Post-18 Education and Funding

James Frith Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me an opportunity to pay tribute to all the work he did as universities Minister. The TEF is a very important reform and is part of the framework from HERA—the Higher Education and Research Act 2017—and the OFS that enables a much more holistic view of quality in higher education. It remains a central part of that architecture.

[James Frith (Bury North) (Lab)]

A Government who abolished maintenance grants for our poorest students commission a review that concludes that we need maintenance grants for our poorest students. That same Government welcome the idea, led by a Prime Minister in her end of days as PM before it is all change for this Cabinet, so how will the Secretary of State make amends for this mess in time and see grants brought back and the best of Augar brought in? This is a ghost ship Government—if it ain’t Brexit, don’t fix it. They do not have a hope for themselves. How can they possibly be the hope for higher education colleges and our students?

[Damian Hinds]

I gently mention to the hon. Gentleman that in his work on the Education Committee he has had an opportunity to look at the variety of what is available in our higher education system, much of which is of the very highest quality and competes with the best in the world. We also need to make sure that everybody is getting good access to that very high quality, that participation in university is widely spread through our society and that we concentrate not just on access to higher education, but on access and successful participation. We need to work more on all those things, but it remains the case that under this Government more young people than ever before have had the opportunity to benefit from a university degree.