Higher Education Policy

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

It is illuminating to follow the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes). His transformation from critic to passionate advocate is part of the extraordinary nature of the road that the Government have been travelling along with this policy. It is almost surreal.

As a new Member almost a year ago, I expected that the Government would put forward policies with which I disagreed, but I had expected that they would at least be carefully considered, carefully evaluated, thoughtful and mindful of their impact. That was not so. The Minister for Universities and Science said earlier that the Government have a plan, but it seems that that plan is increasingly shaped not by Ministers but by events that they do not control and, at many levels, do not understand. Broken promises, conflicting statements and policy shifts: only when the dust settles will we find out the plan, with the publication of the repeatedly delayed White Paper.

Assurances were given to the House when we debated the Government’s plans back on 9 December, but those assurances have proved worthless. Indeed, had the House known then what we know now, who is to say, given the discomfort of some of those on the Government Benches at that time, what the outcome would have been? I recall the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark, in particular, seeking reassurance that £9,000 fees would be exceptional. Let me remind him what the Business Secretary said. He gave the right hon. Gentleman a clear pledge—huh, a Liberal Democrat pledge—that he would not allow the

“migration of all universities to the top of the range.”—[Official Report, 9 December 2010; Vol. 520, c. 547.]

Consistently, the Prime Minister and other Ministers gave assurances that £9,000 fees would be exceptional. So where are we? We have seen precisely the migration that the Secretary of State said that he would not allow. Far from being the exception, £9,000 fees are the norm.

We were told at one stage that fees would average £7,000, then that they were calculated at £7,500, then that they might average £8,000. Now we find that the average fee is likely to be just £360 short of £9,000, at the very top end of the range. It did not have to be like this, however. The situation became inevitable because the Government decided to cut the undergraduate teaching grant by 80% without considering the impact or listening to those who knew what it was likely to be. From the outset, vice-chancellors were clear, including many of those who had been browbeaten into supporting the Government’s proposals, that fees of about £8,000 would be needed for their institutions simply to stand still.

[Mr Lammy]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the 80% cut and effective withdrawal of the state from higher education and the funding of arts, humanities and social sciences—there is no other country in the developed world that has made that kind of departure in higher education—will have catastrophic effects in the future?

[Paul Blomfield]

I completely agree. Back in December, the Minister for Universities and Science made the point that this was not about deficit reduction, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) reminded us earlier, but about changing the shape of our system. We stand only with Romania among OECD countries in cutting higher education, and we should be ashamed of that.

As universities have looked more closely at the figures, university councils and governing bodies have exercised the responsibility that they have a duty to exercise by setting the fees that their institutions need. It appears that many in government expected universities to fall into line with their picture of them, with Oxbridge setting fees at £9,000 and other universities ranking themselves where they fitted into the system. But those in government did not understand that university governing bodies would recognise their responsibilities to their students and the communities they serve and would set the fees that they need.

What about widening participation? I stress that this is not simply about Oxbridge. We should credit universities across the sector with the achievements on widening participation that my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State has mentioned. Back in February the Deputy Prime Minister pledged in a BBC interview that Oxford and Cambridge would be given permission to charge £9,000 fees only

“if they can prove that they can dramatically increase the number of people from poorer and disadvantaged backgrounds”

who attend. In the past few days, it has become clear that Cambridge is not in a position, or is not intending, significantly to increase access for poorer students. What are the Government going to do about that? Will they tell Cambridge that it cannot have its £9,000 fees or will they tell the Deputy Prime Minister that he is going to have to confess to another broken promise?

What about the involvement of the private sector? The Minister for Universities and Science confirmed to The Times on Monday that, out of the crisis he is creating for the higher education sector, he expects there to be a bigger role for private sector providers. He has already prepared the ground by awarding university college status to BPP, which is part of the Apollo Group, which is currently being investigated by the United States Higher Learning Commission for deceiving prospective students. Where is the accountability for private sector higher education institutions? They do not face the same requirements on quality, access and numbers, and on the Government’s intentions in relation to the private sector we have had nothing but silence.

In December, the Business Secretary was quoted as saying of the Government:

“There is a kind of Maoist revolution happening in lots of areas like the health service, local government, reform, all this kind of stuff, which is in danger of getting out of control.”

What he failed to say was that the greatest chaos was unfolding in the area for which he is responsible.