere in the NHS and other pillars of testing.

‘And it would mean that students could be tested on campus, so could university staff.’

Ms Green argued this would help make universities ‘much safer places’.

Last night Ms Green called on ministers to stop students from returning to university for the start of the academic year – affecting 2.3 million in the UK.

She said they should either delay the start of term or ‘pause’ the return of students to university campuses where courses had not started.

Backing Miss Green, NUS president Larissa Kennedy told The Guardian the union was demanding ‘a functional test-and-trace system in place on campuses and adequate funding to tackle the student mental health crisis’.

She added in a tweet: ‘Government and universities are gambling with students’ lives.’ 

Ms Kennedy added on Good Morning Britain today: ‘First and foremost, we are of course encouraging people to do the right thing for public health and to follow that guidance.

‘But we are questioning whether this is legal, in terms of making sure that students get that access to the basic amenities that they need – to food, to toiletries and to all the things they need just to survive lockdown – and in cases where that hasn’t been the case, whether it has been legal to keep them cooped up in that way without that access to the things that they need.’ 

But outgoing University of Buckingham vice-chancellor Sir Anthony Seldon said: ‘We must have a sense of perspective. Universities have gone to huge lengths to plan for this and many are coping.’

And the Department for Education rejected Labour’s call, insisting it was ‘working closely with universities to support them to keep staff and students as safe as possible’.

Niamh Thripleton, a new zoology student at Reading, told BBC Radio 4’s Today: ‘We’re obviously not allowed to go out. Freshers is all online.

‘We’re, we think, only meant to socialise with our flat, but they haven’t really been enforced or been made clear.

‘It’s just been a lot quieter, it’s been harder making friends. Turning up and realising everything is going to be online is a bit of an anti-climax.

‘You’d think it (a zoology degree) would be quite a lot of lab work, and it’s quite worrying how I’m going to do that online.

‘I just think the way Manchester Met and other places have been locked down, being on your room on your own for two weeks with now freedom there, I don’t I’d be able to cope with that, so it’s kind of worrying.’

Her stepfather Chris Taplin told the programme: ‘I do feel she’s certainly been robbed of the experienced I had at university.

‘It is also really scary when you read things about the Christmas threat, not coming home, when it is the first time they’ve moved out and we basically feel we’d be some kind of law breaker if we went there and busted her out. But it’s been the first thing for a sort of mental trauma, really. 

‘Certainly my wife has been saying, ‘don’t worry we’ll get you out’ (if she’s locked down in halls at Christmas), but I think that’s obviously not a very sensible position to go and do that.

‘But I think we’re both making sure we get food to her and keep talking to her as much as possible.’

Meanwhile the Prime Minister has been urged to ensure online tuition at universities ‘becomes the norm’, amid concern over the impact of Covid-19 lockdowns on students.

In a letter to Boris Johnson, the University and College Union (UCU), accused some institutions of adopting a ‘stubborn position’ over requiring in-person teaching because they depended on rent from student accommodation.

In her letter to Mr Johnson, Jo Grady, UCU general secretary, said the union which represents academics and university staff was ‘not prepared to take chances with the health of students, our members and the communities they serve’.

‘It is clear that remote learning should be the default for campus life while we are in this precarious position with the virus,’ she said.

‘However, what we are seeing on the ground is university employers hiding behind the Government’s current sectoral guidance, with all the ambiguities associated with the term ‘blended learning’.

She added: ‘Whilst other sectors are being encouraged by the Government to work from home to help control the spread of the virus, universities are requiring staff to travel across their local regions to work on-site and in-person with any number of students.

‘Considering the known risks associated with in-person teaching and students living in close quarters, why did the Government not insist on minimising in-person teaching and students travelling to universities?

‘We have concerns that universities are taking this stubborn position because they depend on rents from student accommodation – and because your own Government refuses to step in and underwrite universities’ lost income for the duration of the pandemic to ensure they are not negatively impacted and jobs are not lost.’

The Government is under pressure to guarantee young people are not confined to their halls of residence over the Christmas period because of Covid-19 outbreaks on campuses.

Ms Grady said students should be allowed to leave their accommodation and return home ‘without fear of financial penalty’.

‘We cannot have students forced to quarantine in halls of residence with no familiar support network, or staff forced to carry out work on site that could be conducted more safely from home,’ she said.

Nicola Dandridge, chief executive of the Office for Students (OfS), the higher education regulator in England, said it would be ‘looking very closely’ at the quality of education being provided by institutions.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, she said institutions must be clear with students on what teaching conditions they can expect and if this changed.

‘What we can’t have is a situation where students don’t know what’s going on, that they’re locked in their halls of accommodation, and can’t get hold of food,’ she said.

She said students had ‘legal rights as consumers’ and could raise complaints with their university and the Office of the Independent Adjudicator. 

Asked if students should receive a refund of tuition fees she said it was ‘a question for government’.

The 1,700 MMU students in lockdown yesterday complained of feeling abandoned – with some already plotting their escape.

After 127 positive tests for Covid-19 on Friday, the shocked students – many of them freshers living away from home for the first time – were ordered to self-isolate in their halls of residence for a fortnight.

Desperate undergraduates said supplies of food and toiletries were low and complained of students holding all-night parties likened to ‘prison riots’.

Some tried to ease the boredom by putting up signs in their windows with slogans including ‘send drink’ and ‘f*** Boris’. 

As some students in lockdown likened the university to a prison by labelling it ‘HMP MMU’, with security guards blocking them from leaving, legal experts claimed their incarceration could amount to false imprisonment.

Adam Wagner, a human rights barrister at Doughty Street chambers in London, wrote on Twitter: ‘False imprisonment is detention without lawful authority.’

Hours later, university vice-chancellor Professor Malcolm Press conceded it could only ‘expect’ students to follow the self-isolation rules – designed to avoid spreading the infection to their home towns.

While many students pledged to stick it out, others were preparing to flee the city.

Tilly Thompson, 19, said she felt like a ‘caged animal’ and was waiting for her mother to take her home to Wolverhampton.

Students claimed some of those under restrictions had been ignoring the rules and throwing parties.

One boasted the quarantine would be ‘a two-week p***-up’, saying he had ‘200 cans of lager’ and ‘it’s going to get messy’.

A student called Tom told BBC Radio 5 Live that people had been running past their flats shouting: ‘Open your doors, we’ve got coronavirus, we want to give it to you.’

He added: ‘It was insane… parties going on everywhere, loud music… It was like a prison riot.’

Martyn Moss, of the University and College Union, said he had warned MMU chiefs that their plans for the ‘mass return of students would inevitably see institutions become Covid incubators’.

He added: ‘Universities should have spent the summer following the science and preparing properly for this inevitable crisis.’

* Are you a student in lockdown? Send your photos to: [email protected] *