Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Commons, 2016-07-19
Topic: Education
Johanna Peta Churchill (Conservative, Centre-right): It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) I welcome the Minister to his continued role in seeing the Bill through. I agree with many of the points that Opposition Members have made about the huge challenge posed by our exit from Europe. Not one of the university vice-chancellors did not support staying in, and many of them have articulated their worries about funding and so on and about students, their safety and stability in choosing a course in this country, and their life beyond 2017. I agree with those points, but the present situation offers us opportunity as well as challenge. If we say that life must go on hold because of the decision taken two weeks ago, we will not get anywhere. Let us look at the opportunity and drive forward from there I welcome the Bill. We lead the world in higher education. Our papers are cited more widely than any other country’s in most leading areas of education. We may be a small country, yet in the quality and quantity of what our minds produce, we are one of the greatest countries. I had the pleasure last week of seeing another of my daughters graduate. The vice-chancellor said that he had dealings with 183 other countries and the institutions there. Bearing in mind that there are 195 countries across the world, it is clear that our collaboration extends beyond Europe. It is global, and we must seize that opportunity as we move forward We have heard the good things about the office for students and the teaching excellence framework, and I will not go over the statistics. We need to ensure quality of delivery and of reputation, because it is only by ensuring the continuing reputation of our universities that we will be able to export and bank what we have to offer in the higher education sector. We also need to ensure that their environment is kept stable, for which we need consistency. That is another reason I do not want to see things put on hold. Planning is vital in what are billion-pound industries, looking at the total combined unit of our universities, further education establishments, upper-tier schools, and businesses. I would like to hear how the Minister will help institutions that look to take the opportunity to export, much like Nottingham University having campuses in Malaysia. How can we work on this and challenge ourselves to think of new and innovative ideas? My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) spoke about the UK equivalent of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—he called it MKIT—with Cranfield University leading on delivering on different platforms. Such ideas need to be nurtured and propelled under this Bill Great teaching must ensure value for money—it should not be the negative that the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) said it is. The teaching excellence framework can ensure value for money for students. We talk too much of a homogenous education system. It is the fact that we have variety that gives us choice. That means that institutions can deliver expensive, science-driven degrees alongside some of the less expensive humanities degrees: the mix is important. Some degrees are more expensive than others to administer, and some need a lot of skills. If we give small institutions the right to deliver degrees, now that we have taken away the critical mass of 1,000, we must be careful about the quality of their delivery to ensure that what they are articulating they are delivering is truly what is on the piece of paper. I would like to see certainty in the metrics, as many others have said. It would be a good idea to pilot this in ’17, ’18 and so on, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Amanda Milling) suggested Research is exceedingly important. Last week, the vice-chancellor of Lancaster University stated that it would be not only still a European university but an international university. He spoke about how it led on research across the world and was in the top 10 in this country. There is a science race. I have spoken about this in Westminster Hall and the Minister has responded. We do not spend quite enough in that area, and we need to look to punching better than we are. Near to my constituency, we have a huge catalyst of life sciences in Cambridge and at Cambridge University, which draws in £1.6 billion of income—the largest in the country. We need to work on such centres of excellence.