Clause 23 - Condition that may be required to be imposed by English funding bodies
Higher Education Bill
2:30 pm
Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North, Labour)
It is nice to be back under your chairmanship, Mr. Hood. We got a little soft this morning and colleagues were interrupting me for all sorts of spurious reasons as I was trying to speak to the amendments.
I should like to start the proceedings by apologising to the Conservative Front Bench spokesman. I mistakenly said that his party's policies would cause 410,000 students not to go to university. However, I have looked at my source again: Professor Crewe of Universities UK referred to a study of the Higher Education Policy Institute, in which he said that 214,000 student places would be lost due to the loss of income to universities. Additionally, 180,000 to 250,000 places would be lost due to demographic changes. I apologise—the figure was not 410,000. It was up to 464,000, and I am glad to correct the record.
We were discussing markets and my amendment No. 144. I should make it clear that in moving the amendment, I am not, as one colleague suggested earlier, espousing a market, but recognising it. I am recognising the reality of what we must deal with and how we should change it. We could all hold our breath and pass a resolution to wish away the market, and wish that we lived in a sort of nirvana, but that would
not make a blind bit of difference. We must intervene and regulate, as I am proposing in amendment No. 144, to ensure that what we currently have—a massively imperfect market—is improved, and works for people whom we are here to safeguard.