Higher Education and Research Bill

I welcome the Secretary of State to her new position and look forward to working with her over, I...

I acknowledge that the Scottish National party takes a very different view of this issue. The rea...

First, may I congratulate my right hon. Friend on assuming her new role? She has been an outstand...

Since 2009, students from a disadvantaged background in England are 36% more likely to go to univ...

I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way and offer her huge congratulations on her new role. D...

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The good news is that we expect many—indeed, most—of the jobs...

May I also congratulate the right hon. Lady on her new job? I was also the first in my family to ...

The bottom line is that the evidence base shows not only that more young people are going to univ...

I am going to make some progress, because it is important that I cover the teaching excellence fr...

I congratulate the Secretary of State on her appointment. I am sure that she is as shocked as I a...

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. The real-terms ability of the maximum fee to keep u...

Let me join in the congratulations to the Secretary of State on her appointment. Why is there no ...

I take the right hon. Gentleman’s point, which is an important one. I want universities to contin...

I, too, welcome the Secretary of State to her new post. Before she moves off the subject of colla...

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that those different parties have to work together at a local lev...

I want to make a little more progress, because it is important that I continue to inform the Hous...

The Secretary of State has emphasised the need for collaboration. Clause 2(1)(b) mentions

“...

I feel as though we are already delving into the Bill Committee debate that will no doubt take pl...

Will the Secretary of State give way?

I will take one more intervention before I make some progress.

I welcome the Secretary of State to her new post, and I look forward to her future briefings on t...

The hon. Gentleman makes a further point about the need for universities to be part of their broa...

I, too, congratulate the Secretary of State on her new position. What does she think is an accept...

We need to look at the level of tuition fees that has been introduced, the rate of applications f...

I welcome my right hon. Friend to her position, and I look forward to working with her. We have h...

There are two areas in which the Bill can particularly help. First, it will provide transparency ...

I join other hon. Members in welcoming the Secretary of State to her new post. On enabling studen...

The Bill puts in place the powers that we need to take a more flexible approach to funding. As th...

The Secretary of State is being characteristically generous in giving way. Is it her expectation ...

Broadly, the rule that 55% of students need to be studying on degree courses will remain. In the ...

The Secretary of State is being very generous in giving way for a second time. She may not have s...

The Bill is about ensuring that we have a strong, robust, successful, innovative and high-quality...

It strikes me that the Secretary of State is giving a lot of good detail on the safeguards, which...

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. For the many institutions that have spent years working...

I suspect institutions that have spent many years trying to get degree-awarding powers and have n...

I am sure my right hon. Friend is right.

rose—

I will make a bit more progress, because I recognise that many hon. Members want to contribute to...

rose—

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman because he has been trying to catch my eye, but I must then...

I have two universities in my constituency. What did the Secretary of State mean when she said th...

I was talking about the changes to degree-awarding powers. For institutions that may currently fe...

Coventry University, Birmingham City University and the University of Wolverhampton recently laun...

The Bill will help in two ways. Not only will it naturally bring the research councils together u...

Welsh universities have traditionally had an awful deal out of the seven research councils struct...

The Bill is about strengthening our capacity to do world-beating research. The money will follow ...

Unison, the union, has about 40,000 workers in higher education institutions, which represents a ...

I do not agree with the hon. Lady, but I recognise the challenges that she talks about in making ...

rose—

rose—

I have taken an awful lot of interventions, but I must now make some progress and allow the debat...

I congratulate the Secretary of State and welcome her to her position. We look forward to the dev...

As someone who was on the same side of the debate for the 23 June referendum, I recognise the con...

I welcome what the hon. Gentleman says and the fact that he spoke so staunchly on the part of the...

Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that the link between the TEF and fees means that universities ...

There is no evidence for that. The point is that, if universities have a fees case to make, they ...

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I will make progress and come to the hon. Lady presently.

Long-established institutions suc...

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

rose—

I will give way to the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow).

As someone who has put two daughters through university and who has a son who is thinking about w...

There is absolutely nothing wrong with quality, but we have to see where the quality extends. The...

The hon. Gentleman is being very generous and I do not doubt his commitment to improving higher a...

From a right hon. Gentleman who has demonstrated his ability to turn on not one but several sixpe...

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No, I will make some more progress.

The higher education White Paper emphasises repeatedly ...

On potential closures, does my hon. Friend agree that this is of particular concern to mature stu...

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to bring us back to the nub of the issue, which is the family ...

The hon. Gentleman is being exceptionally generous in giving way. In improving access to higher e...

I am always happy to applaud excellence in the secondary sector, but it is a little rich coming f...

On quality in schools, does my hon. Friend agree that there is also the issue of access to furthe...

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I intend to remedy that as best I can in my remaining rem...

Would my hon. Friend underline how important this point is? For many of the communities we serve,...

My right hon. Friend is so right; in his previous position at this Dispatch Box, he championed th...

I have three universities in my constituency—two new ones and one Russell Group university—and th...

I am afraid that I would agree. This problem has been amplified by people such as Chris Husbands,...

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Not at the moment, I am sorry.

Now is hardly the time for embarking on three years of creat...

The hon. Gentleman mentions a number of criticisms of competition in the university sector, but d...

Lord Mandelson and I are at one on that; I welcome a range of universities, but I want to make su...

Wait and see.

I will indeed wait and see.

The Government should take into consideration proposals in the ...

Let me begin by welcoming the new Secretary of State to her post. It is a great pleasure to see h...

