Undergraduates (Hansard, 1 February 1994)

§ 4. Mr. Devlin
To ask the Secretary of State for Education how many university undergraduates there are in England and Wales.

§ Mr. Boswell
The Government's policies have led to record student numbers and participation in higher education. There were some 755,000 undergraduates studying in England in 1992–93, the latest year for which figures are available. Figures for Wales are the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales.

§ Mr. Devlin
Does not that significant increase in the number of people studying at our universities show how wrong people were three or four years ago to argue that the introduction of student loans would mean a decline in the number of people applying to go to university? Is it not a welcome feature, and a real achievement of the Government, to have got so many talented young people into higher education, including at the two new universities on Teesside?

§ Mr. Boswell
My hon. Friend is entirely right. I recognise the role of the two new universities on Teesside. Since 1988, the proportion of young people entering higher education has risen from 15 per cent. to more than 30 per cent.

§ Mr. Rooker
Notwithstanding the increase—the equivalent of a dozen or more civic universities in recent years—achieved by craimming students into existing facilities, is it true that, as a result of the decline in the staff-student ratio in universities, the vice-chancellors were warned privately by Ministers not to speak up about threats to quality because that would cause further problems with the Treasury?

§ Mr. Boswell
The hon. Gentleman seems to have had some problems with his own party. We have no problems with the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals. We are currently engaged in debating issues of quality. My right hon. Friend and I are determined to assert higher quality, and we shall see some of the vice-chancellors and principals this afternoon at 4 o'clock.

§ Mr. David Nicholson
My hon. Friend is right to emphasise the need for a balance between the cost to students and their families and to the taxpayer, and the point about student numbers. Will he continue to emphasise the lessons to be learned from international comparisons in funding in that respect? Will he also pay attention to the use and administration of access funds and, in conjunction with this colleagues in the Department of Social Security, to support for students during the long vacation in the recession, when many have been unable to find jobs?

§ Mr. Boswell
My hon. Friend will know that we decided, at the time of the introduction of student loans, to discontinue the general pattern of students' access to benefits. We did that alongside an increase in the funding package, which amounts to approximately one third extra for students who avail themselves of a loan. We continue to take account and careful note of authoritative studies on any student financial problems, and we recently reflected that with an increase of some £2 million in the sum provided for access funds in higher education for the coming year.

§ Mr. Bryan Davies
Will the Minister come clean with the House and the country and confirm that he has been trying to get higher education on the cheap? Is it not the case that, thanks to Treasury diktats, next year 10,000 fully qualified intending students, who are as well qualified as those who went into higher education this year, will be denied a place because of his policies?

§ Mr. Boswell
Once again, the taxi meter is ticking, and my hon. Friends will be taking careful note of it. The participation of young people in higher education is at record levels, and the numbers will remain at records levels over the next three years. I regard that as a success and, if anything, a compliment to the Treasury and to my colleagues, because we have achieved it, whereas the hon. Gentleman has yet to answer the question I recently put to him. How does he propose to pay for whatever he proposes to do, which he will not tell us?