Higher and Further Education

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Tuesday 11th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), who made his case powerfully. Perhaps he forgets, however, that during his time as a higher education Minister, a number of physics and chemistry departments around the country were closed, not least at Reading university. We all need to look to our record on these matters.

The motion deals with tuition fees, but the real issue for debate is social mobility and how we approach it through higher education. My view is that going to university must be about individual academic ability, and not about where someone was born or about their parents’ bank balance. No talented young person should be left behind because of their background. For many people, university is a way of unlocking their potential and becoming socially mobile—essentially, bettering themselves and preparing themselves for a better life. Of course it is worth pointing out that university is definitely not the only route to success, and that many happy and successful careers are pursued by people who do not have a university degree, but I want to focus today on higher education, rather than on further education, apprenticeships and all the other avenues that are available.

For those who are suited to university, regardless of their socio-economic background, sustainable funding arrangements must be in place, coupled with a rigorous admissions process that is based on merit. The Labour party’s rather shrill message this evening has been that the new fees form a barrier to higher education. That, however, is simply not the case. Leading experts in the field of higher education do not consider the new tuition fees to have hit students, particularly students from disadvantaged backgrounds, negatively. The unfair and unworkable situation that Labour prophesied has simply not come to pass. Labour needs to understand that fees are not the real barrier to higher education.

I am pleased that the Opposition have raised this subject for debate this evening, but I am disappointed that the motion fails to deal with the real threat to social mobility that is stalking higher education. That threat is to be found in our schools and their role in failing to secure more admissions to top universities and therefore wider participation. The sad fact is that the poorer people are, the less likely they are to attend one of our top universities. Figures from the Sutton Trust show that a comprehensive school pupil on free school meals is 55 times less likely to attend Oxbridge than those educated at an independent school.

We heard today that four of our universities are in the top six in the worldwide league tables, but if we are to ensure our continued pre-eminent position as a world-class provider of higher education, with world-class institutions equipped with world-class reputations, we must have an admissions regime based on individual academic merit.

I know that, because social mobility is so important, many hon. Members share my concern, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison) has made clear, about the comments of Professor Les Ebdon, the head of the Office for Fair Access. I have held meetings with him and I am willing to give him fair wind and every chance to prove himself in that role. Last week, however, barely 72 hours into his new post, he suggested that, over time, our top universities should have one poor student for every candidate enlisted from the top 20% of households. I would be grateful if the Minister clarified whether that is the Government’s understanding of OFFA’s role. Is it the Government’s desire and expectation that that should happen?

In many respects, this is a laudable aim, but it is completely impossible for universities to deliver it on their own through the many outreach and summer schools and the foundation degrees that they invest in heavily. The implicit threat in Professor Ebdon’s approach to fair access is that targets are to be forced on top universities—regardless of merit. His approach does not seem overly concerned with removing the current barriers to opportunity, which would mean addressing the structural issues. Sadly, Professor Ebdon’s philosophy appears to be that of a social engineer, rather than one to socially enable. He sees his role as “challenging” universities on admissions targets.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman not recognise the role, as prescribed by the Government, of the director of fair access? It is not his responsibility to restructure the entire education system; it is his responsibility to challenge universities on their contribution.

[Mr Wilson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution, which I will deal with if I have enough time.

I fear that Professor Ebdon’s comments on setting “challenging” targets for our most selective universities show that he sees OFFA’s access agreements as a means of forcing institutions into accepting rigid quotas for university applicants. He has said that he is unafraid of using the “nuclear” penalties option available to him through OFFA. Such action would tear this country’s higher education system apart. He is on record as saying to his critics that

“the reason I shouldn’t be appointed was if I got the job, I might actually do it”,

but I think we need to be clear about what that job entails.

In my view—one shared by many of my colleagues—Professor Ebdon’s job is not to interfere with the university admissions process. He favours the deliberate lowering of admissions criteria in order to increase the number of poorer students into elite universities. This is not the way to ensure that our top universities remain the best in the world or to help poorer students. It is, at best, a short-term fix. Instead, we need to enhance opportunity for students from disadvantaged backgrounds by improving the state secondary education system across the board. We need to get more students up to the level necessary for them to apply to our best universities, and when they are, we need to ensure that they actually apply to our top universities.

According to Professor Ebdon,

“Context has to be taken into account if you are going to assess potential.”

I do not disagree with the proposition that individual cases may well require context, but that is a matter for the admission boards at universities, not for state interference, and the universities deal with it very well. The trouble is that Professor Ebdon appears to believe that top universities are deliberately trying to exclude poorer students, and that could not be further from the truth. In contrast to Professor Ebdon, I believe that we must change the context of this debate; and that means driving up standards in state schools, much as the Secretary of State for Education is trying to do. Initiatives such as the pupil premium, free schools and university technical colleges, among many others, make an enormous contribution. The solution to the problem of providing fair access to university is not to be found through heavy-handed outside interference or pontification on fees. It is to be found pre-university, in our state schools.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gordon Birtwistle (Burnley) (LD)]

Two and a half years ago, I arrived in this place and two years ago I was introduced to the Browne report on the future funding of universities, which had been asked for by the previous Labour Government. It was to be studied not only in itself, but when the country faced a catastrophic financial situation. I could not have agreed with the Browne report as it was, because having universities charging unlimited sums was not acceptable to me. So I told the current Secretary of State that I could not agree with it and that he had to do something for the poorer families in the country, particularly those in my constituency. We then got the proposal that we have now, with the change from an unlimited to a limited amount of money. The Browne report, asked for by the Labour Government, was talking about making it unlimited. Now, not only was the amount to be absolutely limited at £9,000, but there would be national scholarships to help young people from families who did not have the funding to go to these places. That has happened quite a lot in Burnley; a lot of young people have gone on these special scholarships, getting their first year and, we hope, their second year free at the colleges.

