Recommendation 93

In oral evidence Minister Lochhead also expressed concerns to us about the UK Government’s motivations behind the decision to withdraw from Erasmus+: I am suspicious that the UK Government felt the Erasmus scheme was symbolic of close ties with Europe. Therefore, Brexit is Brexit, and they unfortunately committed this vandalism by removing us from Erasmus to go for the alternative global scheme because it was too European. I was unaware, up until the UK Government walked away from Erasmus, that there were any problems with Erasmus. We were assured that the No. 1 priority, up until the last moment, was full participation in Erasmus. If it was a value for money issue, surely they knew that over the last few years. They must have worked that out, I would have thought, and estimated how much it would have cost us to maintain participation in Erasmus.216