Universities: Financial Sustainability

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

My noble friend would expect me not to agree with that point, but I think the whole House would agree it is very important that we continue to attract students from overseas—from EU and non-EU countries. It is very encouraging that the number of applicants from the EU has increased by 1% to 43,890. There is still a lot of work to do in that respect but, in terms of students being included in the migration figures, we have had much discussion in the Chamber about that, and I do not want to go into it today.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as listed in the register. Perhaps the noble Viscount would contemplate how we can provide much greater certainty as a global player in higher education. It is not just a question of the Augar financing review, Brexit, the pension fund or even the very temporary drop in the demographic in relation to early entry to university; it is also a question of our place in the world. Will he speak to the Secretary of State and, for that matter, to the Chancellor about the critical importance of retaining our reputation and removing uncertainty, which would undermine the willingness of students to come from abroad and undermine the reputation of our universities worldwide?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

There are a lot of uncertainties around, and the noble Lord makes an extremely good point. One of the most important points coming through, perhaps as a result of the reforms that we are making, is the opportunity for current and new providers to market themselves effectively. There are a lot of issues connected to this, including the teaching excellence framework. As we know, we are beginning to look more at how subjects can be assessed, so that students from abroad can see with much greater transparency and clarity what courses are available and what their ratings are like, and hopefully choose Britain rather than other countries to come to and study.