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Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

It taught us all that we need to know about the Conservatives. We saw how they reacted when they had to grapple with a genuinely difficult policy issue that affects the future of our country. We rightly gauge the challenge from India and China in terms of the investment that they are making in higher education and the number of graduates that they produce every year. The Conservatives, having presided over a 40 per cent. cut in per capita funding in our universities, were preparing to make a further 6.5 per cent. cut in funding before the British people removed them from office in 1997. Let us never forget that their response to our proposals was to contract higher education down to a 36 per cent. participation rate.