On that basis, how does the hon. Gentleman justify the removal of national health service bursari...

I do think it important to attract people to the NHS. I think that today we should be concentrati...

Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that productivity is also linked to research and development,...

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. It is essential that we have R and D, and if we ...

My alma mater, the University of West London, has relentlessly nurtured a relationship with the i...

That is a very good point and I was going to loop that in with devolution and so forth. My hon. F...

Does the hon. Gentleman accept, however, that part of that process could be further education or ...

Yes, of course I do. Colleges do produce foundation degrees, for example, and that has a logical ...

My hon. Friend the Chairman of the Select Committee is making, as ever, a compelling argument. I ...

That is an interesting intervention and I was coming on to that area, because the world of educat...

The SNP joins other parties in having concerns about the Bill. We do not dispute that some aspect...

I came to this place after working in an educational institution, and I echo my hon. Friend’s sen...

I agree 100% with my hon. Friend. Diversity in our institutions and what we learn from overseas s...

I am sure the hon. Lady knows that the National Union of Students is concerned about what we call...

All SNP Members share that concern, and we should be worried about the move towards privatisation...

Like the hon. Lady I am a huge admirer of higher education in Scotland, not least because in the ...

The right hon. Gentleman makes a useful intervention because the metrics used by UCAS for higher ...

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government should look closely at the interaction between the ...

Absolutely. Those arrangements can benefit single parents and part-time students, who are often u...

My hon. Friend—despite what the annunciator was saying, she is not the hon. Member for Angus—and ...

Absolutely. One of the problems found by institutions such as the University of Glasgow is that t...

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way a second time. After the EU referendum, the University of G...

I agree 100%. The University of Aberdeen also took the bold step of saying that there would be no...

Order. To help all Members, instead of setting a time limit, if we could do up to 12 minutes, we ...

I will try to keep this even shorter, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is a great pleasure, as a London MP, ...

I am sure the House is delighted to hear that my right hon. Friend is a reader of The Guardian, b...

That is very kind. As a vice-chairman of the party, may I say that there might be mandatory resel...

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field...

Is it not incumbent on the Minister to give a categorical assurance to the House that where right...

Yes, indeed. As I have said, there must be full scrutiny by this House. These are Acts of Parliam...

I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this important debate. I welcome the Bill, par...

The hon. Gentleman need not worry; his comments bear repetition.

I am grateful for that endorsement. Having reached its planned size, Milton Keynes is actively de...

I want to pick up where my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith) left off. The ...

I am very grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate. I welcome the Secretary of State ...

Has my hon. Friend made any study of the outrageous discrimination suffered by English students s...

My right hon. Friend makes an interesting point, on which I am sure there will be further discuss...

Does my hon. Friend therefore welcome the news that Chinese investors propose to take over the St...

I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for his point. He is absolutely right. In fact,...

The Bill comes before us at a time of great change, the most important of those changes being my ...

The right hon. Gentleman will have heard what my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Amanda...

That was, in a sense, the point I was making. Some of the tensions in Whitehall, particularly tho...

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that the removal of caps on university places brought about ...

I do not accept that, I am afraid. The removal of the cap does not help when it comes to fair acc...

The right hon. Gentleman is making an extremely valuable case but does this not highlight why we ...

I might be able to help a little, as the hon. Lady is hoping to catch my eye next. Mr Lammy, your...

Transparency will of course help, but we know what works and under the Labour Government most of ...

I am very pleased to see the Minister for Universities and Science, my hon. Friend Member for Orp...

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a tendency for young people to go away to university and ...

I thank my hon. Friend for making such a good point. Indeed, I feared that, when my own children ...

It is obviously a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), although I ...

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy).

I welcome the Mi...

Does the hon. Lady agree that some of the funding for the excellent research that is taking place...

I agree that some of it is coming from the European Union. I am not sure whether the Government n...

The hon. Lady stimulates me to intervene. It is very dangerous to talk about top-flight universit...

Indeed you are. The words “top flight” came from the top of my head and I fully agree with the ho...

Where are they?

Exactly. All manner of people who might want to take a different career path are precluded from d...

I echo the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) in welcoming the fact that the Minister...

Order. Will the Front Benchers take note of this? The hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blo...

My hon. Friend was trying to be nice.

I will continue to be nice, because I recognise the thought and effort that the Minister has put ...

I agree with that point. A problem with the lack of flexibility in the system is that it does not...

I agree with the hon. Lady—I thank her for her intervention, which, like much of the rest of the ...

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield)—I should call h...

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill gives students the opportunity not just to gamble and tak...

I completely agree with my hon. Friend and near neighbour. Since 2011, students have said many ti...

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bath (Ben Howlett). Bath is another beautiful univ...

As a new Back Bencher, I feel fortunate to have the chance to contribute to this debate; it has b...

Let me make it clear that we were not saying that the TEF was a one-size-fits-all measure. We wer...

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that clarification. Indeed, in the constructive spirit in...

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) after his relati...

I am grateful for the opportunity to say a few words in this debate and to follow my hon. Friend ...

I, too, welcome the Secretary of State to her place, and I look forward to having constructive di...

This has been a terrific debate, in which there has been very strong consensus across the House t...

Will the Minister give way?

I will not give away for the moment, because I have a significant amount of material to get throu...

I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way, because I appreciate that it is so annoying wh...

I encourage Opposition Members to be optimistic about our future as a global leader in higher edu...