Budget Resolutions

Debate between Daisy Cooper and Suella Braverman

Tuesday 3rd November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

I am afraid that is just a drop in the ocean compared with the enormity of the challenge we face. I will come on to skills and apprenticeships in one minute, but I will dwell on how we got to this great university scam, as I call it.

We have some of the best universities in the country, and I will always defend them, but our universities are failing many of our young people and offering awful value for money. Some of the courses are not worth the paper they are written on. Is it really right that vice-chancellors are earning huge salaries but offering awful job prospects? Do some of them really deserve their £200,000 or £300,000 salaries when their institutions are offering job prospects for only 40% of their graduates? No. Do we really need courses in politics, sexuality and gender, with a vice-chancellor on more than £200,000? No. That is all while we have gaps in our NHS, construction and hospitality. That is why a Reform Government would deal with this issue. We would reduce the student loan budget by 20% and invest the billions saved into helping our country. We would train up British doctors and nurses and scrap the arbitrary cap on medical training places.

Let me say a word about immigration, because it has been a big factor. Many universities have got fat on foreign students. I am afraid that I have to say it: the last Conservative Government opened the floodgates to international students. It is something that I started to reverse when I was Home Secretary. As a result, universities have been selling immigration, not education. As a consequence—as I said earlier—for every young Brit who is employed in this country, 27 young foreign workers are also employed.

[Daisy Cooper]

Will the right hon. and learned Member give way?

[Suella Braverman]

I am sorry, but I do not have much time. I will try to come back to the hon. Lady.

What I have described is locking our young people out of the labour market. A Reform Government would put British workers at the front of the queue for British jobs. That used to be common sense, but today it is controversial.

Moving on to apprenticeships and skills, I am afraid that this Budget is conspicuously silent on investing in skills, apprenticeships and the vocational trades. The number of apprenticeships has almost halved over the past decade, particularly among small and medium-sized businesses and for entry-level positions.