Carol Monaghan
Main Page: Carol Monaghan (Scottish National Party - Glasgow North West)Department Debates - View all Carol Monaghan's debates with the Department for Education
(6 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Damian Hinds
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for all he has done on breakfast over an extended period, particularly with his Magic Breakfast connection, and I share his desire to make sure that best practice is shared across borders.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
Scottish students from the most-deprived backgrounds are supported by a comprehensive financial package, including free tuition and bursaries, resulting in Scotland having the lowest university drop-out rate in the entire UK. Will the Secretary of State give serious consideration to mirroring the support given to Scottish students, including by abolishing the extortionate student fees, here in England?
Damian Hinds
The important things to note are that with our university financing system more young people, including from disadvantaged backgrounds, than ever are able to go to university, that universities are properly funded and that there is no cap on ambition.
The Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills (Anne Milton)
This is not a situation we wanted to be in, but we are obliged to undertake these procurement exercises. There were 1,046 bids, for £1.1 billion. Some 700 of those bids were successful and got a total of some £490 million. We have put in transitional arrangements for existing providers that were unsuccessful, giving employers and apprentices stability. As I pointed out to my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) earlier, those providers can still access apprenticeship funding by delivering training directly to levy payers, to non-levy payers through subcontracting and to employers receiving transfers from April.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
The pensions dispute ground universities to a halt last week. The Secretary of State will be aware that there is a proposal on the table to underwrite the universities superannuation scheme. Although this matter is reserved, the Scottish Government have said that they will give consideration to the proposals from the University and College Union. Given the talk of further disruption, will he commit to doing the same?
The Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation (Mr Sam Gyimah)
As I mentioned in my earlier answer, the agreement on the table was brokered between both parties by ACAS. The dispute is between the universities, which are autonomous organisations, and the lecturers. This is a private pension scheme and one of the country’s largest, with nearly 400,000 members and more than £61 billion in assets. The cost to the taxpayer of underwriting such a scheme could be significant, and any further Government involvement in supporting the USS would need to be considered very carefully.