Welsh Affairs — House of Commons, 2017-03-02
Topic: Education
Mark Fraser Williams (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): Indeed. I am not sure if the hon. Lady is alluding to the structures through which it undertakes its valuations, or some of the weird decisions it is coming up with, but a business in my constituency whose business rates have doubled from £12,500 a year to £25,000—this is in a seasonal tourist area of Ceredigion—would be very sympathetic to her question Higher education is critical to Ceredigion. We have Aberystwyth University, of course, and the Lampeter campus of the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. Lots of geographical references have been made to Dewi Sant. When the land rose so that he could deliver one of his great sermons, it was in Llanddewi Brefi, which is famous for other things on television these days, but fundamentally famous for Dewi Sant. Aberystwyth University is one of the top 200 universities in the world for agriculture, English, geography, environmental sciences and politics. Some 95% of our research is of an internationally recognised standard or higher, and the university contributes £250 million to our local economy I want to use this opportunity to celebrate the investment that is in place now, which is largely from the EU. Some £20 million from the European regional development fund, which is safe because it will be delivered before 2020, will fund the building of an innovation and enterprise campus at Aberystwyth University. That will provide world-leading facilities and expertise to create market-focused solutions for the agri-tech industry. It will also encourage business and academic collaboration, drawing a link between academic excellence and commercial opportunities. Those are lofty words, but they are valid ones. Academia is often accused of working in a silo—apart from business—but this initiative with Aberystwyth will certainly move away from that I particularly celebrate the European money that came in. The project could not happen without Europe and the £20 million from the regional development fund, but it is going to happen. There is no scaremongering—it is going to happen. I celebrate the good work that will take place but, as the hon. Member for Cardiff Central said, there are huge concerns about future research grants, participation in EU projects and, critically, the status of non-UK EU staff. Countless people have come to my surgeries genuinely fearful about whether they should stay and if they should apply for jobs in the future. That is a real concern. We are missing a trick—a fundamental and humane trick—if we do not allow people to come here in the numbers that they have done in the past to contribute to Wales and our economy I should also make a more general point about research funding. There has been a historical concern that Wales has not had its share of research funding. I could say a lot about this, but I will just cite Professor Dylan Jones-Evans, who I think is more known on the other side of the House than on my side, who has said that if research had been "Barnettised", we would have seen an extra £500 million of research funding in Wales over the past decade. That is very important Finally, I want to talk about Dewi Sant—the great, compassionate saint. I think that he would have been alarmed by the direction of immigration policy in this country, and not least what has happened with the Lord Dubs amendment made in the House of Lords. I hope that the Government reflect on that. People in my constituency are very keen that more refugees should come to Wales.