Higher Education

Gareth Thomas Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Hodgson]

I certainly agree. We should also remember that some of the young people being burdened with huge debts will be from families that have no other mechanism to support them in making further life choices, such as getting into the housing market, or in paying unexpected bills. Having large elements of their earned income tied up for the next 30 years will be more of an ask for those young people than it will be for young people from a more middle-class background, but that has not been taken into account. For people from some of the backgrounds that we are talking about who might want to strike out and go to university, such factors will have a big detrimental impact on the decision that they take.

[Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Following on from the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds), will my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) join me in asking the Minister to comment on the impact of today’s announcement on undergraduates who want to go on to postgraduate education? We heard nothing about that impact in today’s statement, and it would surely be useful to hear whether those from lower-income backgrounds who have heavy loans to pay back will be deterred from going on to postgraduate study.

[Mrs Hodgson]

That is an important part of the debate, but it has not been discussed yet, and I certainly hope that the Minister will refer to it in his closing remarks. Even during my time as an MP, I have seen a change among the people who have applied to work for me as a researcher, with those who apply now having chosen not to do postgraduate qualifications for the reason that my hon. Friend sets out. Degree-level qualifications will therefore probably be the maximum attainment for some children from working-class backgrounds.

I want now to touch on the education maintenance allowance. At the same time as the current changes are being made, the Government are planning to overhaul the EMA system, which has been instrumental in ensuring that talented young people from less well-off backgrounds get the necessary qualifications to apply to university in the first place. There was a debate on this subject in Westminster Hall yesterday, which was secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West (John Robertson). He is a great advocate of the EMA, and I see from Hansard that he put the case for its retention impeccably, so I will not repeat it.

My hon. Friend has plenty of evidence to back up his case. The evaluation of the roll-out of EMA showed that it reduced the level of those not in education, employment or training and encouraged those receiving it to work harder. Indeed, Institute for Fiscal Studies research showed that attainment among recipients has increased by 5% since the introduction of the EMA. If the Government remove something that encourages less well-off children to stay in further education and to aim higher, and they couple that with huge disincentives to apply for higher education, applications from that group will almost certainly drop significantly, particularly to the better universities.

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[Luciana Berger]

My hon. Friend has made exactly the point I wanted to make, so I thank him.

Many of my constituents talk to me now about the challenges they face because of their current debts, when fees are only a third of those proposed by the new Government. Access to higher education should be about students’ ability, not the ability to pay or willingness to shoulder thousands of pounds of debt. That is my greatest concern.

[Mr Thomas]

Will my hon. Friend join me in asking for more clarity from the Minister about what will happen to the widening participation grant that is currently in his Department’s budget? We have had no information about whether it will be increased or decreased, or stay the same. I am sure that universities and students will be attending to this debate, and will want that information too.

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for asking that relevant question. Given the fraction of money that will go from Aimhigher to the national scholarship fund, and the scarcity of detail in the statement about how widening will be funded, I too would be grateful to know what grant there will be.

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[Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a privilege to join the debate led by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), not least because he has a distinguished record championing the widening participation agenda as a Minister, a point others have touched on. Although I have a slight problem with his constituency, I welcome the opportunity to put on record my appreciation of his record in Government. Given his profound knowledge of the subject, I hesitate to speak so soon after my appointment to this shadow brief.

My right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) rightly praised the improvements in access to participation under the Labour Government. Those from the top three social classes are twice as likely to go into higher education as those from the bottom four classes, and 19% of the poorest 20% go into higher education compared with 57% of the richest 20%. As my right hon. and hon. Friends made clear, there has been encouraging progress since 2004. Higher education participation by the poorest 20% is up by some 32% compared with a rise of 4% for those from the richest 20%, which means an extra 33,000 students from the bottom four social classes going into higher education between 2003 and 2008. My right hon. Friend and the previous Government can be proud of that record. As hon. Members have rightly said, we need to do more work in that area, so I share the profound scepticism of all those who have spoken from the Opposition Benches that the package announced today by the Minister for Universities and Science will help the effort to increase access to participation.

The hon. Member for Reading East (Mr Wilson), who, sadly, is no longer in the Chamber, intervened on my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham. As my right hon. Friend said in his answer, the one bit of good news in the Government’s response to the Browne review was about access to loans and better support for part-time students. There were interventions and speeches by my hon. Friends the Members for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds), for Newcastle-under- Lyme (Paul Farrelly), for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods), for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger), for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) and for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson). I hope to pick up on some of the points that they made.

The hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Paul Uppal) made the perfectly fair point that barriers to widening access to education are not simply about finance, but I hope that when he reflects on his intervention he will recognise that a substantial cut in the teaching grant—of which more shortly—will have a big impact on the effort to increase participation. My right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham referred to the research by the Sutton Trust, which has long championed better access to the oldest universities—Oxford and Cambridge. It will be interesting to hear the reaction of the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning to the work that the Sutton Trust published and the profound concern it raised about the impact of the Browne review on the ability of universities to increase participation.

My right hon. Friend has also championed the future of Aimhigher. In answer to questions that I tabled about its future, the Minister for Universities and Science made it clear that Aimhigher has made a significant difference to access to higher education for those from low-income backgrounds. I hope that the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning will give us more detail about the future of the widening participation grant. Does he expect it to go down?

I hope that the Minister will deal with the Opposition’s profound concern about the scale of the cut that universities have to contemplate. It has been largely hidden away and not referenced until today’s statement and debate. It is not the 40% spending review cut that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills owned up to, but the 80% cut in the undergraduate teaching budget that is set to have such a profound impact, and is the prime driver behind the increase in fees that we are set to see.

As I said in response to the statement by the Minister for Universities and Science today, we expect universities to lose millions of pounds over the next four years. I hope that he has the courage to recognise that the universities that have done the most to increase participation are set to see the biggest drop in teaching grant funding. As a result of the cut in the undergraduate teaching budget, the university of Bedfordshire is set to lose more than £25 million; Sheffield Hallam university, which serves the constituency of the Deputy Prime Minister, is set to lose £63 million; Leeds Metropolitan university is set to lose almost £61 million; Manchester Metropolitan university is set to lose £60 million; and Liverpool John Moores university is set to lose more than £48 million. A series of universities are set to lose all their teaching grant funding.

In response to the statement from the Minister for Universities and Science today, my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) referenced Trinity Laban, which serves, in part, one of the most deprived communities in London, and is set to lose all of its funding simply because it does not teach science, technology, engineering or maths. There is huge concern in the higher education sector, as I hope the Minister will acknowledge, about how the transition to the new system will work, about the pace of cuts in higher education funding and about the extent to which the income from increased fees will come on stream.

The key question for the Minister is how such a huge cut in the undergraduate teaching budget will help universities to increase participation. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central mentioned that we are one of only two countries in the OECD that is decreasing spending on higher education—we join Romania in that regard. In the US, President Obama wants the highest number of undergraduates in the world to be from the United States by 2020, and he is backing up that commitment with substantial additional investment in higher education and research. France, Germany, our allies in Europe, Australia and our allies in the Commonwealth—all OECD members—are substantially increasing their investment in higher education, because they want to increase and widen participation. They recognise both the importance to their economies of having highly skilled graduates and the social justice argument for ensuring that those from low-income backgrounds can go to university.

Although a huge number of Labour Members are interested in this debate, it is telling that not one Liberal Democrat has turned up to take part. They are skulking away in the corners of the House, no doubt embarrassed by what their party has signed up to. It is extraordinary that back in April the Deputy Prime Minister signed his headline manifesto commitment opposing tuition fees—wanting them abolished—yet he now supports trebling them as part of the package today.

What is the future for the widening participation premium? What will be the impact of much higher fees and loans on mature students? What analysis has the Minister commissioned about the impact of the package announced today on those from low-income backgrounds? What will be the impact on postgraduate teaching, and what will be the impact on people from low-income backgrounds in terms of participation in postgraduate study?

Will the Minister tell the House how the new access agreement that each university will have to sign with the Office for Fair Access will work? Will there be targets in the access agreement? How will they be set? Will the access documents be public, so that universities and those outside the higher education sector can compare like with like? What will be the penalties if universities do not achieve the targets set out in the access agreement? That point was raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham.

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[Mr Hayes]

It is more the case that people who get advice and guidance derive the wherewithal that turns their aspirations into reality because of a familiar understanding of opportunity. Research suggests that people tend to get that wherewithal from social networks or familiar experience. That is why my children will benefit from advantages that I did not have because of my understanding of the options that are available for higher study. The issue is not only about money, although money is part of it and I shall come on to that in a few moments.

[Mr Thomas]

Will the Minister give way?