Postgraduate Education

Lord Willetts Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to speak in Westminster Hall again, Mr Hollobone, but under your chairmanship for the first time. I hope that I will not need much calling to order during my remarks.

The Minister knows about my long-term interest in higher education and so do my colleagues. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods), truly a good friend and not just formally so, who had the original idea when she asked, “Isn’t it time that we talked about postgraduate education?” thereby inspiring me to request this debate, which I am delighted about and lucky enough to introduce.

I introduce this debate with a fair-minded point of view. Many hon. Members know that I have a long-term interest in education. I chaired the Education Committee under its different names for 10 years and particularly enjoyed my time as the Chair of the Education and Skills Committee, when I had a brief covering higher education, stolen away as it was when I became the Chair of the Children, Schools and Families Committee, which did not have the higher education remit. I have missed it.

Many years ago, I started the all-party parliamentary university group, on which my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham now has a senior position, because it was important that this vital sector in our economy had a good relationship, good conversation and good communication with Members of both Houses of Parliament.

I have a long-term interest. I am now involved in the newly formed Higher Education Commission, chaired by Lord Broers, the first inquiry of which will look at postgraduate education. It is important to discuss that part of higher education because it is a bit isolated—on its own—and we have had a pretty eventful period for undergraduate education over the past months and years. Everyone has been busy looking at student finance for undergraduates, which has led, unfortunately, to our taking our eye off the postgraduate world.

I read somewhere recently that the Minister said—I believe him—that the noble Lord Mandelson could not be persuaded to include the postgraduate sector in the Browne review of higher education. I shall give way to the Minister if he wants to correct me.

[The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)]

In the negotiations that happened under the previous Labour Government, when Lord Mandelson was Secretary of State and I was shadow Secretary of State, I specifically urged that the terms of reference should make it clear that postgraduates, not just undergraduates, were included. The terms of reference included postgraduates, but Lord Browne did not advance any specific proposals. Postgraduates were included in the terms of reference partly at the request of the official Opposition.

[Mr Sheerman]

It is good to get that on the record. Of course, there is barely a page in the Browne report about the postgraduate world.

We desperately need to consider postgraduate education, because higher education can only be considered holistically. Where do we get our students from? What are the qualifications for getting into university? Who is pitching up to be taught as undergraduates in universities? How difficult is it for children of all the talents to get into university and higher education, even into elite research institutions? We have concerned ourselves with many things to do with universities and will continue to do so.

In respect of the changes under the Browne recommendations and the coalition Government’s implementation, there has been a fundamental shift and change in the situation for undergraduates. I will make my remarks today pretty much on an all-party basis, so there will be no hauling over the rights and wrongs of that. We are where we are, but to deny that the new situation for undergraduates does not have real implications for the postgraduate world would be foolish.

In a sense, we are in a bit of a policy vacuum in respect of postgraduate education. I urge the Minister and the Government to set themselves the task of filling that vacuum with something that is innovative, informative and positive. The fact is that, taking the dismal view of the situation at the moment, it might be said—in terms of economics being a dismal science—that the health of our research base could be threatened. The universities are some of this country’s greatest assets. Indeed, if universities were taken out of many of our towns and cities, they would be in a parlous state.

Any hon. Member who saw this week’s review of the health of cities will know that, although there is not entirely a correlation, a city without a university is likely to be in the lower percentile of success as a city. I am greatly concerned about our universities being threatened in any way. My wonderful university of Huddersfield is the largest employer in the town. It is a vast, expanding and developing university in the top 10 for employability and for widening participation. It is debt-free, successful and is developing and expanding, with strengths right across the arts, the sciences and design—in almost every subject that can be thought of—but with a practical bent in most departments.

Looking across the university estate, the problems faced by postgraduate education are different depending on where it sits. Universities are at the heart of our national wealth and well-being and are absolutely at the heart of the likelihood of our economy remaining diverse and successful. I shall speak about the threat to our research base, particularly in respect of the science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects—big science—and will come to that in a moment.

