Higher Education and Research Bill

Roger Mullin 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 feel as though we are already delving into the Bill Committee debate that will no doubt take place on this clause. I welcome the House’s engagement with the Bill. It is important to get it right, and we will have an important debate to make sure that it is properly structured. I look forward to the Bill Committee debate when Parliament returns after the recess.

[Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Justine Greening]

I will take one more intervention before I make some progress.

--- Later in debate ---

[Roger Mullin]

I welcome the Secretary of State to her new post, and I look forward to her future briefings on the Scottish education system being more accurate. May I provide some insight into one aspect of collaboration, which could usefully be strengthened? Twenty-five per cent. of all students who enter higher education in Scotland do so through the college sector, and many colleges are in collaborative arrangements with universities. We have 2+2 arrangements, as we call them—two years in college, and two years in university—and so on. That is something that the English system could well have a look at.

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Gentleman makes a further point about the need for universities to be part of their broader communities. It is probably worth my setting out how much I welcome the fact that the further and higher education briefs are now part of a broader Department for Education brief, which makes us well placed to look across the piece at how the institutions that help to develop our young people’s talent and potential can work effectively together, as well as with broader communities.

Thanks to the reforms we introduced in the last Parliament, the entry rate for young students from disadvantaged backgrounds is at a record level. In the final year of the last Labour Government it was around 14%, and today it stands at almost 19%. But we need to go further. As the Prime Minister said last week, this Government

“will do everything we can to help anybody, whatever your background, to go as far as your talents will take you.”

This legislation supports the key principle that higher education should be open to all who have the potential to benefit from it, but this has to be about more than just accessing opportunity. Although application rates for students from disadvantaged backgrounds are at record levels, we want to ensure that those students are supported across their whole time at university. Too many disadvantaged students do not complete their courses, for various reasons, and universities can and must do more to help them to get across the finishing line. That will allow them not only to gain the degree that they set out to get, but to reap the career rewards of doing so.