ABSTRACT
The Robbins Committee reported in October 1963. This was not a good moment for a policy report to attract sustained government action. The Conservative government, in power for 12 years, had spent the summer rocked by a succession of political scandals and had just changed leaders from Macmillan to the Earl of Home (who had to renounce his peerage in order to become prime minister). He was a stop-gap leader; an election had to be held in a year and it was widely anticipated that Labour would win. The reform of higher education was not going to be an immediate government priority.