Higher education is going through a period of uncertainty and change, with the new funding arrangements coming from the Browne report and the reduction in funding for teaching—the £9,000 cap. That is the situation that we are in.

I would be happy if the Minister mentioned something that we all discussed at some length when the Government produced the White Paper, “Higher Education: Students at the Heart of the System”. I told the Minister that I was a bit worried about that, because he kept saying that students had to be in the driving seat. When I worked for a living—[Interruption.] That is supposed to be an amusing aside. When I worked for a living I used to be a university teacher and I have reflected on the fact that, when students pitched up to be taught by me, I expected and thought that teaching staff were in the driving seat. Sometimes our job was to be quite nasty to undergraduates if they did not work hard enough or did not take their courses seriously enough. Part of the university experience is to get some pretty good, firm advice. I was worried that, with the White Paper, we seemed to be moving into a rather soft world, where we treated students as the consumer and the consumer could do no wrong, and we would have to dance around and provide nice soft courses and a lovely three years before students were ushered out into the wide world.

A lot about the students quite worried me, but I was waiting with anticipation for an education Bill. Suddenly, to my great surprise, shock, horror, I had to reach for my iPad and tweet. That is how serious it was. An early tweet—that method of communication provides early news—informed me that there would not be an education Bill any time soon. Today is a splendid opportunity for the Minister for Universities and Science to put us right. There have been rumours that a Bill will not be presented for two or three weeks, two or three years, or until 2013-14. There are also rumours that the Liberal Democrat part of the coalition has said, “No, no, no”, and that it will not be this side of an election. If the Minister wants to enlighten us, I will happily give way.

[Mr Willetts]

The Government will set out authoritatively our position on how we will implement our reforms in the White Paper very soon, but not in response to the bait being offered by the hon. Gentleman at this very moment.

[Mr Sheerman]

I think the Minister has gone as far as we can persuade him to go. Perhaps there is time for reflection, because there was almost nothing about postgraduate research in the White Paper, and perhaps this is an opportunity to cover that. If the higher education sector is not considered holistically, something is very wrong indeed. It should be considered from when students are recruited right through to PhD, doctorate and post-doctorate level.

I am sure, Mr Hollobone, that you took part in the Royal Society’s twinning scheme between research scientists and Members of Parliament. It was one of my most enlightening activities as a Member. One realises what a precious resource it is when young people have come through university, obtained a brilliant first degree, are encouraged to go on to a master’s degree, followed by a full research doctorate, and then post-doctoral work. In my placements when I have been part of the scheme under the last Government and now, it is a worry that if there is no continuous educational progression, the research stream starts to dry up. Post-docs get to a stage when they are getting on bit, they are married, they have a couple of kids and they are finding it hard to maintain a decent standard of living, and if there are no full-time scientific research positions or academic posts that are well paid, or relatively well paid—we are not talking bankers here—the whole system starts to look very thin indeed.

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[Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your lively chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, and to respond on behalf of the Opposition to what has been an excellent debate.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) on securing this important and timely debate. He delivered his speech with passion and conviction, and he has a deep commitment to this area of policy. Indeed, he bought additional expertise to the debate, given his involvement in the Higher Education Commission, which is currently conducting an inquiry into postgraduate education. I am sure that all Members of the House look forward to the commission’s report, which will be produced once that inquiry is complete. However, having congratulated my hon. Friend on securing the debate, I must also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods), who initiated the form-filling that helped to secure the debate.

My hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield spoke very powerfully about the importance of postgraduate education and the fact that it has been somewhat isolated in the context of the current debate about university education. He also made the important point that higher education should be looked at holistically, and he is absolutely right about that. In addition, he spoke about the impact that the presence of a university has on the city and region in which it is located, and I too can relate to the experience of having a university in my constituency, given that Aston university is in my constituency and both Birmingham university and Birmingham City university are just outside my constituency boundary.

My hon. Friend spoke at length about postgraduate research, which I will discuss later. We also had excellent contributions from the other Members who spoke. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) addressed the issues in relation to taught postgraduate courses. He spoke powerfully about issues of access and the effect that widening participation in education can have, especially in improving access to the professions. Having been a barrister before I became an MP, I can absolutely attest to the fact that the professions often feel like middle-class enclaves, and when someone is from an immigrant working-class background—as I am—that is an entirely different kind of world.

My hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham spoke about the role of postgraduate education in strengthening both the academic community as a whole and international research teams, which is a very important point. She also talked about how that speaks to both our role and our reputation in the world. We have always punched above our weight, and we should treasure that. My hon. Friend returned to the important challenge of funding, which I will address later, and my hon. Friend the Member for Luton South (Gavin Shuker) rightly praised the role of modern universities. We are very lucky in this country to have a diverse higher education ecosystem, and we should cherish that diversity of mission, intake and teaching and research strengths.

This has been an important, constructive and necessary debate. Members have already made the point that discussion of higher education in Parliament often focuses on undergraduates, especially on an 18-year-old undergraduate’s journey through the system. That is, of course, extremely important, but it sometimes prevents both recognition of the importance of part-time and mature students at undergraduate level, and adequate discourse about postgraduate education as a whole, which is deeply unsatisfactory. Quite apart from the fact that postgraduate education generates something like £1.5 billion in output, we must, as other Members have said, take a holistic view of the sector if the policies we then formulate are to encourage quality, competitiveness, growth and social mobility.

We very much welcome any expansion of postgraduate education, especially that which took place between 2005 and 2010, as it clearly has benefits for the individual and for society as a whole. Taught postgraduate degrees, particularly when accessed by mature students, can help an individual improve their career prospects or change career entirely, especially with part-time study. Given the tough economic climate we face, coupled with the sheer terror of potential unemployment and what that does to life chances, particularly those of young people, students taking up postgraduate education immediately on completion of undergraduate courses do so increasingly because of the growing belief that we need more than one degree to be competitive.

However postgraduate education is accessed, and for whatever reasons, taught postgraduate education creates an increase in the national skills base and in earning capacity, and in that way benefits the economy and growth. Also essential to innovation and economic growth is research-based postgraduate education, through which we have the best chance of stimulating the kind of innovation we need to effect the rebalancing of our economy and get back to long-term growth, and we believe that the Government can and should play an active role in that. The UK’s delivery of global research output is second only to that of the United States, which demonstrates the health of our sector and the fact that, as I said earlier, we punch above our weight in the world, but with increasing competition from across the globe the Government must ensure that we keep pace with our competitor countries. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central made an important point about the ageing demographic make-up of the research community, and such issues highlight the need for the Government to bring forward a strategy that maintains the strength and diversity of our research base, especially given the reliance in some parts of the sector on international students, welcome though their contribution is.

One of the biggest areas of concern, as we have heard today, is funding. Funding concerns have been amplified by the Government’s decision to treble undergraduate tuition fees to £9,000. We are concerned not only about the impact that that will have on access to and participation in undergraduate education, but about what higher levels of undergraduate debt will mean for postgraduate education. With cuts in the teaching grant and higher fees, the debt burden gets ever higher, and so too does the prospect that students from deprived backgrounds, who are more likely to be debt-averse, and mature students with family commitments will be locked out of postgraduate education, thereby cementing the dominance of the middle classes. Particularly telling is the situation of those who would have become mature students but are deciding not to bother with postgraduate education because of the higher fees and the associated debt burden. Their aspirations are being blocked because they have come to the view that financially it simply is not worth the risk. That will also have an impact on social mobility, especially when we consider, as other Members have said, that postgraduate education is an important route into professions such as law and the civil service, which are rightly and regularly criticised for the lack of diversity among their intake. That scenario will only get further entrenched in the present situation.

It is in that context that we have argued that the Government should have changed course, to bring the cap on undergraduate tuition fees down to £6,000, a measure paid for by not going ahead with a corporation tax cut for the banks, and by asking the top 10% of graduates to pay a bit more.

[Mr Willetts]

Will the hon. Lady confirm that her proposals would not reduce graduates’ monthly repayments of student loans in any way?

