Higher Education Funding Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Roberta Blackman-Woods
Main Page: Roberta Blackman-Woods (Labour - City of Durham)Department Debates - View all Roberta Blackman-Woods's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Higher Education Funding
Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts(6 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Joseph Johnson
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. It was the increase in tuition fees that enabled us to take the limit off student numbers and release student number controls. That change is what has driven the sharp increase in participation in higher education by people from lower socioeconomic deciles. It has driven a huge expansion of people from disadvantaged backgrounds getting a chance to go through university and higher education. The Labour party’s policies would reverse all that progress.
Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
It is right that the Government have frozen tuition fees, but I wonder whether I could nudge the Minister to go a bit further and get rid of this unsustainable fees system altogether. When is he going to guarantee that universities and their funding will not be adversely affected in any way by the changes the Government are proposing?
Joseph Johnson
Universities are well funded. As I said in my opening remarks, funding per student per degree is up by 25% since the reforms the Government introduced in the previous Parliament. We are confident, having assessed the financial position of our institutions, that they can sustain a freeze in the level of fees for this coming financial year and that is the policy the Government set out.