Education: Turing Scheme

Baroness Harris of Richmond Excerpts

Tuesday 5th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, we want to ensure that part of the new Turing scheme is a focus on disadvantaged students—those who may not have had the opportunity to benefit from programmes such as Erasmus+ in the past. We are working directly with educational institutions to make sure that people are able to take up those opportunities and we will provide additional funding for disadvantaged students to cover, for instance, the cost of passports or visas, or for students with disabilities to undertake preparatory visits to make sure that all the necessary accommodations can be made for them.

[Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD) [V]]

My Lords, students holding British passports studying in a Northern Ireland university are to be offered access to the Erasmus+ scheme, paid for by the generosity of the Irish Government. What happened to Michael Gove’s promise, made just six months ago, as we have heard, that

“we will continue to seek membership of those programmes across the United Kingdom”?—[Official Report, Commons, 11/6/20; col. 383.]

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, we certainly understand that the Republic of Ireland has unilaterally suggested that it might be possible for students in Northern Ireland to take part in Erasmus+. It is not clear how that would work in practice or what the European Commission’s position on that would be, but I can say that UK-wide funding is available as part of the Turing scheme, and universities, colleges and schools across the whole of the UK will be eligible to bid for it, including those in Northern Ireland.