Oral Answers to Questions

Greg Clark Excerpts

Thursday 11th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)]

6. What steps his Department is taking to encourage investment in science.

[The Minister for Universities, Science and Cities (Greg Clark)]

I am looking forward to travelling after Question Time to Birmingham, to the British science festival, where we will reflect on the important contribution that science, research and innovation make to our long-term competitiveness and growth. The Government have ring-fenced the science and research programme at £4.6 billion a year from 2011 to 2016, and we are committed to providing £1.1 billion a year in science capital, increasing with inflation to 2021—the largest ever capital grant to UK science.

[Mr Wilson]

May I take this opportunity to congratulate my right hon. Friend on his new position. Reading university is an outstanding higher education institution and will shortly welcome thousands of new students, who will receive a high-quality education. The university contributes to jobs and growth in the area and is planning a new science park. Will my right hon. Friend assure me that the autumn statement will reflect further support for science and the plans and priorities of universities such as Reading?

[Greg Clark]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s kind words. He has been a great champion of higher education in Reading and across the country. One of my tasks over the next few weeks is to work on the science and innovation strategy, including the science capital consultation, which will be published alongside the autumn statement. That will make clear and reinforce for a 10-year horizon the continuing importance that we attach to science.

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

Manchester is the home of the revolutionary material graphene. This week, we heard the tremendous announcement of a £60 million second hub for graphene in the city. Will the Minister join me and everyone involved in securing that funding, particularly Manchester university and Masdar, the Abu Dhabi clean energy and renewables technology group?

[Greg Clark]

I will indeed. Along with my hon. Friend the Life Sciences Minister I was with the chancellor of the university of Manchester yesterday. I congratulate the vice-chancellor, Nancy Rothwell, and all responsible on securing a huge coup for this country. Having a Nobel prize-winning piece of research located for the future in the UK and in the north-west is a cause for great celebration.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

7. What steps the Government are taking to ensure the value of the minimum wage keeps pace with inflation and encourage firms to pay a living wage.

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[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

9. What steps he is taking to increase access to higher education.

[The Minister for Universities, Science and Cities (Greg Clark)]

Last year, the Chancellor announced that we would remove the cap on the number of university places in 2015-16 so that no bright person who wants to study at a higher level should be turned away. The Government have also put in place a new framework placing more responsibility on higher education institutions to widen access, and that approach is paying off, with more young people admitted to university this year than ever before and a big increase in the number of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

[Oliver Colvile]

Earlier this year, the Government announced plans to create a further education college for nuclear engineering. As my right hon. Friend will know, not only is Devonport home to an engineering university technical college, but its dockyard deals with the refitting and refuelling of nuclear submarines. As he might also know, it faces a real challenge with Hinkley C. What progress is he making in introducing either higher or further education for engineers?

[Greg Clark]

From the work we did on the Plymouth city deal, I know that my hon. Friend is fully apprised of the need to invest in skills in Plymouth. The Government are working with the Nuclear Industry Council to determine the remit and location of a national nuclear college, and we hope to announce some progress later in the year.

[Mr David Willetts (Havant) (Con)]

May I welcome the Minister to his post and congratulate him on those excellent figures for participation in university? Will he confirm, however, that many of the best access initiatives, such as bursaries and summer schools, are financed from the income from fees above £6,000 and that if fees were reduced to £6,000, those excellent initiatives, which have improved participation, would have to be closed?

[Greg Clark]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I pay tribute to him for the work he has done in this field, which is respected on both sides of the House and across all the institutions of higher education. One of the great pleasures of taking this office was to check my desk drawer and discover that there was no note from my predecessor with some unwelcome news. It is a very happy inheritance.

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right: the system we have in place for student finance, which he took through the House, is proving remarkably successful. We have seen record student numbers, and only this week the OECD said that the

“UK is…one of the few”

countries

“that has figured out a sustainable approach to higher education finance”

and that

“that investment…pays off for individuals and tax payers.”

He grasped the nettle and made the reforms, and those reforms are now working.

[Mr Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

I welcome the Minister to his post, and as he rightly acknowledged, he has some big shoes to fill—I, too, pay tribute to his predecessor, the right hon. Member for Havant (Mr Willetts), and the extraordinary work he undertook. I am surprised, however, that he did not leave the new Minister a briefing on the disaster of the student loans system and the £50 billion to £100 billion extra that will now be written off as public sector net debt as a result of the spiralling resource accounting and budgeting charge.

