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Education: Adult Learners

My Lords, where does my noble friend think that those 20,000 extra students are going to come from? Many universities are struggling to meet their HEFCE contracts. Money will be taken away from one group, but there is no obvious solution to where that new group of students is going to emerge from. There is a bit of a misconception around, unless there is a dramatic improvement in the number of young people leaving school with the relevant and appropriate qualifications. On a budget of £10 million, I wonder whether it is worth playing around in this way for £100 million to be allocated in an uncertain way as soon as 2010.