Overseas Students

HC Deb 02 November 1976 vol 918 cc1178-80

4. Mr. Frank Allaun

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what estimate she has made of the probable reduction in numbers of home and overseas postgraduate students in the universities that will result from the increase in fees to £750 per annum.

The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mr. Gordon Oakes)

In the academic year 1977–78 the reduction in projected numbers might be between 3,000 and 7,000 for home students and between 1,000 and 3,000 for overseas students. However, both the proposals and their statistical consequences are still under review.

Mr. Allaun

Will my hon. Friend and the Government consider overcoming the serious shortage of postgraduate students by allowing unemployed graduates to register for suitable postgraduate courses without loss of their social security benefit and with payment of fees by the State?

Mr. Oakes

That is basically a matter for my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for Employment and the Secretary of State for Social Services. Under the present financial constraints I cannot see that it would be possible to put my hon. Friend's plan into operation.

Dr. Hampson

Will the Minister confirm that raising an extra £48 million from fees by 1978–79 will involve a 50 per cent. increase on next year's levels of £650 and £750? Will he therefore explain the need for further restrictions on the flow of overseas students by the cumbersome and costly procedure that he and the Home Office are to announce in a circular?

Mr. Oakes

The proposals and their statistical consequences are still under review. I should like to make it absolutely clear that the Press speculation to which the hon. Gentleman alluded in the last part of his question bears no relation to the level of fee. Consultation documents issued to various bodies are now being presented to the Press as Government policy, whereas no break with the existing policy is suggested in those documents.

Mr. Hooley

Is my hon. Friend aware that the payment of fees by about 100 different public bodies to about 100 different academic institutions in respect of 300,000 students is a bureaucratic idiocy, as virtually all the money comes out of public funds anyway? The whole system is nonsensical.

Mr. Oakes

It does not all come out of public funds. A considerable proportion for postgraduate students comes by way of grants from industry or from students who pay for themselves.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton

Well said.

Mr. Nelson

Is the Minister aware that still up to one-third of the science postgraduates in many universities are foreign students? Does he agree that at a time of economic stringency charity should begin a little nearer home? In order to make up some of the shortfall that the increase in fees may cause in postgraduate numbers in scientific departments of universities, will the hon. Gentleman consider the introduction of differential grants to encourage, in engineering and science, a bigger uptake of domestic places by United Kingdom graduates?

Mr. Oakes

I should welcome a bigger uptake by domestic students. Unfortunately, although the position is now slightly better, we do not have that uptake. I disagree with the hon. Gentleman when he says that it is so easy and cut- and-dried a question. Charity does begin at home by the education that we can give to foreign students. Britain benefits to a considerable extent from the spin-off resulting from their being educated here.