Business of the House

Luciana Berger Excerpts

Thursday 4th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He will know, having listened to statements by Treasury Ministers, that we have had to deal with a large number of commitments by the outgoing Government for which the resources were not made available. On the specific issue, as he knows, Ministers are considering how to implement the judgment and, indeed, how to avoid the fines to which he refers. When the Government have made a decision, the House will be the first to know.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

May I press the Leader of the House? My right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) mentioned that the Minister for Universities and Science has said that non-STEM—science, technology, engineering and mathematics—subjects will lose their teaching grant. Yet in a Westminster Hall debate that I took part in yesterday, the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning said:

“We will continue to support the arts through the subsidy for teaching in universities.” —[Official Report, 3 November 2010; Vol. 517, c. 315WH.]

Please may we have an urgent statement on when universities will learn of their funding settlements in order to alleviate the uncertainty that so many universities, teaching staff, students and prospective students are suffering?

[Sir George Young]

Of course I understand the concern that the hon. Lady expresses. She will have heard my right hon. Friend the Minister for Universities and Science say yesterday in his statement that there would be a debate quite soon, after which there would be a vote on the order to raise the caps. That would be an appropriate point for the hon. Lady to raise her concerns again.