Adjournment Debate - 03/02/2010 - Available to watch at: http://is.gd/7CAol

Allocation of places at Universities in England

Mr Deputy Speaker – I begin this short debate by putting on record my belief that we have a higher education system in the UK that is truly world class.

A system that over decades – since the Robbins Report in 1963 – has expanded from a small relatively elite one serving some 8% of young people to a mass, semi market driven system serving in England alone 42% of today’s school leavers.

The quite remarkable achievement is that throughout this transformation our universities have retained a world class reputation with four currently in the world’s top ten and 18 in the top 100 .

What is more the recent 2008 Research Assessment Exercise reported 90 per cent of the research submitted has been judged to be of international quality, falling into the top three grades of "world-leading", "internationally excellent" or "internationally recognised".

With 150 universities having at least 5% of their research deemed world leading.

What is more, in arguably the most competitive of academic fields, Science, Engineering and Technology, we remain second only to the US in our output of research and in many areas from particle physics and robotics to bio engineering and genomics our universities are truly world leading.

This debate is about how we provide the nation with the next generations of brilliant scientists, technologist and academics but it is also about providing the nation with a graduate workforce recognized as crucial to our economic well being by Lord Leitch, the UKCES..

Of course relatively few of 1.96 million undergraduates studying at UK (English) universities will go onto academic careers – most will find their way into a variety of careers serving our vibrant public and private sectors.

However one thing is absolutely certain - it will be the development of intellectual capital, honed in our universities that will power the UK out of recession and help resolve the huge global challenges that face us.

As someone who has been close to the sector all my adult life I recognize too just how life changing a university education can be.

Few of us would be where we are today without the opportunities HE can bring . Coming from a small back to back home in Burnley with an outside toilet and one cold water tap I am deeply grateful for the opportunities studying at Carnegie College and then Birmingham University have given me.

Whilst I have always rejected the arbitrary 50% target set by Tony Blair for the expansion of HE I celebrated the ambition that more young people from backgrounds like mine should be encouraged to stay on at school and yes ‘aim higher’ than their peers and their parents.

However as Chair of the ST Committee, I recognise that simply sending more young people to university is not a sufficient goal.

Whilst I would defend the right of young people to choose both university and course according to ability – encouraging more to study Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths at school and then at university has become my passion.

It is a passion shared by our Learned Societies and constantly promoted in this House by the Royal Society of Chemistry and others – to whom we all owe a debt of gratitude.

It is in these areas of science, engineering and technology where students will have the greatest opportunities to contribute to the nation’s economic well being and enrich our society.

And it is in the areas of SET that they will be able to address and contribute to the great global challenges of this century.

Having Mr Deputy Speaker mapped out the key areas of, I hope, agreement –, it has both shocked and saddened me to see the government threaten to dismantle a decade of investment, encouragement and expansion at a time when we need to turn the tap on, not turn it off.

Whilst President Obama is investing billions in fundamental research, and developing, a scientifically literate workforce as part of his economic stimulus package – our government is appearing to do the opposite.

Yesterday when I challenged the PM at the Liaison Committee to continue funding science and higher education not cut it – he responded “what America has not done is what we have done over the past ten years which is to double the science budget and America is trying to catch up in the way that we have been investing consistently in science over the past few years”.

That was palpably not so.

Throughout the whole of the Bush years an equivalent proportion of public funds was spent on science in the US as in the UK.

It was the UK that was catching up after the disaster of the Thatcher Major years!

Quite frankly such statements are not worthy of a PM and former Chancellor who knows only too well that to stand still in the intellectual capital race is to confine the nation to spiral down the international economic league tables.

And whilst I do not buy into the emotive statements of the Russell Group who claim the current cuts will plunge the sector back 800 years – they have recognised that reverse gear is not a sensible option when we are in a race to the top!

Perhaps more worrying than the petulant screams of a sector that has done very well over the past decade is the fact that a number of forces are merging that threaten the ability of our HE sector to meet the demand for places generated by the success of our schools, our universities and yes the government’s own policies.

• It should not come as a surprise to any of us that UCAS applications have risen by 12% this year.

• That numbers are swelled by the 160,000 students who were rejected last year through shortage of places.

• That due to a recession many more 18 – 24 year olds are seeking to invest in higher education than go on the dole.

• That the work of science and engineering communities has resulted in significant increases in demand for SET places

• And that our universities have bitten the bullet and actively sought out new cohorts of students from non traditional backgrounds and from adults who want to study part time.

This is a huge success story and government has played a key part!

The SS responded to last summer’s crisis over places by creating a further 10,000 largely for SET but with no additional funding - this week he announced that those 10,000 places would be withdrawn for 2010.

In December he announced £600m of cuts to science and HE budgets which will inevitably impact on university ability to offer courses particularly in the SET subjects.

On Tuesday a further £215m was slashed from teaching budgets, which according to HEFCE will mean a loss of another 6,000 places.

Can our universities cope?

Should they absorb the additional places and ride out the storm?

