Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jo Swinson]

The hon. Gentleman needs to be careful with his use of statistics, because we have introduced a range of changes to the tribunals system aimed at getting employers and employees to resolve disputes outside the tribunals system, which I would have thought everybody would welcome, given that tribunals are costly in terms of time, stress and money for everybody involved on both sides of the dispute. Our proposals, which we are implementing, on early conciliation and making it easier for disputes to be resolved should be working to reduce the number of tribunals, but the Ministry of Justice has committed to keeping these issues under review, particularly the equality aspects and whether there is any disproportionate effect on one particular group.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

14. If he will make it his policy to increase investment in higher education.

[The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)]

That is already our policy. Higher education is vital to our future productivity and economic growth. That is why we have reformed university finance and protected research spending. As a result of our reforms, total university income for teaching will rise from £7.2 billion in 2011-12 to £9.1 billion in 2014-15.

[Caroline Lucas]

The Minister will know that spending on higher education remains lower than the OECD average, yet higher education makes a huge contribution to the national economy, as I know from the two excellent universities in Brighton and Hove, so will he do even more to address this gap please? Will he also make an assessment of the University and College Union proposal to fund our knowledge economy via an increase in corporation tax for the richest 4% of our corporations, rather than by relying on tuition fees that unfairly fixate on the individual benefit of students going to university?

[Mr Willetts]

We have a fair and sustainable way of financing higher education. It is right to expect graduates to pay back the cost of their higher education if they are earning more than £21,000. That has enabled us to see more students going to university and increases in funding for teaching at universities, even while we have been tackling the budget deficit we inherited from the previous Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Hancock]

I congratulate Cambridge on what it is doing for small business Saturday. I am sure that it will be a great success.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

T9. The Secretary of State will be aware of the mechanism in the transatlantic trade and investment partnership that will allow global corporations to sue Governments before secretive arbitration panels that bypass domestic courts. As his own Department’s research says that nothing would insulate the UK from becoming subject to costly and controversial arbitration claims in the future, will he work to ensure that investor-to-state dispute settlements are removed from that agreement?

[Vince Cable]

The overall context is that the transatlantic agreement between the European Union and the United States, if it materialises, would be of enormous economic benefit. We realise that there are some tricky negotiating issues, and the hon. Lady has highlighted one of them. We will try to ensure that the interests of our economy are properly protected.