[Shabana Mahmood]

The important point is about the headline level of debt, which I was coming on to make. Our proposal takes into account, and does not change, the Government’s decisions on the overall budgets. It clearly shows that it was still possible for them to do more to bring down the headline level of undergraduate fees by one third, thereby reducing the overall debt burden, which in turn would have had less impact on the numbers of people going into postgraduate education.

We welcome the attention being given to future funding options for postgraduate education by various bodies, such as the Higher Education Commission. I also note the report by CentreForum and its proposal for a £10,000 state-backed loan scheme for people taking one-year taught postgraduate courses, and that the National Union of Students and others are considering possible packages. We welcome the work being done to develop models for the sustainable funding of postgraduate education, and while alternative models are being developed and their viability assessed the Government can and should consider what more they can do to encourage the availability of professional career development loans, and to ensure that they work with banks to get the best possible deal for postgraduate students.

The Government’s White Paper on higher education unfortunately barely mentioned postgraduate education. It certainly did not create any legislative space for the discussion of issues affecting postgraduate education, or of how those issues might be dealt with. That was a mistake, and a missed opportunity. I note that the Minister reconvened the Smith review last year, and that additional work will now be done by the Higher Education Funding Council for England, so perhaps the Minister will take the opportunity today to update us on that funding consultation exercise being undertaken by HEFCE, and the participation review.

It is clear from the contributions to this debate and from the concerns highlighted by the higher education sector that a comprehensive strategy for postgraduate education is needed. We have, as other Members have mentioned, heard rumours in the past couple of days that the Government have U-turned on their policy of expanding the presence of for-profit providers in higher education, and so will not now introduce their planned higher education Bill this summer. The Minister might, therefore, have a bit more time on his hands, and could have even more if he heeded our call not to make any further changes to the core and margin model in 2013-14, allowing the sector to enjoy a year of stability. I wonder if the Minister might take this opportunity to redirect his energies into preparing the comprehensive postgraduate education strategy that is being called for by so many.

[The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)]

Thank you very much, Mr Hollobone, for chairing this debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) on his opening speech. I have always had a soft spot for him; I remember his chairmanship of the Education Committee, and he was also a student of Michael Oakeshott, so all we Tories have great respect for him. We then heard a series of speeches, which I welcome, from the hon. Members for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) and for Luton South (Gavin Shuker), and then from the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood). There was a theme, which I am happy to join in the support of, that postgraduate education is very important for a lot of reasons. It is very important for the economy, and for the individuals.

I can tell the hon. Member for Sheffield Central that I was talking to senior managers from Boeing about their overall strategy for research and development. They said that when they were planning an investment in the US, they were taking some leading figures from American universities close to where they were investing to Sheffield, to see at first hand how business-university collaboration could be done successfully. We can get it right, and we should celebrate those examples. Clearly, great achievements have been made at the university of Sheffield and elsewhere.

We have an important and valuable postgraduate education experience. I realise that there are a range of concerns in the sector, expressed by Members in this debate, about the future funding of postgraduate study. Let me make several things clear. First, it is unhelpful to think of it as a problem caused by a pile of undergraduate student debt. The more one looks at the issue, the more it is clear that the idea of a debt mountain that is a burden on people’s shoulders is misleading. It should be thought of not as a debt but as a flow of payments. The model, which we took in many ways from the previous Labour Government, has the best features of a graduate tax. It is essentially 9% of any earnings above £21,000 a year until the cost of the university education is paid for. If a child of mine were leaving university with £25,000 in debt on his or her credit card, I would be worried, recognising that it would threaten their ability to borrow, for example, to pay for postgraduate education if necessary. However, that is not a fair analogy with our student finance proposals.

[Paul Blomfield]

Does the Minister not accept that he is trying to appropriate the language of a graduate tax to describe a system that is actually nothing but an income-contingent loan? He mentioned the central principle of graduate tax. Graduate tax is a system whereby people pay back according to what they can afford, as opposed to what they had to borrow to go to university.

