Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Willetts and Shabana Mahmood

Thursday 13th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Willetts]

I know that my hon. Friend has a particular interest and expertise in this area. Of course, the number of students who come through for medical training is very carefully planned, taking account of the needs of the NHS for future doctors.

[Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the Minister’s answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), but perhaps I could press him to go further specifically in relation to the potential moving of the Medical Research Council’s budget to the Department of Health. He will be aware that the chief executive of the Association of Medical Research Charities has described the proposed move as a “fudge” that will threaten the independence of medical research in this country. Does the Minister still believe in the Haldane principle, and if so, will he commit to keep the Medical Research Council under his Department’s control to ensure that it remains free of political interference?

[Mr Willetts]

I am happy to give the assurance that we are committed to the Haldane principle and it is important that medical research remains subject to it. That is essential for all parts of the science family. I can do no better than repeat the Chancellor’s assurance that we will make sure that the money is not used for other things, and that if there is any change the vital, basic research that the MRC carries out is not jeopardised.

Science and Research

Debate between Lord Willetts and Shabana Mahmood

Tuesday 4th June 2013 Westminster Hall

[Shabana Mahmood]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He will not be shocked to hear that I am not going to give a spending commitment for what a Labour Government would do in 2015. However, the broader point is that long-termism is not just about the headline amount given to science. Saying, “This is your deal for 10, or maybe 15, years—off you go” is also important because it encourages private sector investment; the private sector will know that a Government are serious about science, and it will know what will happen if they stay in power at the next election. That certainty breeds greater investment, and it will offer a much better deal. I cannot, of course, give the exact sums that we will allocate when we, I hope, form the Government in 2015, but we will return to that theme as we continue to debate these important issues.

Let me move away from the size of the budget and the length of the spending cycle on which it is based. The hon. Gentleman talked a lot about people, and that is a really important part of science policy, although we often forget that when we are grappling with the overall sums and how long they are allocated for. In particular, he raised a really important point about women in science, which is something I have picked up on since I took up the science bit of my brief. My predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah), was a female scientist, so she had experience of being a woman in what is very much a man’s world. I pay tribute to her work as a woman in science and a woman who speaks up for science and scientific issues.

There is clearly a problem: if we cannot ensure that we take forward the best talent that we have and make the most of it, we are truly missing out on something that should be a competitive advantage. Many in the science community tell me that the problem is often less about getting women into undergraduate science degree programmes and more about retaining them once they have graduated, when they are trying to plot their careers as researchers and academics and to combine their work with family life and career breaks to have children. I have said a number of times that the issue is not unique to the scientific community; it is a problem across our society, and those of us in the world of politics know only too well the difficulties that political parties of all persuasions have in attracting female talent into politics and in ensuring that women can progress to the very top in much the same way as men. This is therefore a cross-sector, societal issue, and it is important for the science community, too. In the few months that I have had this brief, I am pleased that so many people—not just women—have wanted to talk to me about women in science and about how we can do more to attract and, equally importantly, retain female talent in the science pool.

I was sad to see the Government withdraw funding from the UK Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology, which was set up when the Labour party was in government to encourage more women into STEM subjects. If the Government scrap something and replace it with something else, I guess that they have an argument that they are still committed to the agenda, but there is no plan B when it comes to scrapping the UKRC’s funding. I would therefore like to hear a bit more from the Minister about his plans regarding women in science and how he sees things developing. How will he ensure that we meet the challenge of not only getting women into science, but retaining them?

The hon. Gentleman made a broader point about inspiring our young people and children into careers in science and about making science fun. One of my best visits since becoming a Member of Parliament was the morning I spent at the Big Bang science fair a few months ago. Tens of thousands of children were part of the fair and experienced it. It was incredible to see the energy in the Docklands arena, as those young people were exposed to science and scientific ideas. One thing that really struck me was a project that had been entered in one of the many competitions being run at the fair. A group of young girls had done a study of the science behind hair straightening. Some of the women reading or listening to the debate will recognise that hair straightening is a big industry, and it is certainly something a lot of women grapple with—it might not affect the Minister or the hon. Gentleman quite so much, but I know a lot about it. It was really interesting that the young girls could take something that mattered to them—they talked about the protective qualities of the different serums that they can put on their hair to protect it from the intense heat that they apply when they use a hair straightener—and understand that there is a lot of science behind it. They were able to study, understand and relate that to their own lives. That was a powerful way to show them that science is all around them and that it is not a scary, dry, arid, austere thing that only geeky boys do when they are at school, but an exciting, challenging thing that they use every day, often without realising it. Lots of good work is therefore being done to make science fun for our young people, although we can always do more.

