Higher Education and Research Bill

Mike Wood Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Tuesday 19th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I was talking about the changes to degree-awarding powers. For institutions that may currently feel they cannot go down this route because it is simply too complex and long-winded, we will open up the sector to enable great institutions to step up to become, over time, an institution that awards degrees directly and then for excellent institutions to become, after a further three years, a university. This is important for Britain. If we are to be a country in which our young people have the number of places they want at high-quality institutions, with the range of different degrees that they want and that our economy needs, it is important to have a higher education sector that can respond and that is what the Bill seeks to address.

The Bill enables the OfS to require registered higher education providers to have a student protection plan in place. Students will want to know what to expect from their providers if their course of study cannot be delivered. Although some providers currently have student protection plans, the new requirement means that students of all registered providers will be protected.

This Government believe that no one with the necessary ability should be denied a place at university. That is why, for the first time ever, we are providing direct financial support for those undertaking postgraduate masters study. We also intend to extend direct financial support to postgraduate doctoral study and to introduce part-time maintenance loans comparable to those we give to full-time students.

The Bill will make significant improvements to higher education and research, but let me reassure the House that none of these changes will be delivered by undermining other routes into highly skilled employment. We are committed to creating 3 million apprenticeships by 2020, and the Government recently launched the skills plan, which is our response to Lord Sainsbury’s independent review of technical education, setting out an ambitious overhaul of the post-16 skills system. Taken as a whole, those changes will allow young people to make well-informed decisions about their futures, giving them every opportunity to achieve their potential and, at the same time, improving the quality, relevance and value of learning.

I have talked a lot today about teaching and students, but the UK is also a world leader in research and innovation. Established and emerging economies alike look on in envy not just at the quality and breadth of our research, but at our incredible track record of turning innovative ideas into life-changing, marketable products and services. The Government are protecting science resource funding at its current level of £4.7 billion, which will rise in cash terms every year for the rest of the Parliament. At the same time, we are investing in new scientific infrastructure on a record scale, delivering on the £6.9 billion science capital commitment in our manifesto.

Few people understand the research landscape better than the Nobel prize-winning geneticist Sir Paul Nurse. Aside from being an inspirational example of how social mobility can happen in our country, last year he completed an independent review of our seven research councils, recommending that the seven existing bodies be brought together into a single body. The Bill will make his recommendation of

“a formal organisation…which can support the whole system to collectively become more than the sum of its parts”

a reality.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

Coventry University, Birmingham City University and the University of Wolverhampton recently launched a partnership to bring together their applied research and training expertise. Will the Secretary of State ensure that the measures in the Bill to implement Paul Nurse’s recommendations support such innovative collaboration, so that, as she says, the public investment in our research can add up to more than the sum of its parts?

[Justine Greening]

The Bill will help in two ways. Not only will it naturally bring the research councils together under one umbrella organisation; it will give that organisation a much more powerful voice when developing links with the business community. I know from the time I spent in industry before entering the House that the link in Britain between academia and research and business is a strong one, but one that can be strengthened further. As we consider how our country will be successful as we navigate through the Brexit process, making the most not only of our young people’s talents, but of our most world-class research institutions and the brains within them will be key.

The Bill will bring into being a new body called UK Research and Innovation that will strengthen the strategic approach to future challenges, while maximising the value of the Government’s investment of more than £6 billion a year in research and innovation. UKRI will provide a strong, unified voice for the UK’s research and innovation funding system on the global stage, cementing Britain’s world-leading position. UKRI and the Office for Students will work closely together to ensure that there is a co-ordinated, strategic approach to the funding of teaching and research in England.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Marsden]

I will make progress and come to the hon. Lady presently.

Long-established institutions such as Cambridge University have said quite straightforwardly that they do not support the link between the TEF and fees. Cambridge University states:

“it is bound to affect student decision-making adversely, and in particular it may deter students from low income families from applying to the best universities”.

No wonder the Government’s equality analysis had to resort to newspeak, saying that

“TEF is expected to benefit students regardless of their… characteristics”,

in an attempt to meet their public equality duty.

[Mike Wood]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Rebecca Pow]

rose—