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Education: Adult Learners

My Lords, I am pleased to be able to speak in the noble Baroness’s short debate and I should declare an interest as chief executive of Universities UK. Let me say at the outset that despite their considerable anxiety over this change and this move, universities understand the Government’s aim of redirecting the public money involved towards those who do not have a first higher education qualification. None the less, my anxiety is that the change could threaten financial stability for some institutions and put at risk opportunities for lifelong learning and upskilling, which could be lost. Noble Lords will hear from others about the impact on particular institutions, but sector-wide, Universities UK’s analysis shows that the impact will be extensive. There are ways in which the money will be reallocated, and that is good. But unfortunately, it is little comfort, since there is no way of knowing which institutions will be reprieved and which will not. Some professions are particularly vulnerable. Students in pharmacy, psychology, education and the performing arts frequently retrain for a change in career. We cannot assume that these students will in future be willing to pay the full economic cost of taking that second life-chance. Universities are working with the funding council to deal with the situation that they find themselves in and there may be ways to mitigate the worst effects of this proposed change. Perhaps universities that will lose their funding could be given preferential status to bid for an equivalent number of funded additional student numbers against the Government’s restated priorities, or perhaps additional exemptions could be added in subject areas that are reliant to a significant extent on second degree recruitment. Other ideas involve changing the timeline, holding the change until 2010-11 to aid planning, or developing a realistic time limit after which a student undertaking a second first degree could be funded, say after five or six years. This change has been a knotty problem for the sector. I hope that the Minister will show that he has been listening. It is my profound hope that the department, funding council and the sector working together can find a productive way forward.