Universities: Funding and Employment

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd April 2025 Westminster Hall

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Vickers. There is a real mismatch between the Chancellor’s growth agenda and the policies impacting the higher education funding landscape that we inherited. As has been highlighted, every £1 of public investment into university research generates £14 in economic output—but scale up, add in the direct, indirect and productivity overspill, and we are talking about £15.2 billion returned to the Exchequer from a £2.49 billion investment. The N8 Research Partnership universities have an economic impact greater than the whole of the premier league. We know that this is of significant value, and we must honour that. If £1 billion is deducted from UK Research and Innovation investment, we are talking a 42% fall in that return. That is poor for the economy and the UK industry, and catastrophic for universities and students—22,000 jobs could be lost. That must not happen.

We also must be aware that the demands of UK industrial ambition far exceed the supply of graduates that we are currently producing. We are all alerted to the falling roll that will hit higher education by 2030—another 11 million graduates will need to be found to fuel our economy into the future—yet last year we saw 5,000 jobs cut in the academic year. This is a real challenge. If we are going to realise the knowledge and scientific, innovative and technical opportunity that this country presents to the world, we must have a global outlook on the investment we must make into higher education.

There have been many factors impacting universities, many of which we have heard. On international students, I urge the Minister to make representation to the Home Office to ensure that dependants can accompany academics and students as they come to this country, and that we look again at visa costs and NHS surcharges. That will enable people to come our country to put in to it and bring benefits—including the economic benefit that we know has been deeply damaged with the change in visa rules.

We also must address our relationship with the EU, which we got so much out of. We must address a deeper relationship with Horizon, look at Erasmus again, and ensure that we are getting the very best academics, researchers, staff and students from across the EU. We must also give our students the opportunity to travel overseas and make it more attractive to engage in higher education.

The pain has been felt in York. There are two universities in my constituency: York St John University has removed 70 vacant posts and deleted 30 posts, while the University of York has already seen 273 leave. I know from talking to the unions just last week that the pressure is there once again. It is having a real impact on staff and academics as well as students. We know about the mental health challenges and the stress that people are experiencing, and those workloads are going up.

[Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)]

As an academic in recovery, currently working as a visiting professor at Royal Holloway, University of London on Monday mornings before Parliament sits, what the hon. Lady is saying resonates with me very powerfully. Today, Royal Holloway announced a voluntary severance scheme. I remember that moment in 2016, after the Brexit referendum, when our international student numbers fell off a cliff. Britain cannot claim to be a genuine world leader in many things, but in our university sector we absolutely can. We have the second largest number of Nobel prizes of any country. Does the hon. Lady agree that, to paraphrase Joni Mitchell, we won’t know what we’ve lost until it’s gone?

[Rachael Maskell]

I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman, and thank him for participating in this debate and bringing his experience. The referendum was nine years ago, and the country was in a very different place then. We must address that, but also look at opportunities to put funding into the sector.

It is clear that the funding model is broken. We know that students cannot continue to pay higher tuition fees, and nor should they. The funding model needs to shift. I support a progressive taxation system, because whether someone earns more money because they are a graduate or through other means, I believe the more they earn, the more they should put into the system. In York, where the cost of living is exceedingly high, students are breaking. They are working more hours than they are studying, and as a result some are not even able to complete their course. That is not the kind of education system that we want, so we must revisit the funding model. Tweaking around the edges is not enough. We are missing opportunities for the economic future of our country. In York, there are the bioeconomy, digital and advanced rail opportunities, safer automation and the digital creative sector. They need these graduates and academics, and we need our universities to remain.