I sympathise greatly with the hon. Gentleman’s point about specialist science teaching in our primary schools. The Campaign for Science and Engineering has spoken to me a number of times about the issue, which is part of a campaign that it is running. I am very sympathetic to the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion, and I am involved in discussions with the shadow education team about how we might make it happen. However, I absolutely agree with the broad principle, because we need people who understand science and who are passionate about it to be there right from the beginning of the educational journey that our young children make if we are to make sure that they do not drop science as soon as they turn 14, when they have to decide which options to take.

The hon. Gentleman also touched on the impact of the Government’s immigration policies on science and the wider higher education sector. When I was promoted to the position of shadow Higher Education Minister, I had no idea that my previous experience as a shadow Minister in the Home Office team would be quite so relevant, but somebody will talk to me about the impact of the Government’s immigration policies almost every week. The Minister and the Business Secretary are very sympathetic regarding the problems that have been visited on the higher education sector and the science community as a result of the Government’s immigration policy, and I suspect that we are often on the same side when we talk about the fact that the impact has been negative and that we need to change things. Unfortunately, to date, we have been unable to persuade the Home Office and Downing street to change course.

Why is that important? Because the Government’s pledge to reduce net migration to tens of thousands can be achieved only if they dramatically reduce the number of legitimate international students who come to our country, and only if they sit back and pray that lots of British people leave this country, while lots of Brits living abroad do not come back. We cannot get away from that fact. On the other things that impact on net migration figures, such as family migration, the Government have limited rights of appeal and so on, but they cannot do any more without falling foul of human rights law; they cannot outlaw people from having any kind of family life whatever or from marrying spouses from abroad. That leaves international students as the one group the Government can decrease significantly to meet their target.

We are in the bizarre position that the Government are holding up as a sign of success the fact that net migration has dropped, but missing out the fact that that is entirely down to Brits not coming home, Brits leaving and legitimate international students not coming to our country to study. Our competitors are absolutely rubbing their hands with glee over this. I met some colleagues from Australia a couple of weeks ago. The first thing that they said was, “Thank you; you have done such a great job. We made a huge mistake by trying to reduce the number of our legitimate international foreign students. We were starting to pay the price, but then you guys did the same thing, and now they are all coming back to us.” That is a problem.

[The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)]

Will the hon. Lady confirm that the most recent set of Home Office statistics, in the past couple of weeks, showed net migration falling, and, within that, a rise in the number of overseas students coming to study in Britain?

[Shabana Mahmood]

There has been a drop in net migration and there is a flux backwards in relation to international students; the overall picture of what has happened in the past three years, since the policy was introduced, has been to create a perception that Britain does not want to educate international students and does not draw a distinction between legitimate international students and those who are here illegitimately or illegally. The London Metropolitan university affair did great damage to our standing in the world. Our competitors have picked up on that, and marketing departments in universities in Canada, Australia and America are homing in on it. It is the one thing that every higher education institution in this country—whether a leading Russell Group institution, a million-plus institution, part of the University Alliance or something else—has said is a big problem. Every part of the sector has been affected by the immigration policy; and it affects scientific talent as well.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Willetts and Shabana Mahmood

Thursday 21st March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Willetts]

I am always happy to work with the Minister for Immigration, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), to iron out such problems, but the general point is very simple: genuine, legitimate students are allowed into this country and there is no limit on the numbers.

[Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)]

The Minister tries to paint a rosy picture, but the facts are that the recent drop in net migration is due to 38,000 fewer international students coming to this country. His policy is choking growth in our seventh-largest export industry, worth billions of pounds, at a time when our economy is flatlining. It is clear that the Minister is too weak to make the case for our world-class universities around the world and too weak to lobby his Government colleagues to change course. Does he agree with me that the one genuine achievement of the net migration pledge has been a net decrease in his own credibility?

[Mr Willetts]

The hon. Lady should understand that we have a clear policy: there is no limit on the number of students. I went with the Prime Minister on his most recent trade mission to India, accompanied by leading vice-chancellors, to communicate clearly and directly to one of our most important markets for overseas students that they are welcome to come and study in the UK.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Willetts and Shabana Mahmood

Thursday 20th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I gather that that is an example of the Minister sizzling.

[Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)]

I am afraid the Minister is trying to gloss over the facts of his record. The reality is that two years on from the Government’s decision to treble tuition fees to £9,000 a year, applications have dropped by 54,000, which is 11%; acceptances are down, as are the numbers of mature learners and part-time learners; his core and margin policy has caused nothing but chaos and confusion; his AAB policy has been a dramatic failure; and to top it all off, legitimate international students are choosing to go to our competitor countries to study as a result of Home Office policies. Is not the truth that the past two years under this Government have been a disaster for students and universities alike?

[Mr Willetts]

The fact is that the confusion is over the Opposition’s policies. We know they are planning to reduce fees to £6,000, but there is no indication of what they will do to compensate universities for the loss of those revenues. The only time the hon. Lady came to the House to explain her policies, it became clear she would abolish bursaries for students under access funds. Under this Government, we have more students going to university, well-funded universities and more students getting their first choice than ever before. We are proud of those reforms.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Willetts and Shabana Mahmood

Thursday 8th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Willetts]

Perhaps it would help my right hon. Friend if I explained that there are two different measures. The answer I gave the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) was that we think about half of all borrowers will have some part of their loan written off. There is a separate calculation for the value of the loans that will be written off, which we estimate will be about 30%, so both figures are correct. Nothing can be completely certain in this life, and repayment essentially depends on future earnings, but what is certain is that starting to repay only when one is earning more than £21,000 is a jolly sight better than repaying when one is earning more than £15,000, which was the system left by the Labour party.

[Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)]

It is clear that the maths supporting the Government’s higher education funding policy is staring to unravel. The Office for Budget Responsibility has shown that tuition fees count towards inflation and will add 0.2 percentage points to the consumer prices index in the fourth quarter of this year, so the impact of the Government’s policies not only will be felt by students, but will have wider implications. Because CPI is the measure by which public pensions and benefits are increased annually, the Government’s welfare bill and civil service pensions will be affected at next year’s annual uprating. Therefore, does the Minister accept that his policies are disastrous not only for students, but for Government finances in general, and what conversations is he having with other Departments about mitigating that?

[Mr Willetts]

Let us be absolutely clear about what our reforms will do. They will save money for the Exchequer, but at the same time they will ensure that universities have, if anything, an increase in the cash they receive for teaching, and graduates will repay only when they are earning more than £21,000 a year. That is a fair deal for all the partners in the higher education system.

Higher and Further Education

Debate between Lord Willetts and Shabana Mahmood

Tuesday 11th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

The Minister has tried to defend his £9k policy, but has avoided saying anything about the 80% cut to teaching grant funding, which has necessitated the trebling of tuition fees to £9,000 a year. What does he have to say about that?

[Mr Willetts]

That leads me on neatly to setting out what our reforms are accomplishing. The first thing they are accomplishing—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) will have to be patient, because I am going to set out the figures for her. Our reforms ensure that students will continue to get well-funded higher education, while at the same time—we make no apology for this—saving money for the Exchequer, because of the fiscal crisis that we inherited from the previous Government. The total amount of cash going to universities to pay for the teaching of students is £7.2 billion for 2011-12, £7.4 billion for 2012-13 and £7.9 billion for 2013-14. We are increasing the amount of cash available to finance the education of university students, while significantly reducing the Exchequer contribution.

Contrary to what the Opposition spokesman said, we are maintaining a partnership between Exchequer funding and private funding. The latest OECD figures, which were published yesterday in its excellent education handbook, estimate that approximately 40% of the costs of educating students will be met directly by the Exchequer. The other 60% does indeed come not from students, but from graduates when they can afford to pay it back. That is a sensible way of financing higher education in an age of austerity.

