Higher Education Reform

Barbara Keeley Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and I know that he is a big champion of the University of Bolton, which I was delighted to meet recently. It is quite interesting that a lot of former polytechnics and newer universities are working and collaborating so well with businesses, offering more degree apprenticeships and more flexible courses, and storming up the league tables.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

I am concerned that many university degrees that lead young people into the creative sector will be squeezed under the Government’s plans. Industry leaders have warned that limiting student numbers based on graduate earnings fails to account for the working patterns of graduates in the creative industries, and particularly the arts, where people do not immediately earn high salaries. The salaries in those professions do not reflect their importance to national wellbeing and the contribution that the arts make to our national income. What assessment has the Department for Education made of the damage that this latest policy will do to those arts and humanities subjects that have already been relentlessly cut back under Conservative-led Governments?

[Gillian Keegan]

I am a huge supporter of our creative and arts industries, which are among our largest, and we are very successful in them. I work with them a lot to ensure that we can deliver even broader apprenticeship routes, because they are difficult industries to get into. I have asked the Office for Students to consider how to do this reform to ensure that we consider things like the creative arts and other routes, which sometimes take longer to get into but offer a different aspect of learning. That is why we have not just introduced a blunt tool. I will continue to work with our fantastic creative sector.