Lifelong Learning: “University of the Air” White Paper

Debate between Patrick Hurley and Gregory Campbell

Tuesday 16th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Patrick Hurley (Southport) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the impact of the University of the Air White Paper on lifelong learning opportunities.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I am grateful for the opportunity to lead this debate marking the 60th anniversary of the White Paper that led to the founding of the Open University, originally called the “University of the Air”. It is worth pausing on that phrase for a moment, because 60 years later it still sounds faintly otherworldly, even with all our electronic gizmos and gadgets and the information whizzing around us constantly. A “University of the Air” meant higher education broadcast directly into people’s homes. It meant learning being made available not just to those who had always had privilege, not just to the young or the affluent, and not only to those who followed a conventional academic route, but, crucially, to ordinary working people fitting study around jobs, families and the realities of their lives.

Sixty years on, what once sounded ambitious, perhaps even eccentric to some, instead now looks visionary. That is because it was visionary. It did not begin as some sort of administrative reform dreamt up in Whitehall; first and foremost, it was a political project. Harold Wilson first floated the idea in 1963, after seeing the potential of television and broadcasting to widen access to education in ways that had not previously seemed possible. But the person who really drove the project forward was his Minister, Jennie Lee.

There are not many White Papers that leave behind institutions that still change lives six decades later, but this one did, because Jennie Lee understood something important: there has always been a mismatch in this country—potential is spread far more widely and far more equally than opportunity. In the mid-60s, the assumption was still that higher education belonged to a relatively narrow section of society.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. On the narrow cohort of people who normally benefit from higher education, does he agree that lifelong learning is an essential component for young people from working-class communities in particular? Many of them do not take part in traditional higher education, and they can and should be targeted so that we benefit not just now but for generations to come.

[Patrick Hurley]

I agree entirely, and will make similar points later in my speech. The hon. Gentleman and I are very much on the same page.