Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of proposed budget cuts to Birkbeck University’s Mathematics and Statistics Department on opportunities for (1) mature, and (2) Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME), students.

Higher education (HE) providers are independent, autonomous institutions responsible for their own decisions on staffing issues, including how they structure themselves to deliver research and teaching priorities. Where it is necessary to reshape their activities, it is important that universities carefully consider the impact of job losses on staff and students, and the overall sustainability of teaching and research in this country.

The department will continue to work closely with the Office for Students (OfS) and various parties, including a variety of HE providers across the sector, mission groups and other Government departments, to understand the ongoing impacts and changing landscape of financial sustainability in the HE sector.

We want to provide a ladder of opportunity for everyone to get the education and skills they need for job security and prosperity and to support levelling up across the country. Access to HE should be based on a student’s attainment and their ability to succeed, rather than background.

The government has issued guidance to the OfS, asking it to refocus the entire access and participation regime to create a system that supports young people from disadvantaged backgrounds by ensuring students are able to make the right choices and to access and succeed on high quality courses that are valued by employers and lead to good graduate employment.

John Blake, as the Director for Fair Access and Participation, is driving forward this important change. Using his experience and expertise from the schools’ sector, he is supporting and challenging providers to identify what will ultimately help students progress on their course and obtain good outcomes from their degree, such as programmes of intervention in schools, summer schools, and targeted bursaries to assist with living costs.

The government is committed to cementing the UK’s status as a science and technology superpower, levelling up across the country.

To achieve this, the UK needs talented people with the right knowledge, skills, and experience. We are investing in programmes that do this at all levels of education, including through:

• My right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister‘s recently announced mission to ensure all pupils study some form of maths to 18.
• Investing an additional £750 million over the next three years to support high quality teaching and facilities including in science and engineering, subjects that support the NHS, and degree apprenticeships. This includes the largest increase in government funding for the HE sector to support students and teaching in over a decade.
• Several government strategies are in place to support our science and technology superpower ambition, in specific areas including the UK Innovation Strategy (2021), the National AI Strategy (2021), and the UK Digital Strategy (2022). They set out how we will strengthen our reserves of talent and skills in order to drive success.