Universities

Baroness Young of Old Scone Excerpts

Thursday 14th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a former chancellor of Cranfield University and current chair of the Royal Veterinary College, which is ranked globally as the number one vet school in the world. Nobody should have to follow the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, on the subject of higher education: I want to raise a complaint about that.

I too welcome and support Universities UK’s thoughtful report, and the admirable introduction that the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, gave in launching this debate, and, indeed, her work in prompting this debate. Her speech really laid out how flourishing universities are key to Labour’s missions. I also thank the Minister for the encouraging way in which the department has set off in its relationship with the university sector, first, in recognising the deep financial crisis being faced by universities, in the face of what was previously the total intractability of the Government to recognise that there was a crisis at all. Secondly, the ministerial team has shown real commitment to a partnership approach with the sector. Thirdly, it is welcome that Ministers have recognised that our universities, in their teaching and research, are vital for the Government’s and indeed the nation’s growth agenda, with the nurturing of skills and talent that the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, talked about, and the world-class research, which is the bedrock of innovation and drives new technologies and approaches, not only to solve the problems of today and tomorrow in the UK but to form the basis of new global export industries.

The UK has always been very good at innovation, but we are not very good at providing a better environment for spin-out and scale-up. We really have to find a way to avoid the distressing repetition of promising start-ups being bought by the USA and others and relocated away from the UK. We should welcome the Chancellor’s recent commitments on pension reforms to enable more UK investment in promising UK businesses. Our research and innovation success is also highly improved by being able to attract high-quality international junior and senior researchers, but there are severe hurdles in their way. Can the Minister tell us how the Government will reduce or stagger the upfront costs for healthcare and visas, how the graduate visa can be developed further and how the Turing scheme can be extended to encourage young international researchers to spend some time here?

As several noble Lords have said, at the moment university research is precariously subsidised by cross-subsidy from other university funding streams, particularly by fees from the growing number of international students. As the UUK report outlined, international students must not just be seen as a cash cow; they are highly welcome for the diversity that they bring to our student bodies and the life of our universities. There needs to be a clearer compact between the universities and government on where the balance between UK and international student numbers should lie, because that fundamentally influences the discussions on the future trajectory for tuition fees.

We might have the carpet drawn out from under our feet by Mr Trump who, in his first term, sabre-rattled about refusing to fund students to study outside the USA. Notably, despite his sabre-rattling, the number of US students in the UK increased during that time, which I hope will continue in his second term.

We should also thank the Minister for the tuition fee increase but, as many noble Lords have said, it has been counteracted in many institutions by the increase in national insurance contributions. That has been particularly so for specialist institutions such as the RVC, where the increase in national insurance contributions is by a factor of four the size of the benefit from the student tuition fees. I welcome the commitment in the Universities UK report and by the Government to work together with the sector on future tuition fees, efficiencies and the reduction of the regulatory burden. I welcome the Universities UK task force on efficiencies, which is being established as we speak.

I make one last point, which is about student hardship. HEPI did a report on students in paid employment and, quite frankly, it upset me for days. It showed that 56% of students have paid employment, working on average 14.5 hours per week. If that was not bad enough, 80% of students who have been in care are working in part-time jobs and, for many, they are not exactly part-time jobs; they work many hours, approaching full-time. I cannot envisage what it must be like to hold down almost a full-time job and try to do a gruelling university course. That is particularly so in the case of students in longer-term studies, such as veterinary and medical studies, where the courses are long and that has to be sustained over a long period of time.

Although I welcome the maintenance loan improvements, I join the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, in calling for the restoration of maintenance grants. Can the Minister say how this regressive and discriminatory situation for students from poorer backgrounds can be reversed?