Debates between Clive Betts and Paul Blomfield during the 2010-2015 Parliament

Higher Education

Debate between Clive Betts and Paul Blomfield
Wednesday 3rd November 2010

(14 years, 2 months ago)

Westminster Hall
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Paul Blomfield Portrait Paul Blomfield
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That is a very important point on our position in relation to competitors in the OECD. We have made enormous progress in the funding of higher education over the past 13 years. We did not get to where we needed to be, but we were moving in the right direction. This Government are reversing that direction and taking us backward.

Let me return to the point about the negative message being sent out about arts, humanities and social science courses, and share with Members the views of the vice-chancellor of the university of Sheffield, Professor Keith Burnett. He is an outstanding leader of an outstanding university, and a scientist. He said:

“In the last few days I have been thinking about how I would feel if my subject – Physics – had been identified as fundamentally unimportant to the UK, or at least unworthy of its investment, in the way that many of our colleagues’ subjects have been. I would be gutted….When I see what richness the work of our colleagues…has brought us…Sir Ian Kershaw’s books on Hitler…shed a unique light on how fascism emerged…offered insights and judgement which can’t be ignored. Mike Braddick’s new book on the Civil War…helps us understand how we came to be who we are as a nation…Focusing on a period when fundamental questions were being debated…casts new light on the transition of Britain’s passage from one era to another…One of our most powerful resources as a country, and as a University, is our cultural insight, our deep questioning of our own society and ideas – perhaps we have never needed that analysis more as we consider how best to go forward. In a world of global competition and profound change, we want our children to have more than just bread to live on.”

I turn now to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) made on education maintenance allowances. Fundamentally—the Minister himself acknowledged this—participation in higher education is in many senses determined by people’s experience of the education system in their early years. We know that for many people who aspire to go to university the critical decision is at the age of 16, and that in low-income families with no history of post-16 education there is huge pressure not to be a further drain on the family’s financial resources. I have talked to constituents across Sheffield, and have been left in no doubt that education maintenance allowances have transformed life chances. Last year, almost 7,000 EMAs were awarded across the city. In the comprehensive spending review, the Chancellor talked about replacing

“education maintenance allowances with more targeted support.”—[Official Report, 20 October 2010; Vol. 516, c. 964.]

I suggest that that is a deeply cynical use of language. What could be more targeted than allowances that are assessed according to family income, with the level of payments being determined according to need? The Minister cuts a rather lonely figure today, and I regret that there are not more Members of other parties interested in the debate. I hope that the Minister will address my remarks in his contribution.

Clive Betts Portrait Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)
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Before I call the next speaker, I remind Members that I will start the wind-ups at 3.40 pm.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Clive Betts and Paul Blomfield
Tuesday 19th October 2010

(14 years, 2 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Paul Blomfield Portrait Paul Blomfield
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Obviously, we would all like to see better electoral registration. The point is that we know there are significant groups within all our communities for whom it is difficult to achieve the levels of registration that we wish to see.

Clive Betts Portrait Mr Betts
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My hon. Friend is making a good point; the information that he has given the Committee about the great disparity in registration levels between his constituency and Sheffield, Hallam is very stark. But if he looks at information that was given to a Select Committee hearing in the Parliament before last in the House, about initial returns to the registration officer from different parts of Sheffield, he will find that registrations from Manor, an inner-city part of his constituency, were only just over 50% at first instance, while in the Dore ward in Hallam they were over 95%. And if we use a December figure before the canvassing has really got going to get additional people on the register, those initial returns and the disparity between them will be even greater than the disparity between the registers as they now stand.

Paul Blomfield Portrait Paul Blomfield
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I thank my hon. Friend for making that point, because it highlights the particular difficulty of using the December register. There can be only two reasons to use December as the point at which to measure registered electors: either because there is undue haste in trying to push through this process, or because there is a recognition that at that point those voters who some would wish to see disregarded will not be reflected within the register.

The Government would claim that the Bill is about new politics, but a failure to address these concerns will send a message to the public that this represents the very worst of old politics, putting party advantage before democracy and, as one Government Member said on Second Reading, putting decisions behind closed doors before transparency. If the Bill proceeds unamended, it will not only damage the Government but damage confidence in our democracy.