Higher Education White Paper

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Willetts]

West Thames college can put in a bid to HEFCE under the 20,000 places scheme that we have launched today. I very much believe that some further education colleges that offer higher education can take advantage of the new flexibility that we have launched.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

I very much trust that as a result of the Minister’s White Paper, excellent colleges such as Newman college, in Bartley Green in Birmingham, can call themselves universities. However, may I take him back to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones)? The Minister must have made an assessment that some institutions will no longer be viable. How many will there be, and what provision has he made for the students who will be caught halfway through their courses if their institution becomes non-viable?

[Mr Willetts]

Successive Governments have never given a guarantee that every institution will carry on. However, it is unlikely that the changes we have launched today will of themselves make any institution unviable—I do not know that, but it is unlikely. Of course, it is also clear that there would be a commitment that any student should be able to complete their studies.

On the hon. Lady’s first point, I very much hope that it will be possible for institutions that have a clear focus on higher education to take the title “university” when they were previously prevented from doing so because they had fewer than 4,000 students. We have said that that should be reviewed, because some excellent higher education institutions would like to take the name “university”. I am sure that any such proposal will be very carefully considered.