Liam Byrne
Main Page: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North)Department Debates - View all Liam Byrne's debates with the Department for Education
(9 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Greg Clark
Our universities need to benefit from the confidence and stability that our reforms have introduced. I am perfectly happy with all the arrangements that we have. The uncertainty comes from the Labour party’s proposals, about which the university vice-chancellors are deeply concerned. They said that they would mean
“cuts to universities that would damage the economy, affect the quality of students’ education, and set back work on widening access to higher education”.
At a time when confidence is needed, the Labour party is proposing chaos.
Mr Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)
Actually, the UCAS figures published recently show that there are 7,000 fewer British applicants to our universities than there were in 2011. Figures from the Library show that we are wasting and writing off £1 in every £2 that we invest in the higher education system, and our students will not pay back their debts until they are in their 50s. We are educating fewer of our young people and we are wasting more of our money.
The Chancellor forecast that there would be 60,000 extra students this year, yet the UCAS data show that there are only 12,000 extra applicants for this September. Does the Minister want to explain to the House why, if his system is so good, he has just missed his growth target by an incredible 80%?
Greg Clark
That is total nonsense. We have more students than ever before in this country. We have been able to take the cap off the number of students able to go to university, a historic decision that implements the recommendation of the Robins report of over 50 years ago. In terms of putting people off going to university, the big concern of the vice-chancellors is that the Labour party’s proposals would specifically damage the prospects of poorer students and risk the quality of education for all. It is time that the right hon. Gentleman, who has failed to come up with a policy for all this time, said, weeks before the election, what Labour’s policy on higher education is.