Well in there

Appearing before the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee can be a bruising business, and senior figures in the higher education policy world were taking no chances when they were called up this week. Both Bahram Bekhradnia, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, and Sir Howard Newby, chief executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for England, refused to get on with the business of answering questions until they had gone on the record about how well chair Ian Gibson looked after his stroke.