§ Mr. Masonasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will ensure that consultations take place between the National Advisory Board for Public Sector Higher Education and the Barnsley metropolitan district council on the National Advisory Board's proposed cuts in high technology and advanced mining courses at the Barnsley college of technology before any decisions on cutbacks in these courses are taken.
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§ Mr. WaldenThe student number proposals for 1987–88 issued by the secretariat of the National Advisory Body for Public Sector Higher Education (NAB) are for consultation. Comments on the proposals have been invited from the institutions affected and their maintaining authorities by 13 June 1986. It is open to Barnsley metropolitan district council and to Barnsley college of technology to respond to that invitation.
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§ Mr. Masonasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science (1) if he will call for the reports of Her Majesty's inspectors of education on the quality and successes of the high technology and advanced mining courses at the Barnsley college of technology in recent years for his personal examination before any decisions are taken on the proposed cuts of the National Advisory Board for Public Sector Higher Education;
(2) before he accepts the proposals for cuts of £378,000 by his National Advisory Board in the Barnsley college of technology's specialists courses, if he will take into account the numbers of job losses at the college, the inconvenience of transfers affecting Barnsley students, the loss of specialist college facilities to local business men and businesses and the lessening prospects of attracting high technology firms to Barnsley; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. WaldenThe consultative student number proposals for 1987–88 issued at the beginning of April by the secretariat of the National Advisory Body for Public Sector Higher Education are one stage of a planning exercise which will culminate in the submission of advice by the National Advisory Body to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. The NAB committee will not determine its advice about student numbers in the public sector and their disposition in 1987–88 until the funding available is announced in the autumn. At that juncture, and in the light of the circumstances then prevailing, the NAB committee has indicated that it will wish to reconsider the question of the overall level of intakes in 1987–88 as well as the implications for individual institutions. The NAB usually submits its final advice to my right hon. Friend in December. It is only then that my right hon. Friend becomes involved, normally announcing his decisions about planned student numbers and the distribution of the advanced further education pool before Christmas. In reaching his decisions my right hon. Friend will have regard to all the relevant factors.