[Mr Willetts]

The total amount to pay back is determined by the cost of the higher education, and it keeps the connection with the university. That is where I part company with the graduate tax. The point that I am trying to make is that graduates will experience only a slightly higher deduction from their pay packet by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, and if their income ever falls to less than £21,000, no payments whatever will be made. That matters to the debate about postgraduate education. I am not simply trying to reopen the debate on our undergraduate proposals.

The idea seems to be that it will be harder for postgraduates to finance themselves, because they will suddenly have an enormous amount of debt. In all the conversations that we have had with lenders about, for example, graduates’ ability to access a mortgage, they have said that what lenders look at is fixed monthly repayments. We have increased the threshold for repayments from £15,000 to £21,000, so the monthly repayments under our system have fallen compared with the system that we inherited from Labour. That matters to postgraduates’ ability to fund themselves. That is the source of Opposition Members’ anxiety: a misunderstanding of the implications of the reforms.

Nevertheless, I accept that there is concern about postgraduate issues. We recognise the need to monitor closely what is happening, investigate if problems arise and be absolutely clear what they are and what will need to be done about them. Today, we published the letter that we sent to the Higher Education Funding Council for England with the grant statement for the coming year. A paragraph in that letter specifically discusses postgraduates:

“We are pleased that the Council is taking the lead on gathering evidence to improve our understanding of the purpose and characteristics of, and outcomes from, postgraduate study, with the intention of reviewing postgraduate participation following the changes to undergraduate funding.”

We accept that it must be monitored.

“We also note the progress the Council is making, with its HE Public Information Steering Group”

on better information for postgraduate students. Also, of course, we refer to continuing

“work on strategically important and vulnerable subjects”.

[Mr Sheerman]

Where can we get hold of that letter? We would like it urgently. I also remind the Minister, who always mentions that I studied under Michael Oakeshott, that I was also taught by Ralph Miliband.

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[Mr Willetts]

That in turn gives the hon. Gentleman an opportunity to educate the junior Milibands. The letter was published today on the website of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

We have asked HEFCE to monitor the situation. I accept that one finds when one digs into the matter that we need better access to data. Some data are collected by the Higher Education Statistics Agency, and some by HEFCE. The hon. Member for Luton South, in particular, discussed that. We need to do better at making those data accessible.

I have asked officials to continue to consider all the policy issues on postgraduates. This is a coincidence, I think, but this very afternoon—probably as we speak—a round table discussion on postgraduate education is being held with BIS, HEFCE, the research councils, the learned societies, mission groups and other interested parties. We recognise the importance of watching for any effect on behaviour and seeing whether any policy proposals are called for. However, we must not forget that at the moment, postgraduate education is a mixed economy.

Of course there will be a lot of interesting ideas. People have referred to Tim Leunig’s paper for CentreForum, one of the few policy ideas proposed so far. I would welcome a more wide-ranging debate, but good for Tim Leunig for setting it going.

I do not think that there is scope under any political party for the creation of a new public spending programme. We would have to be very careful. We already support postgraduate education and research through a range of expenditure programmes, not just through HEFCE, although that alone contributes to the cost of supervision to the tune of £200 million. We also support postgraduate work through the research councils, and the proportion of PhD students training in cohorts through centres for doctoral training is increasing. Those centres have been shown to have value for students. They develop people who are internationally competitive and more productive and have a high impact.

Only yesterday, at the university of Reading—again, this is a coincidence—I announced a £67 million new investment in postgraduate training and development in the biosciences. Over the next three years, the doctoral training partnerships that I launched yesterday will support 660 four-year PhD students, as well as 70 other postgraduate studentships from this autumn. Those programmes aim to ensure that postgraduate study and research in the UK continue to have strength and depth.

The coalition recognises the value of the postgraduate experience to both the individual and the economy. We recognise that it is a key part of our universities’ role, and that it has grown more rapidly than the undergraduate experience. It is a source of important revenue, notably external revenue, for our universities. We will collect more data on participation than previously. We are continuing to see what policy options are available if they should be necessary, but we must work within a framework. We do not wish to create a new public expenditure programme when, historically, the mixed economy has worked successfully.