Higher Education (England) Regulations

Tom Pursglove Excerpts

Wednesday 13th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend has made the point brilliantly, and of course it is not just about making sure that university is open to young people from disadvantaged families—although it is about that too; actually there is much greater diversity among the young people now able to get to university for the first time, particularly among black, Asian and minority ethnic groups across our country. That is something that we should welcome and be proud of. Moreover, through the Higher Education and Research Act 2017, we are doing more to ensure that once people get to university they stay and complete their courses.

I want to finish my point about Scotland. In that country, which has no fees, as Labour is proposing for England, there are fewer young people going to university. Research by the Sutton Trust found that last year in Scotland the gap between the number of people from the most and least advantaged areas going to university was the highest of any of the home nations of the UK. Disadvantaged young people are less likely to go to university in Scotland than they are here. Labour cannot want to see that happen here, yet under its policy the better-off would still go to university and the worse-off would lose out.

[Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)]

Is it not worse than that? Under Labour, upon leaving university and entering the world of work, people will have fewer job opportunities because when Labour wrecks the economy, much of the recent job growth will be obliterated.

[Justine Greening]

Of course my hon. Friend is absolutely right. The last Labour Government left youth unemployment 30% to 50% higher than when they came in. The ultimate opportunity destroyer in our country is a Labour Government running our economy.

I shall add a further reason why disadvantaged young people would lose out under Labour’s policy: who would pay for those people who did get to university to go to university? It would be some of those disadvantaged young people who had missed out, it would be their families, it would be pensioners—we would all be paying for the cohort of young people most likely to become higher-rate taxpayers to get a degree.