Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Carol Monaghan and Justine Greening

Monday 11th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

My right hon. Friend raises an interesting proposal, and I am pleased that he is working so effectively with the Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills. We need not only to improve our investment in STEM, but to change young people’s perceptions of STEM so that they can see what a fascinating career can lie ahead after doing STEM subjects at A-level and, critically, STEM degrees. That is how we can steadily continue to change the situation for the better.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

I am sure that the Secretary of State will know that STEM teachers in Scotland need a university-level qualification in a STEM subject, so we have retained the professionalism. However, my question is about getting girls into STEM. As we approach Christmas, the gender stereotyping in toys is simply depressing, with boys being presented with technical toys while girls are expected to become pretty home makers—even Lego is making the distinction, with princess Lego sets. What representations is the Secretary of State making to toy manufacturers and retailers to ensure that gender-neutral toys are promoted and that girls are encouraged into STEM?

[Justine Greening]

My right hon. Friend the Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills will shortly be holding a roundtable on such issues, but she should focus more broadly on the underlying strategy of getting more young girls and women into STEM careers. The good news is that the number of women accepted on to STEM undergraduate courses increased in England by 25% since 2010.

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[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

The academic community in the north of Ireland might have a way ahead in the light of the recent Brexit negotiations. Will the Secretary of State give the same reassurance to the academic community in Scotland which, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) highlighted, is concerned about the recruitment and retention of EU nationals?

[Justine Greening]

I hope that the announcement from the Prime Minister and the European Commission on Friday will have very much allayed many of the understandable concerns that EU workers had about their future status in the UK.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Carol Monaghan and Justine Greening

Monday 20th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

Indeed, and my hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have to plan ahead. We know that we need to create more good school places for the children coming through our education system. Some school places will be in response to choices at a local level for selective schools, but others will be non-selective school places and places for meeting the needs of local communities.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

Under the academies scheme, the teaching profession in England has experienced a sustained attack on its terms and conditions, including salary awards below nationally agreed pay scales. Can the Secretary of State guarantee unequivocally that no teachers in proposed new selective schools will be paid below nationally agreed rates?

[Justine Greening]

We need to ensure that schools have more freedoms to be able to run themselves in a way that means they can deliver strong educational outcomes. I notice that the hon. Lady clearly does not want to talk about the fact that standards in Scotland are going backwards in science, maths and reading.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Carol Monaghan and Justine Greening

Monday 10th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. I know that he has played an important role on the Public Bill Committee and presented his own proposals. As we have made clear, we do not want to be over-prescriptive. We want to set up the Office for Students and allow it to ensure that students have a voice not just through representation, but through the way in which the office itself works.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

The Higher Education Governance (Scotland) Act 2016, which the Scottish Government introduced in March, has given students a much stronger voice and increased their involvement in key decision making in Scotland’s universities. Does the Secretary of State agree that students deserve to participate more in the higher education sector, and will she look to the example set by Scotland to ensure that they can do so?

[Justine Greening]

I have no doubt that Scottish colleagues will wish to share the hon. Lady’s experience. As I have said, it is important to ensure that the voices of students are heard ever more clearly, and that is precisely what the Bill is intended to achieve—among other things, including improving choice for students. As was pointed out earlier, we now have a funding system that requires students to pay tuition fees, and it is vital that they obtain value for money.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Debate between Carol Monaghan and Justine Greening

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Tuesday 19th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

As the Prime Minister said outside Downing Street last week, this Government want to give everybody, no matter what their background, the opportunity to go as far as their talents will take them, in a country that works for everyone. Our higher education institutions are crucial to giving people the power to determine their own futures. They present opportunities for individuals to better themselves—to broaden their knowledge base, sharpen their skills, and participate in the groundbreaking research that can make the future brighter for everyone.

My time at Southampton University was one of the most shaping periods of my life. I should point to my time at the Department for International Development as another of those periods. For me, the chance to go to university was absolutely pivotal to being able to make something of myself. Today, I can still point to the telephone box in Kingsbridge, Devon where I rang through to get my A-level results while we were on holiday that year. In that moment, my whole future changed for the better. I was the first person in my family to be able to go to university. I remember, after that call, going to the pub across the road to celebrate with a drink. None of us really knew what going to university would be like for me, but we all knew that it was going to be the best thing and that it would improve my life chances. Opportunity is about giving our young people the freedom to fly, and universities are absolutely central to that.

My party’s record on this in government is one we can be proud of. We have taken away the limit on student numbers so that more people than ever before can benefit from higher education, and the participation rate among students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds is at record levels. We have put in place the essential funding changes that have placed our universities on a stable financial footing so that they are resourced for success, and we have protected investment in our world-class science base.

The universities that our young people attend are some of the best in the world. We punch well above our weight, with 34 institutions ranked in the world’s top 200 and more than twice that number in the top 800. But there is more to do to make sure that everyone can access a high-quality university place, and in spite of the progress made, we are far from meeting our economy’s need for graduates, so this Government are absolutely determined to support and nurture our universities, and to ensure that they are open to every student who has the potential to benefit from them.

The creation of new universities is an undoubted force for good, both academically and economically. Recent research by the London School of Economics shows that doubling the number of universities per capita could mean a 4% rise in future GDP per capita too. However, the current system for creating universities can feel highly restrictive, with new providers requiring the backing of an incumbent institution to become eligible to award its own degrees. This Bill levels the playing field by laying the foundations for a new system where it will be simpler and quicker to establish high-quality new providers. I am pleased that in May the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) confirmed that the Opposition do not object to broadening choice for students by expanding the higher education sector.

These reforms, which are the first since the 1990s, enable us to maintain the world-class reputation of our higher education institutions, because quality will be built in at every stage—from the way we regulate new entrants to how we deal with poor-quality providers already in the system. I recognise that there have been concerns about the quality of new providers—that they cannot possibly be as good as what we already have. It is not the first time that such arguments have been made. The same arguments were made when the new red-brick universities were being established just before the first world war, but today Sheffield, Birmingham and Manchester—which I visited very recently in my previous role—are world-class universities. This “quality” argument was made about the 1960s expansion, but in four of the past 10 years the Sunday Times award for university of the year has gone to one founded in that very period—currently the University of Surrey. In 1992, it was a Conservative Government who had the vision to set free the polytechnics to enable them to become universities. Now we are making it possible for a whole new generation of universities to help us to extend access to higher education for young people across our country.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

I welcome the Secretary of State to her new position and look forward to working with her over, I hope, the next few years. Does she agree that one aspect of the post-war universities and the post-1992 polytechnics was that students were not asked to contribute fees in order to receive a university education?

[Justine Greening]

I acknowledge that the Scottish National party takes a very different view of this issue. The reality is that the choice that it has made has resulted in fewer students being able to go to university in Scotland. One in five students in Scotland who apply for, and who have the grades to get, a place cannot go because the funding is not available. The hon. Lady’s Government in Scotland have made that choice, but it is not a choice that this Government want to make. We have to make sure that places are available for students who have the potential and talent to make their way in life. Putting a cap on opportunity and potential is not just bad for students; it is bad for our country more broadly.