Evan Harris urged to quit over criticism

Liberal Democrat higher education spokesman Evan Harris is being encouraged to quit the education select committee following his attack on Labour members.

The committee's Labour chairman, Barry Sheerman, said that Dr Harris should reconsider his position on the select committee after attacks he made on Labour members following last Thursday's publication of the report on university access.

Dr Harris called the Labour members of the committee "craven" and "fawning" for refusing to offer sufficient criticism of government policy on maintenance grants.

He said their behaviour had brought the committee into disrepute.

Dr Harris was also disappointed that the report made no criticism of chancellor Gordon Brown, who last year accused Oxford University of elitism for turning down state-school pupil Laura Spence.

Mr Sheerman said: "If, as a front bench spokesman, you play it well on the committee, then fine.

"But Evan has gone well over the mark. Evan has been trying to write Liberal Democrat policy into the select committee report."

Dr Harris said that he had no intention of quitting the committee.

He added that it was not the chairman's job to decide who sits on the committee but the Commons as a whole. He said that it was the duty of the select committee chairman to try to achieve consensus in its report.

Conservative member Nick St Aubyn, who also criticised the report for many of the same reasons, said that he could not recall an instance in which a chairman of the select committee had sought to attack opposition members in the way that Mr Sheerman had done in the past week.

The committee was due to meet on Wednesday.