Higher Education and Student Finance

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Tuesday 12th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

Of course nobody wishes to stop people travelling to other communities in pursuit of the best course—[Interruption.] I was simply making the point that for many universities, especially those that absorb people from less privileged backgrounds, the students live locally in their home environment. That is the common practice in London, Glasgow and other big cities. It is not true for all, and we do not want a one-size-fits-all system. We merely want to have more flexibility and choice, and that is one of the models available.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

Over the past 10 years, we have seen an 83% increase in the number of children from Walthamstow going on to higher education as a result of the previous Government’s work on increasing participation. If we do not see a similar trend under the new Government and these proposals, will the Secretary of State commit to coming back to the House to justify the waste of potential that that represents to our country?

[Vince Cable]

We certainly regard it as a reasonable challenge to ensure that the higher education system takes a larger proportion of people from disadvantaged backgrounds, and I have made that very clear. On most measures, social mobility declined under the previous Government.