As well as providing more cash for universities while saving money for the Exchequer, our second achievement is increasing the choice and flexibility in the system by liberalising the controls over numbers that we inherited. We have started that this year with our liberalisation for AAB students. We estimate that approximately one in four students will benefit from the freedom of choosing a university without any of the old corporatist controls on the total number of places at individual universities that we inherited. We are proud to be going further next year by including ABB students, meaning that one in three students will enjoy those freedoms.

[Shabana Mahmood]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Willetts]

I want to make some progress, but I will of course give way to the Opposition spokesman for a second time.

[Shabana Mahmood]

I thank the Minister for giving way a second time. Will he remind the House why he had to introduce his core and margin model? Does he remember telling the House on many occasions that £9k fees would be the exception, not the norm?

[Mr Willetts]

I did not recognise what the hon. Lady said about fees of £7,500. I have explained to the House many times the basis of the calculations. We introduced the policy to bring more diversity into the system. There are local further education colleges across the country that, for the first time, will be able to offer higher education, financed out of our core and margin policy, which is to be welcomed.

We have therefore increased choice and flexibility. We have also transformed the amount of information that is available for prospective students, which we believe will drive up standards in universities as prospective students think about what contact hours they will have, what the class sizes will be, how universities score on the national students survey and, crucially, how universities score on employment outcomes for graduates.

Indeed, this morning, I joined Which? at a London comprehensive for the launch of its excellent new website, which offers far more information to prospective students than ever before. It was a great moment. It was also a pleasure to be joined by the president of the National Union of Students. The NUS is working with Which? to provide better consumer information for prospective students.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Willetts]

The OECD actually believes that our proposals are a way of continuing to ensure that a good number of people go to university even when we are having to save Exchequer funding. It believes that other countries can learn from our model.

I have set out our policies, and I should like to turn to the Labour party’s policies, about which the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood said surprisingly little in her lengthy speech. We know from the motion that Labour’s policy is £6,000 fees. There is a long and unhappy history to Labour’s higher education policy. I will not take her through the whole of it, although I am tempted. I will jump straight to where we are at present, as stated in the motion and in the longest single statement of Labour’s policy that we have found, the speech by the shadow Secretary of State on 2 December. His explanation of that policy took up a tiny fragment of the speech, a few lines. It was the type of fragment of text that academics in our universities love to pore over. He said:

“I’ll explain how this works: reducing the maximum level of fees to £6,000 while compensating universities for the difference costs £1.1 billion.”

That was his starting point. Well, the Department’s official costings show that his policy of bringing fees down to £6,000 would cost £2 billion. That £2 billion is currently going to our universities to pay for the education of students and for outreach, bursaries and access programmes that we thought Labour supported. He would take away that £2 billion of funding for higher education. He claims that he would miraculously be able to finance that, although admittedly he would only have £1.1 billion so he is £900 million short already.

Let us go through how the shadow Secretary of State claims he would plug that gap. He stated:

“£350 million will come from automatic savings from reducing the cap to £6,000 because it will mean some associated expenditure, such as on as fee waivers, will no longer be required”.

The trick is in the words “such as”, because it is not just fee waivers. Let us be clear about what that “associated expenditure” is. It is programmes to assist with student retention; outreach programmes whereby universities go to local schools and encourage students to apply to university; and bursary programmes financed out of the higher fees to offer our students increased financial support. I have a simple question for the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood. I have already permitted her to intervene twice, and I will do so again. Can she offer a guarantee that no student at university would be worse off as a result of the changes that she would make to save that £350 million?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I am very happy to intervene on the Minister, and I can absolutely guarantee that. What he is missing in his desperate attempt to attack the much more progressive £6,000 fee proposal is that it would automatically obviate the need for quite so many fee waivers and bursaries created by his more expensive system of tuition fees.