Well perhaps they can but with no extra funding and a penalty of £3500 for each additional student not within their quota, few will take the risk.

The net impact is that the very students the government, schools and universities have worked so hard to encourage to apply and to gain the entry qualifications to attend are to be denied access at the gates to our universities.

Like the 23% increase in students in Barnsley who want to study at the satellite Huddersfield University campus – a huge success story for a community, the Council and the University.

As places become scarce and entry levels increase there will be a cascade of students down the perceived order of institutions and it will the poor non traditional students who will miss out.

This has the potential to be one of the cruelest deceptions played on some of our most vulnerable students and I want the Minister today to say just how he going to protect their interests?

But other forces, perhaps more sinister are at work.

On 24th January the Sunday Times published an article with the headline ‘Universities slash places in cash crisis; A funding squeeze will mean thousands of would be students missing out’.

Claims that Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, Kings College, Imperial and Warwick were freezing places was perhaps not surprising but that others including the LSE, Essex, Manchester and Edinburgh Universities were cutting places - the latter reducing their intake by 1,300 places, set alarm bells ringing.

As did the move by universities such as Manchester to recruit below the limit to avoid penalties imposed by the Secretary of State.

Let me make clear that I understand the dilemma for our universities, particularly those offering SET courses – as Bahram Bekhradnia the Director the HE Policy Institute said: “ Universities will be faced with … recruiting more students with lower amounts of money which will inevitably damage quality”.

I understand that argument but the SS appears to dismiss it.

On Monday Lord Mandelson claimed the cuts proposed were so minor that universities could absorb them.

Does the Minister agree with the Secretary of State?

Does he dismiss the claims particularly by our research intensive universities that less per student means less quality?

How do we prepare the next generation of scientists and engineers if we can’t offer them appropriate amounts of laboratory experience or access to the most up to date equipment?

Perhaps Mr Deputy Speaker if this was simply a domestic issue to be resolved by English or UK Universities and the Government life might be a little easier but it is not.

Because our HE system is widely respected, the demand for EU and non EU students to study here has grown over the past decade..

Indeed, EU and international students add considerably to our economy, our culture, and to the diversity of our universities.

International students directly contribute £2.3bn (in 2007) to the local economy in off-campus expenditure. (UUK)

They should be welcomed, and I would like to put it on record that I think the HE sector should be immensely proud of the talent that it draws from overseas.

However, we do need to ask questions about how these increasing overseas applications sit with the general upsurge in demand for UK university places.

International students’ places are allocated and funded entirely separately from UK places, and do not form part of the same quotas set by Hefce but is there any evidence that universities are lowering their offers to overseas students in order to expand this lucrative undergraduate market?

After all with no cap on International students’ fees, and the cost of courses ranging from £8,500 to £32,000, in the recovery from a recession it is inevitable that most universities want to attract as many international students as possible.

I would be grateful if the Minister could offer a re-assurance that he is taking steps to monitor what could be a potential problem in the future.

EU students, however, are another matter entirely.

Under EU law, all EU students are treated in exactly the same way as UK students.

They count towards the same Hefce student numbers, face the same £3,145-a-year tuition fees as their UK counterparts and are entitled to the same grants and subsidised loans, to cover the cost of fees and living expenses.

They also compete for the same places.

The UK is an increasingly popular destination for European students, and applications from the EU are increasing at an even higher rate than those from within the UK.

Whilst British applicants to UK universities rose by 8.8 per cent in 2009 from 2008 applications from the rest of the European Union rose even more quickly, up by 16.4 per cent
These EU students are primarily drawn to Russell Group Universities, and those with the greatest international reputation. This inevitably means that UK students applying to these universities are less likely to get in, as the level of competition is simply higher.

Whilst we certainly want to ensure that our universities recruit the most talented students from all over Europe (and indeed the world) this must not be at the expense of places for UK students – many of whom simply cannot afford to study at universities far from home.

I would like to ask the Minister what can he do to ensure that in our research intensive universities there are sufficient places available for UK students, who are more likely to stay in the UK after studying and use the skills that we have invested in to enhance our country’s economy and skills base.

As an example, the UK is facing a serious shortage of engineers to provide our future energy solutions, building and transport developments, yet approximately 30% of our engineering and technology students are recruited from abroad.

What evidence does the Minister have that these graduates then contribute to the UK economy and what steps is he is taking to encourage them to do so?

Just as an aside – could I also ask the Minister what steps he is taking to recover student loan repayments for EU students?

Figures published early in 2009 revealed that among the 2,240 EU students who have so far become eligible to start paying back such loans, some 1,580 were not doing so, leaving taxpayers with a potential £3.8 million bill.

It would be ironic indeed if UK students were denied places in UK universities because of competition from EU students and then ended up contributing their taxes to pay for loans that were not paid back!

Mr Deputy Speaker – put bluntly I hope more of our young people will aspire to go to university – but having achieved their entry qualifications they do not find their path barred because we have failed to provide sufficient places for them.

End.