Universities: Financial Sustainability

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chris Skidmore]

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman on the value of research and development in the HE sector. The Government are committed to spending 2.4% of GDP on R&D. Some university grants relate to Horizon 2020 and the Government have made an underwrite guarantee extension to protect all currently allocated grants. We want to work with the sector to look at how we can increase money for R&D. The return on investment is fantastic. In the space sector, for every pound spent on R&D £10 is returned, so I could not agree more that we do need to do more as a Government. We have not done more in the past to bring ourselves up to the OECD average. Universities will be at the front and centre of that.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

Does the Minister recall that in 2010 the system we inherited for funding higher education was completely unsustainable? Does he agree that that was demonstrated by the fact that it was the previous Labour Government who commissioned the Browne review?

[Chris Skidmore]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Our inheritance from the previous Government meant that we had a cap on student numbers, low numbers of people from disadvantaged backgrounds going to university, and low numbers of women entering science and mathematics degrees. All those trends have been reversed by investing in access and participation plans, investment to ensure that universities can expand geographically and—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Blackpool South (Gordon Marsden) is chuntering from a sedentary position. [Interruption.] I do apologise. The hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) is chuntering from a sedentary position. I say again that turning back the clock to taxpayer-funded degrees would simply be a fee cut for the children of millionaires and I simply do not agree with that.