[Mr Willetts]

That is a very confusing intervention. First, the hon. Lady said that she could guarantee that nobody would be worse off, then she said that Labour’s policy would obviate the need for bursaries. Let us be absolutely clear that no student will pay fees up front. They will be paid by graduates. Bursaries matter because they are cash for students now. Is she pledging that the extra money from fees above £6,000, some of which finances bursary programmes and extra support for students, would continue after fees were reduced to £6,000? Yes or no? Would all bursaries be preserved?

[Shabana Mahmood]

The position of bursaries would be unaffected under the £6,000 proposal. We are saying that the additional cost incurred by moving to £9,000 tuition fees would be brought down. We would not need quite so much money, because people would not have the same level of debt.

[Mr Willetts]

We are talking about future graduate debt, and the House is noticing that the hon. Lady is wriggling on the issue. We are saying that the extra funding helps to pay out cash for students at university through higher bursaries that are paid for out of revenues from higher fees. Students will have observed the failure of the Labour party to commit to maintaining that money.

Let us look at the next item that will supposedly meet those losses. We have established that the cost is not £1.1 billion but £2 billion, and that £330 million of that already comes from a set of measures that students will dislike. The shadow Secretary of State went on:

“£300 million comes from cancelling the Government’s planned cut to the corporation tax on the banks”.

That is the next extraordinary device that he thinks will help him save that money. Let us be clear: this Government have introduced a bank levy to raise at least £2.5 billion a year. That was set out by the Chancellor in the 2012 Budget, to take account of the benefit to the banking system from additional reductions in corporation tax on banks. In other words, we are already raising this money; we are already collecting extra money from the banks through the banking levy which is to offset the effect of lower corporation tax. There is no reduction in the taxation on banks that the Labour party could use to pay for this policy; the banking levy is extracting that funding.

If any Member of this House were remorseless in ensuring that every pound of revenue was extracted from our banks to contribute to education and other purposes, it would be my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. We are already extracting a large amount of money from the banks, and it is evidence of the bankruptcy of the Labour party’s thinking that when faced with any problem or public expenditure challenge it keeps claiming that it can meet the cost by taxing the banks. The evidence shows that the funding is simply not available to pay for it.

Reversing the VAT increase—£13.5 billion—is supposed to be met by taxing the banks. The Opposition have called for more capital spending—£5.9 billion—which will supposedly be met by taxing the banks. Reversing the child benefit savings of £2.5 billion will apparently be met by taxing the banks. Reversing tax credit savings—£5.5 billion—will be met by taxing the banks. They want more regional growth funding, and now we learn their plans for universities as well. There is simply no way in which taxing the banks will solve the gaping black hole in the Opposition’s financial proposals, and we will not let them get away with it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Willetts and Shabana Mahmood

Thursday 6th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Willetts]

I very much agree with the right hon. Gentleman, as do the Government. Of course Britain is open for business. That includes being open to attract students from around the world who have a legitimate entitlement to study here. There is no cap on the number of overseas students who can come to study in Britain. Through our Foreign Office posts around the world, we have re-emphasised that message in the light of the experience of London Met.

[Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)]

The attitude of the Minister and his Government to the international reputation of the UK’s higher education sector and its importance to our economic growth is shockingly complacent. May I press the Minister on the legitimate international students at London Met who are partway through their studies? Will he guarantee that no such student will be financially worse off as a result of the licence revocation? If that is not possible, will he reconsider with his colleagues in the Home Office alternative routes by which legitimate international students may complete their studies at London Met?

[Mr Willetts]

I understand that one feature of the offers of places in the matching process that will be launched in 10 days’ time is that many of the universities will offer courses at the same or lower fees than the students would have experienced at London Met.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Willetts and Shabana Mahmood

Thursday 15th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Willetts]

Our policy of saying that universities are free to recruit students with AAB or better without number controls puts more power and choice in the hands of students, which is one of the key propositions of our White Paper. We need to strengthen students in the system to get universities to focus on high-quality teaching and we intend to go further with that proposal.

[Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)]

The Minister caused unacceptable confusion and uncertainty for students making applications and to higher education institutions last year through his introduction of the core and margin model. Will he take this opportunity to agree with us and to heed calls from across the sector that there should be no further changes to core and margin in the next academic year?

