Higher Education

Part of Orders of the Day — Supply – in the House of Commons at 6:25 pm on 18 November 1981.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mr Stanley Thorne Mr Stanley Thorne , Preston South 6:25, 18 November 1981

I wish to deal with several points in about 10 minutes. I shall therefore not follow the line pursued by the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. Rhodes James).

I welcome the motion opposing and deploring the cuts. However, it contains a word which I regard as somewhat unfortunate. It refers to "qualified" young people, without really making clear what that means. That word was also mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock). I recognise that the Robbins concept referred to those who are "qualified and able to benefit", but I believe that there are many youngsters today who, although not "qualified", are certainly able to benefit from higher education. I need only recall my own experience.

At the age of 48 I was rendered unemployed, with little prospect of obtaining a job, having been a coal miner, a semi-skilled fitter and a railway signalman and having held a variety of other jobs for more than 30 years. Ruskin College, Oxford, although it had an age limit of 40, decided to take a chance on a 48-year-old. As a result, by the age of 52 I had been fortunate enough to acquire a bachelor of arts degree with honours and an Oxford university diploma. As the House knows, I am not a clever fellow. My experience therefore shows that a man or woman of average intelligence in our society can obtain a degree from a British university—a view that is held by many people involved in education.

It seems to me, therefore, that the Labour Party especially should take as its criterion "able to benefit" rather than "qualified and able" which implies some previous success in O or A-levels or in some other field.

I do not wish to become involved in semantics, but the motion also refers to the economic, technological, scholastic and social needs of the nation. I am far more concerned with the needs of working people than with the needs of the nation. A fall in student numbers of between 12,000 and 20,000 will not help our economic and industrial planning for the future.

The Government have shown that they are interested in private education by allocating £13 million to be spent on protecting the interests of a privileged section of society at the expense of those in need—reminding the House, not for the first time, that the Conservatives see education in class terms. Perhaps they take that view because only 25 per cent. of university places go to working class children. Here, as elsewhere, the two-nation economy operates. The percentage of working class children obtaining a university place is lower above a line drawn from the Wash through the Midlands down to Gloucester than it is below that line, and that has been the case for most years since 1945.

I draw the attention of the House to the UNESCO higher education league table in respect of 18-year-olds covering Sweden, the United States, Japan, Belgium, France, Italy, the Netherlands, West Germany and the United Kingdom. In 1978, the latest year for which UNESCO figures are available, Sweden was at the top of the table with 44·2 per cent. of 18-year-olds going on to higher education. The United Kingdom figure was a miserable 19·8 per cent.

The Government amendment uses the phrase after a long period of sustained expansion". I believe that to be completely false, based on the evidence available. In view of changes in technology and the rise in unemployment, there is a tremendous opportunity for the United Kingdom to offer higher education to men and women of all ages with the prospect of changing career between the ages of 30 and 50. Indeed, the needs of the technological revolution make it vital that those rendered unemployed by diminished demand for products, the lack of economic planning or technological change should be given every encouragement to undertake re-education and retraining.

The engineering industry in particular gains from the researches carried out in our universities, yet the number of engineers who qualified in Great Britain in 1976 was 11,025 compared with 62,961 in Japan. The number of research scientists employed in engineering in the United Kingdom is considerably lower than the number employed in Japan, the United States, West Germany and France. What effect does that have on our ability to compete in world markets? The Secretary of State was anxious to dismiss that consideration on the flimsiest of evidence. Has it any relevance to the share of motor car import penetration from Japan? I believe that it has.

As well as the new opportunity offered by changing technology, we must also consider the inevitable increase in leisure time. Clearly re-education in institutions of further and higher education is relevant in this regard. I have recently been approached by a constituent whose daughter, Miss Gregson, undertook some primary education in Lancashire before going overseas with her parents. The family returned in 1978, but the Lancashire education authority had refused a grant to that teenage student—a British subject—on the ground that immediately prior to the commencement of her course she had not resided in the area for three years. Apparently, she failed the three-year rule by a matter of weeks.

It is understood that there will always be cases at the margin that appear to be unjustly treated by such rules, but it is scandalous. that an 18 or 19-year-old should face such a barrier to obtaining a grant for further education, bearing in mind the amounts that the Government are prepared to waste on nuclear weapons and the myth of home defence in the event of nuclear war.

The cuts in education expenditure must be restored by the next Labour Government, who will be elected in spite of the discomfort of some of our Front Bench spokesmen in the face of Labour Party conference decisions which they appear unable to promote positively in the House.