Office for Fair Access

Debate between Stephen Williams and Vince Cable

Monday 20th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Williams (Bristol West) (LD)]

Fair access, particularly to research-intensive universities, is of paramount importance, because it is from that body that the media, the professions, and membership of this House are drawn. In the four and a half years that I shadowed higher education for the Liberal Democrats in the last Parliament, I met more than 100 vice-chancellors, and Les Ebdon sticks in my mind as someone who is passionately committed to the agenda of widening participation and fair access in particular. I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the appointment, and I hope that he will give Professor Ebdon all the support that he will need for the very important job that lies ahead.

[Vince Cable]

Yes, indeed. Despite the considerable cuts that the Government have had to make as part of fiscal consolidation, we have made commitments to increase the resources available to OFFA and substantially to increase the scholarship programme, of which my hon. Friend is aware and, I think, was one of the architects.

Green Investment Bank

Debate between Stephen Williams and Vince Cable

Tuesday 24th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

The bank is a UK-wide institution that will apply in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, so I do not see any problems of that kind. As regards the cross-border aspects, the hon. Gentleman raises an interesting legal question that I will need to look at carefully.

[Stephen Williams (Bristol West) (LD)]

I very much welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. He mentioned future milestones in the setting up of the bank, one of which will be its location. At the risk of exposing him to a civic beauty parade from all around the Chamber, he mentioned three cities, two of which are political capital cities that already have many national institutions. Is there not a clear and compelling case for the new green investment bank to go to the green capital of the United Kingdom—the city of Bristol?

[Vince Cable]

I am not sure that I am yet in a position to be a beauty parade judge, but they are all beautiful cities, including Bristol.

Tuition Fees

Debate between Stephen Williams and Vince Cable

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

I thought that that intervention might be worth waiting for, but the hon. Gentleman merely echoes his next-door neighbour on the Opposition Benches, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood), to whom I have given an answer.

I have sought to answer in correspondence some of the questions that the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen has asked, and I am happy to debate the technical points and to correspond further with him, because my colleagues should rightly have as much information as possible. That is how we intend to approach the debate. He said that the costings and calculations were not made available, but they have been made available—to him, his colleagues and the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The models are very complex ones that produce different outcomes depending on assumptions, and we are very happy to share them. We could have hidden them in a black box and pretended that the outcomes were true, but we have shared the assumptions and analysis and are happy to continue to do so.

[Stephen Williams (Bristol West) (LD)]

Debates at elections and the Browne report’s methodology have been mentioned several times, but is not one of the fundamental flaws in the deliberative process that Lord Browne went through the fact that, although the report could have been published before the general election, the then Secretary of State, Lord Mandelson, deliberately made sure that we could not have a constructive debate during the campaign, because the Labour party knew that the report paved the way for a rise in fees?

[Vince Cable]

Well, my hon. Friend knows the background, as he was shadowing the portfolio at the time and spoke to the individuals involved. He makes that point, and it is useful that I finish on this note—

Higher Education and Student Finance

Debate between Stephen Williams and Vince Cable

Tuesday 12th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

We will certainly look at that suggestion, but I have not heard any detailed, practical proposals from the right hon. Gentleman or anyone else on the subject. A good many courses at university, particularly apprenticeships at university level—at skill level and full level—are funded by employers, and I am sure that we would want to see that extended.

[Stephen Williams (Bristol West) (LD)]

I also thank Lord Browne for his report, and am thankful for the influence of the Secretary of State and Liberal Democrats in the coalition Government; it has made the report rather more progressive than the original commissioners might have envisaged when the remit was set. Much of the attention has been on collection arrangements once people graduate, but far more attention needs to be paid to young people much earlier in the graduate journey, when they are teenagers making their decisions in, say, the deprived parts of Sheffield or Bristol, or even in the south Wales valleys. Will my right hon. Friend undertake to ensure that much more attention is given to that stage, so that children from poorer backgrounds see that university is for them?

[Vince Cable]

Yes, absolutely, and that message fits in with the broader direction of Government policy on education. The simple truth is that very large numbers of people are being failed by the school system at present. They have to find a second chance, for example in further education colleges. That direction of policy—particularly with the idea of the pupil premium, which will help people through the school system—is very much part of our thinking, and we intend to carry that philosophy into the university sector.