[Mr Willetts]

We are considering this in the light of the experience that universities are having, but we have made it absolutely clear that the direction in which we want to go is for more choice for students and more flexibility for universities. The timings will depend on the experience of universities.

Postgraduate Education

Debate between Lord Willetts and Shabana Mahmood

Wednesday 25th January 2012 Westminster Hall

[Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your lively chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, and to respond on behalf of the Opposition to what has been an excellent debate.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) on securing this important and timely debate. He delivered his speech with passion and conviction, and he has a deep commitment to this area of policy. Indeed, he bought additional expertise to the debate, given his involvement in the Higher Education Commission, which is currently conducting an inquiry into postgraduate education. I am sure that all Members of the House look forward to the commission’s report, which will be produced once that inquiry is complete. However, having congratulated my hon. Friend on securing the debate, I must also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods), who initiated the form-filling that helped to secure the debate.

My hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield spoke very powerfully about the importance of postgraduate education and the fact that it has been somewhat isolated in the context of the current debate about university education. He also made the important point that higher education should be looked at holistically, and he is absolutely right about that. In addition, he spoke about the impact that the presence of a university has on the city and region in which it is located, and I too can relate to the experience of having a university in my constituency, given that Aston university is in my constituency and both Birmingham university and Birmingham City university are just outside my constituency boundary.

My hon. Friend spoke at length about postgraduate research, which I will discuss later. We also had excellent contributions from the other Members who spoke. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) addressed the issues in relation to taught postgraduate courses. He spoke powerfully about issues of access and the effect that widening participation in education can have, especially in improving access to the professions. Having been a barrister before I became an MP, I can absolutely attest to the fact that the professions often feel like middle-class enclaves, and when someone is from an immigrant working-class background—as I am—that is an entirely different kind of world.

My hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham spoke about the role of postgraduate education in strengthening both the academic community as a whole and international research teams, which is a very important point. She also talked about how that speaks to both our role and our reputation in the world. We have always punched above our weight, and we should treasure that. My hon. Friend returned to the important challenge of funding, which I will address later, and my hon. Friend the Member for Luton South (Gavin Shuker) rightly praised the role of modern universities. We are very lucky in this country to have a diverse higher education ecosystem, and we should cherish that diversity of mission, intake and teaching and research strengths.

This has been an important, constructive and necessary debate. Members have already made the point that discussion of higher education in Parliament often focuses on undergraduates, especially on an 18-year-old undergraduate’s journey through the system. That is, of course, extremely important, but it sometimes prevents both recognition of the importance of part-time and mature students at undergraduate level, and adequate discourse about postgraduate education as a whole, which is deeply unsatisfactory. Quite apart from the fact that postgraduate education generates something like £1.5 billion in output, we must, as other Members have said, take a holistic view of the sector if the policies we then formulate are to encourage quality, competitiveness, growth and social mobility.

We very much welcome any expansion of postgraduate education, especially that which took place between 2005 and 2010, as it clearly has benefits for the individual and for society as a whole. Taught postgraduate degrees, particularly when accessed by mature students, can help an individual improve their career prospects or change career entirely, especially with part-time study. Given the tough economic climate we face, coupled with the sheer terror of potential unemployment and what that does to life chances, particularly those of young people, students taking up postgraduate education immediately on completion of undergraduate courses do so increasingly because of the growing belief that we need more than one degree to be competitive.

However postgraduate education is accessed, and for whatever reasons, taught postgraduate education creates an increase in the national skills base and in earning capacity, and in that way benefits the economy and growth. Also essential to innovation and economic growth is research-based postgraduate education, through which we have the best chance of stimulating the kind of innovation we need to effect the rebalancing of our economy and get back to long-term growth, and we believe that the Government can and should play an active role in that. The UK’s delivery of global research output is second only to that of the United States, which demonstrates the health of our sector and the fact that, as I said earlier, we punch above our weight in the world, but with increasing competition from across the globe the Government must ensure that we keep pace with our competitor countries. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central made an important point about the ageing demographic make-up of the research community, and such issues highlight the need for the Government to bring forward a strategy that maintains the strength and diversity of our research base, especially given the reliance in some parts of the sector on international students, welcome though their contribution is.

