I am grateful for that endorsement. Having reached its planned size, Milton Keynes is actively debating what comes next. There is a live debate about our future size and shape—what the Milton Keynes of 2050 should look like—and our place in the important Oxford-Milton Keynes-Cambridge corridor, which the former Chancellor announced in the Budget that the National Infrastructure Commission would explore for growth potential.
Milton Keynes has the Open University, as I have mentioned. Nearby, we have excellent universities such as Cranfield and Buckingham, and we have a healthy
further education and higher education partnership in University Centre Milton Keynes. Despite those things, it has long been an aspiration for Milton Keynes to have a campus-based university of its own to help to generate economic growth and provide all the other social and cultural benefits that university towns and cities enjoy, but I question whether the answer is a traditional campus-based university. Given the increasing consumer sophistication of students, should we not try to create something new that benefits the innovative tradition of Milton Keynes?
In that context, I was absolutely delighted that the recently established Milton Keynes Futures 2050 commission—chaired by Sir Peter Gregson, the vice chancellor of Cranfield—proposed as one of its central recommendations a Milton Keynes institute of technology, or MKIT. Its mission would be to promote research, teaching and practice that provide solutions to the challenges faced by fast-growing cities. It would offer portfolio learning, living lab research and partnerships with a wide range of global educational institutions and employers. MKIT could be the institution that fills the growing skills gap that we face in the new intelligent mobility market. We urgently need to train more people in skills in this sector.
I am also proud to have the Transport Systems Catapult in Milton Keynes. Working with Departments, it has published research showing that there will be a gap of hundreds of thousands of people with those skills in a market that will be worth £900 billion by 2025. If we want to have a share of that global market, we really need to focus skills in this area. That is just one example of the many opportunities that exist, and the Bill provides huge opportunities for innovation.
There is a critical link between the expansion of higher education and the prospects for local economies and people’s life challenges. I strongly believe that the Bill strengthens that link, and I very much look forward to supporting it tonight.
4.5 pm