Funding Higher Education

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 28th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Paul Blomfield]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Clearly, we are at one on that issue.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I apologise for being late for the debate, Mr Hosie. My hon. Friends make an interesting and important point. In Coventry, universities make a major contribution to the local economy, for example. Very often, we find that students are also helpful to community organisations. Sometimes, someone who is doing a law course can give unofficial advice, which is helpful, given the situation we now face with cutbacks. The other point is that further education has taken a bit of a hit as well. In Coventry, there have been 27% cuts.

[Paul Blomfield]

I have visited the university that my hon. Friend represents. It does particularly innovative and good work in supporting small businesses and is a leader in the sector. He makes an important point. At a time when one of the issues we face as a country is the imbalance in the economy between London and the south-east and the rest of the country, universities offer a unique asset in ensuring that economic growth is distributed across the country. They are the one asset that we have in every part of the UK, in its regions and nations. The role that they play in driving economic growth is hugely important. My hon. Friend makes that point very well.

I have three additional points. First, will the Minister answer the question—which the Education Secretary was unable to in the statement the other day—relating to widening participation and fair access funds? There is a concern that one of the ways in which the sector will be squeezed in order to hit ambitions on fees is by reducing the amount of money allocated to widening participation and fair access. Investment in that area was one of the few good things that came out of the 2012 reforms, so I would be grateful if he could give a reassurance on that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Blomfield]

I thank the Minister for that intervention. As we said earlier, fairness of opportunity and the choices available depending on where a person lives are issues in the current system. The widening participation and fair access programmes are hugely important, and I am grateful for the Minister’s assurance that not one penny will be taken from those areas of funding.

I endorse the point that the hon. Member for South West Devon made about nursing, midwifery and allied health courses. When we had a debate on the Government’s proposals in this Chamber previously, some of us challenged the Government and said that taking away bursaries and introducing fees for those courses would lead to a drop in applications. The then Minister, who is no longer a Member of the House, assured us that what the Government were trying to do—you couldn’t make it up, Mr Hosie—was share the benefits of the funding system for other undergraduates with nursing and midwifery courses. Share the benefits! Some of us questioned whether a £50,000 debt was a benefit, and warned of the sort of drop in applications that we are now seeing. I hope the Minister will tell us that the decision about the funding arrangements for nursing, midwifery and allied health courses will be reconsidered as part of the funding review, and that the Government will put on hold the current proposals to extend those arrangements to other health courses that are not currently subject to fees and loans. The Minister is obviously aware of those areas. The Opposition have tabled prayers seeking a halt to those proposals.

As the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) said, a number of things are coming together and will cause an enormous crisis in the NHS, but that is not the only issue. Nursing, midwifery and allied health courses are one of the few areas for second-chance education. They are dominated significantly by mature students, who see them as a route into a professional career and personal advancement, which is not available through the 2012 funding system. Since the 2012 funding system was introduced, there has been a significant drop in the number of mature students.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

We have raised the issue of education maintenance grants many times in this place. Women often have an ambition to go into nursing when their children grow up, and they are affected because they cannot get education maintenance grants. This is a very important issue, and once again women are carrying the can.

[Paul Blomfield]

Again, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. From the point of view of the needs of the NHS and the opportunities for mature students, and just for the sake of justice, we need to look again at nursing, midwifery and allied health courses.

I will make my third point very briefly, because this is a much bigger topic. I raise this issue as co-chair of the all-party group on international students. Universities’ financial stability is partly based on this country’s enormous success in attracting international students to come and study here. Those numbers are flatlining as a result of measures taken by the Home Office and the inclusion of international students in the net migration numbers, which inevitably leads to policy decisions that discourage international students. The Minister will say that the numbers are holding roughly up, but holding roughly up is not good enough in a growing market, because it means a relative decline.

There is a huge risk as we leave the European Union, because some 125,000 of our 450,000 international students come from the EU, and most universities are modelling on the basis that we will lose about 80% of them. One third of non-EU students said before the referendum that if we chose to leave the European Union, they would find the UK a less attractive place to come to. The Government need to put in place measures within the framework of the strategy to actively encourage more international students. They can start by removing them from the net migration targets.