Higher Education

Debate between Sharon Hodgson and Paul Farrelly

Wednesday 3rd November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Hodgson]

That is an important part of the debate, but it has not been discussed yet, and I certainly hope that the Minister will refer to it in his closing remarks. Even during my time as an MP, I have seen a change among the people who have applied to work for me as a researcher, with those who apply now having chosen not to do postgraduate qualifications for the reason that my hon. Friend sets out. Degree-level qualifications will therefore probably be the maximum attainment for some children from working-class backgrounds.

I want now to touch on the education maintenance allowance. At the same time as the current changes are being made, the Government are planning to overhaul the EMA system, which has been instrumental in ensuring that talented young people from less well-off backgrounds get the necessary qualifications to apply to university in the first place. There was a debate on this subject in Westminster Hall yesterday, which was secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West (John Robertson). He is a great advocate of the EMA, and I see from Hansard that he put the case for its retention impeccably, so I will not repeat it.

My hon. Friend has plenty of evidence to back up his case. The evaluation of the roll-out of EMA showed that it reduced the level of those not in education, employment or training and encouraged those receiving it to work harder. Indeed, Institute for Fiscal Studies research showed that attainment among recipients has increased by 5% since the introduction of the EMA. If the Government remove something that encourages less well-off children to stay in further education and to aim higher, and they couple that with huge disincentives to apply for higher education, applications from that group will almost certainly drop significantly, particularly to the better universities.

[Paul Farrelly]

In his intervention, the Minister talked about the importance of encouraging further applications. When I was growing up, I was one of those people whose family encouraged them to go out to work at 16. The EMA, which I argued for in my maiden speech in 2001, has been really important in changing that, but the Government gave us no indication of the implications of scrapping it when they announced the changed regime today.

[Mrs Hodgson]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I always tell people that the EMA would have been the one extra thing that would have given me the confidence to resist the push to go out to work, because I would have had just that little bit of money that was mine.

I note from Hansard that the Minister who answered yesterday’s debate tried to shift the blame for the decision to remove the EMA on to the previous Labour Government, much as I expect the Minister, unfortunately, to do today. The fact is that there are alternatives to those choices that have been made—ones that would have put more of the burden on the people who caused the situation that we are in, rather than on a generation that has had nothing to do with it.

The Minister for Universities and Science is not representing the Government here today, but he is apparently the author of an interesting book called “The Pinch”. I regret to say that I have not had time to read it yet, although perhaps a friend will be watching the debate and get me a copy for Christmas—if they do, I will be sure to pop along to the office of the Universities Minister to request an autograph. In his book, he argues that his generation—it is not quite my generation, because I am not that old—has benefitted from all the things that it is now unwilling to fund for the current generation and the next generation, including subsidised higher education. Does he not think that the Government’s reforms enforce that attitude, which he clearly sees—or saw—as hugely detrimental to young people?

I have a copy of today’s statement by the Universities Minister; he spoke of introducing a progressive system. The only progress that I can see between when he wrote his book and his speech today is a kind of backwards progress, which is, I believe, an oxymoron—a bit like his claim that the Government’s changes are progressive.