When I went back to the town to discuss the matter with the young people there, I was astonished to hear that they had been fed the story, particularly by the Labour party, that they would have to find the money up front—that the £21,000 would have to be paid before they turned up on the university doorstep. That was parroted by the Labour party and in some of the press.

[Paul Blomfield]

The hon. Gentleman is making a serious claim against the Opposition. Will he say on precisely what occasion anybody speaking on behalf of my party said that?

[Gordon Birtwistle]

A number of members of the Labour party in Burnley were saying to the young people of Burnley, and convincing them, that they would have to find the money up front. That was obviously not the case, so I told them that they would not have to pay the money up front, that the money would be given to them up front and that no repayments would have to be made until they were earning £21,000. They then asked how much they would have to pay when they were earning £22,000, which is a gross salary of £1,850 a month. When they are on that income, their repayment to the taxpayer for funding their education at university will be £8 a month. When I asked them whether they would mind paying back £8 a month if they had a salary of £1,850 they said, “Of course not. We understood that it would be lots more than that.” I then asked them to assume that they were on a salary of £25,000, which is a substantial salary in Burnley, and so would be collecting more than £2,000 a month. When I asked whether they would then object to paying back £30 a month to the taxpayer who had funded their education at university I was again told, “Well of course not, but that is not what we have been told. That is not the understanding that we have. So we are happy to do it.” I even got the student union rep at the university of central Lancashire to say, “That is far better than what we have now.” The young people of Burnley are getting a better deal now than they had before, and that convinced me to support the proposals in the Bill.

I also compared the number of students who go to university with the total number of students who leave school. About 40% go to university, which means that 60% do not. So I looked at the prospects for those young people who do not go to university—I am thinking of the apprenticeship scheme. I was an apprentice engineer in 1958. Over the past 25 years, various Governments, particularly the last one, took the decision to destroy apprenticeships. They said that they did not need apprenticeships, that they would pray and bow to the City and the finance sector, so never mind the manufacturing sector—let it go. The Indians and Chinese could do the manufacturing and we would just make money out of the finance sector. We all saw what happened to the finance sector: it caught a cold and we all got pneumonia.

We have to support manufacturing, so the Government have invested in 800,000 young people who are now apprentices. Many of them are going to university but are being funded by the companies that they work for, which means that they are getting degrees and have a job, but do not have any debt. That is the kind of forward thinking that the Government should demonstrate and that is what we have had.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I have the privilege of representing both of Sheffield’s great universities. Both are strong in their own parts of the sector, extremely popular and important to the local economy, and both are facing falling applications as a result of this Government’s policies. That is no surprise, because it is in line with the national trend. The deeper concern in the sector, as I have learnt from talking to vice-chancellors over the past year, is not so much about the applications but about the conversion rate. We are now seeing their fears realised. As the final figures are beginning to emerge, it is clear, as has been pointed out, that the rate of people dropping out of the process after submitting applications is now much higher at 16%.

It does not have to be like this, because politics is about choice. The Government are clearly making the wrong choices. Earlier in the debate, the Minister for Universities and Science, on the back foot, simply blamed austerity. Were he here now, I would remind him of his statement to the House in November 2010. In response to questions, he made it clear that the Government’s response to the Browne review was only partly driven by the need to deliver cuts, and was more about “delivering reform” and “remodelling” the sector. Indeed it was: it was about transferring the cost of teaching from the state to students, ending the previous position whereby that responsibility was shared, and making our system one of the most expensive in the world, with fees higher than most universities in the United States.

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Paul Blomfield]

I am sorry, but I will not because of time.

The Government’s response was about withdrawing all public funding for teaching from the majority of courses in the majority of universities, making the statement that arts, humanities and social science courses do not deserve public support.

I am also sorry that the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) is not in his place, because I recall him, in the same debate, seeking and securing a guarantee from the Business Secretary that fees of £9,000 would be the exception, not the norm. They are now the norm, because the Government failed to listen to vice-chancellors when they changed the system. At that time, every vice-chancellor was saying, “We cannot run our institutions at the fees the Government are talking about.”

Amazingly, when university governing bodies fulfilled their responsibilities to their institutions by setting fees at the much higher level that we have seen, it seemed to surprise the Government. It appears that they expected the universities obediently to set their fees according to their perceived quality, with Oxbridge setting the fees at £9,000 and everybody else neatly ranking themselves below. When that did not happen, new policies emerged as quickly as they could be written on the back of a cigarette packet, particularly the core and margin policy. Taking 20,000 places out of the system and selling them off to the lowest bidder does not help students; it simply reduces the student loan obligations to the Treasury. Indeed, it has damaged the position of many students, as universities were encouraged to scrap bursaries to fund fee cuts and create competition for places.

The debate is about not just the sector’s problems but the unfairness caused to students who can least afford it. The problem at the heart of the Government is that the Prime Minister just does not get it. Echoing the comments made by the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham), I recall that at the height of the debate on trebling fees, the Prime Minister tried to defend his policy during a factory visit by asking workers:

“Do you think it is right that your taxes are going to educate my children and your boss’s children?”

It clearly had not crossed his mind that those factory workers might have children who wanted to go to university, had the talent to do so and deserved support.

The damage that the Government’s policies are doing to social mobility is not just at undergraduate level. There is deep concern in our universities that the transition from undergraduate courses to postgraduate taught courses will be affected by higher fees. The Browne review did not consider the issue, but many professions now require a taught master’s qualification and others expect it. If that route is closed to those who cannot afford to add to their debt, we will have taken an enormous step backwards.

The Government’s higher education policy is deeply damaging to our universities and deeply unfair to students, so I hope that the House will support the motion.