HC Deb 12 November 2003 vol 413 cc348-9W
Mr. Jim Cunningham

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what research he has commissioned on Government expenditure on higher education in EU member states.[137678]

Alan Johnson

My Department has not directly commissioned any specific research in this area. My Department uses OECD's annual "Education at a Glance" publication as the best source of comparative information of this nature, and we contribute both financially and in time spent by our statisticians, to its production. It gives statistical information on Government expenditure on higher education in all the current EU member states and in four of the states due to accede in 2004: Poland, Hungary and the Czech and Slovak republics.

In "Education at a Glance", each country's expenditure on higher education is reported as a percentage of total public expenditure and as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product. The publication also gives the relative proportions of public and private expenditure on higher education institutions, for both 2000 and 1995.

Mr. Woodward

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what additional resources the Government have allocated to higher education establishments in each of the last five years in(a) the north west region and (b) St. Helens. [138012]

Alan Johnson

The table shows the resources for higher education provided via the Higher Education Funding Council for England in St. Helens and for the north west region in each of the last five years.

£ million
North West St. Helens
1999–2000 471.7 2.2
2000–01 488.1 2.4
2001–02 505.8 2.5
2002–03 539.0 2.6
2003–04 576.3 2.5
Total 2,580.9 12.1

As a result of the 2002 Spending Review publicly planned spending per FTE in higher education will rise by 7 per cent. in real terms between 2002–03 and 2005–06. Higher education in the north west will receive its share of this increase.