Higher Education Funding Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Justin Tomlinson
Main Page: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)Department Debates - View all Justin Tomlinson's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Higher Education Funding
Justin Tomlinson Excerpts(6 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Joseph Johnson
Universities are well funded. As I said in my opening remarks, funding per student per degree is up by 25% since the reforms the Government introduced in the previous Parliament. We are confident, having assessed the financial position of our institutions, that they can sustain a freeze in the level of fees for this coming financial year and that is the policy the Government set out.
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
Value for money is key and far too many degrees are unnecessarily long. What efforts are being made to offer shorter, more intensive degrees to reduce the final tuition fee bill?
Joseph Johnson
There are excellent examples of two-year programmes across our higher education system, such as those offered by the University of Buckingham. It is not alone—there are others. We want many more providers, including high-tariff, highly selective institutions, to start to offer two-year programmes. They have huge potential to access students who have been hard to reach by the higher education system. We will come forward with proposals very shortly to enable the rapid expansion of two-year degrees throughout our system.