One of the biggest areas of concern, as we have heard today, is funding. Funding concerns have been amplified by the Government’s decision to treble undergraduate tuition fees to £9,000. We are concerned not only about the impact that that will have on access to and participation in undergraduate education, but about what higher levels of undergraduate debt will mean for postgraduate education. With cuts in the teaching grant and higher fees, the debt burden gets ever higher, and so too does the prospect that students from deprived backgrounds, who are more likely to be debt-averse, and mature students with family commitments will be locked out of postgraduate education, thereby cementing the dominance of the middle classes. Particularly telling is the situation of those who would have become mature students but are deciding not to bother with postgraduate education because of the higher fees and the associated debt burden. Their aspirations are being blocked because they have come to the view that financially it simply is not worth the risk. That will also have an impact on social mobility, especially when we consider, as other Members have said, that postgraduate education is an important route into professions such as law and the civil service, which are rightly and regularly criticised for the lack of diversity among their intake. That scenario will only get further entrenched in the present situation.

It is in that context that we have argued that the Government should have changed course, to bring the cap on undergraduate tuition fees down to £6,000, a measure paid for by not going ahead with a corporation tax cut for the banks, and by asking the top 10% of graduates to pay a bit more.

[Mr Willetts]

Will the hon. Lady confirm that her proposals would not reduce graduates’ monthly repayments of student loans in any way?

[Shabana Mahmood]

The important point is about the headline level of debt, which I was coming on to make. Our proposal takes into account, and does not change, the Government’s decisions on the overall budgets. It clearly shows that it was still possible for them to do more to bring down the headline level of undergraduate fees by one third, thereby reducing the overall debt burden, which in turn would have had less impact on the numbers of people going into postgraduate education.

We welcome the attention being given to future funding options for postgraduate education by various bodies, such as the Higher Education Commission. I also note the report by CentreForum and its proposal for a £10,000 state-backed loan scheme for people taking one-year taught postgraduate courses, and that the National Union of Students and others are considering possible packages. We welcome the work being done to develop models for the sustainable funding of postgraduate education, and while alternative models are being developed and their viability assessed the Government can and should consider what more they can do to encourage the availability of professional career development loans, and to ensure that they work with banks to get the best possible deal for postgraduate students.

The Government’s White Paper on higher education unfortunately barely mentioned postgraduate education. It certainly did not create any legislative space for the discussion of issues affecting postgraduate education, or of how those issues might be dealt with. That was a mistake, and a missed opportunity. I note that the Minister reconvened the Smith review last year, and that additional work will now be done by the Higher Education Funding Council for England, so perhaps the Minister will take the opportunity today to update us on that funding consultation exercise being undertaken by HEFCE, and the participation review.

It is clear from the contributions to this debate and from the concerns highlighted by the higher education sector that a comprehensive strategy for postgraduate education is needed. We have, as other Members have mentioned, heard rumours in the past couple of days that the Government have U-turned on their policy of expanding the presence of for-profit providers in higher education, and so will not now introduce their planned higher education Bill this summer. The Minister might, therefore, have a bit more time on his hands, and could have even more if he heeded our call not to make any further changes to the core and margin model in 2013-14, allowing the sector to enjoy a year of stability. I wonder if the Minister might take this opportunity to redirect his energies into preparing the comprehensive postgraduate education strategy that is being called for by so many.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Willetts and Shabana Mahmood

Thursday 8th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)]

It is exactly one year on from the Government’s trebling of tuition fees to £9,000, and we can clearly see the disastrous impact of that decision. UCAS applications are down by 15%, and the Government have had to introduce the chaotic core and margin model to make up for the fact that they got their sums wrong. Is the Minister for Universities and Science aware that he has created a perfect storm for our world-class higher education sector, and why is he prepared to put our world-leading reputation at risk?

[The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)]

Our reforms will ensure that universities are well financed, and that there is more funding available for access than ever before. Perhaps the hon. Lady would explain to the House why she proposes to double fees and, at the same time, reduce the funding available for scholarships and access money.