My question today, however, is different. This week, the Minister has to decide whether to abolish the disabled students allowance. All over the country over the next month, disabled students will be applying to Oxbridge and medical schools, and they deserve to know whether they will have good support in place—not just PCs, but people. This week, will he heed the call from vice-chancellors, the National Union of Students and Members on both sides of the House and ensure that disabled students do not have their chance to study—wherever they get into—destroyed by the abolition of that vital allowance?

[Greg Clark]

I second the praise that the right hon. Gentleman gave to my right hon. Friend the Member for Havant, but it is curious that he should reflect in the way he did on the finances of the system. I would have thought that he of all people might have cause to reflect on the state of the finances. Reading his recent pamphlet, I noticed that he said that to win arguments

“we must show that we will spend taxpayers’ money sensibly, effectively and efficiently.”

I wonder whether, on reflection, he would regard that as consistent with his record in government.

On the disabled students allowance, I think everyone here shares the ambition, as I stated in my first answer, that everyone who is capable of benefiting from a university education should be able to do so. That of course applies forcefully to people with disabilities. The decisions we take on support for people with disabilities will be entirely about making sure that they have the support to be able to pursue their studies to the best of their abilities.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

11. How many registered businesses there were in May 2010; and how many such businesses there are now.

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[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

The Department announced the local growth fund recipient projects in July, and, for some bizarre reason, the A64 was left off the list. This has put a real question mark over the chances for rural economic growth across Ryedale and North Yorkshire. Will the Secretary of State review that decision at the earliest opportunity?

[The Minister for Universities, Science and Cities (Greg Clark)]

North Yorkshire did pretty well out of the local growth fund. It has the BioVale campus, which I know my hon. Friend is strongly in favour of. Such was the calibre of the projects that we were able to allocate £6 billion of investment. I am now keen to move on to the next set of allocations, and she has just made a strong pitch for investment in her area.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

I wonder if the Secretary of State would care to amend the reply he gave to me about when the pits closed. Just for his information, between the end of the pit strike in 1985 and the onset of the Labour Government in 1997, 170 pits were closed, out of less than 200. Those are the figures. They cannot be denied, and if he checks the record he will see that I am speaking the truth. On a second issue, is it not stupid to be getting rid of 3,000 mining jobs in the three pits that I have referred to while at the same time importing more coal from Russia when there are supposed to be sanctions? Is there not a stench of hypocrisy here?

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[Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)]

May I ask the Secretary of State about the remuneration of university vice-chancellors, because the entry level appears to be about £160,000 a year? There are 127 vice-chancellors receiving more than £200,000 annually, 33 receiving more than £300,000 and four receiving more than £400,000. What is it about running a university that makes it so much more difficult and so much more remunerative than running the country?

[Greg Clark]

The robust tradition among universities is that they are independent institutions; Ministers do not have the ability to direct them. Universities are now in a competitive environment: they compete for students and with each other for research funds. I am sure that vice-chancellors across the country who are meeting today in Leeds at their annual conference will have the hon. Gentleman’s message relayed to them.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr David Willetts (Havant) (Con)]

I was hoping to ask the Minister about Glasgow and to confirm that in a nationwide competition, Glasgow city won the funding to get £25 million of investment in smart city technologies. Do we not think that the best way for Glasgow to remain a smart city is for it to remain part of the United Kingdom?

[Greg Clark]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Not only did Glasgow win that investment, but I was delighted to sign a city deal with it during the summer that involved the establishment of a new centre for stratified medical imaging in that great city. It is one of the advantages of being part of the United Kingdom that the excellence of Scottish institutions allows them to punch above their weight in terms of population and GDP. The question that is being asked in the Scottish research community is why spoil such a huge success story.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. When university tuition fees were increased, some feared that it would result in a fall in the numbers applying to enter higher education, particularly those from poorer backgrounds. Will the Minister tell the House whether those fears have proved justified?

[Greg Clark]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me the chance to point out that those fears have been completely unjustified. Since 2010, there has been a 17% increase in students from the poorest backgrounds, including an 8% increase in the past year. More students from disadvantaged backgrounds are going to university than ever before, and the gap between the richest and the poorest has never been smaller.

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.