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Employment, Universities and Skills and Housing

My hon. Friend is right. In fact, one of our Ministers was telling me the other day that we have the best cohort of young teachers in training now that we have had in generations, which must be good for schools. We have excellent teachers in schools already, and when those in training replace the ones who will shortly retire, I am sure that we will continue to have excellent teaching in our schools. Let me turn to another problem that I want to flag up, which has been raised by the Million+ think tank. Research and development funding is becoming more elite. Larger grants are going to smaller numbers of the more elite universities, which are largely in the Russell group. Million+ and others in the academic community are arguing—I refer to what my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) said about how universities should be doing research—that universities that are not in the top flight, namely the Russell group, are finding it more and more difficult to secure such funding. Million+ has recommended that a sum of money be set aside so that vital work that might not be of international standing, but which is certainly of national standing, can be done in those universities and has suggested a figure of around 10 per cent. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State seems to think that the Million+ group is asking for 10 per cent. to be creamed off the current quality-related funding, but it is not asking for that. Million+ has recognised that there have been substantial year-on-year increases in QR funding. It is asking whether 10 per cent. of those substantial increases, not 10 per cent. of the existing money, could be put into those universities that are not so fortunate in winning QR funding. Let me say straight away that Million+ does not want that money for non-quality work, but for quality work of national standing, instead of international standing. My university—Bolton university—suffers in that respect. It used to do a lot of work with local industry. Local industry could pay for the contract work that it asked the university to do on its behalf, but if the research groups are not there, that research will not happen. I visited the fire materials group at Bolton university a few days ago. The fire materials group is a centre of excellence for research into flame-retardant materials, fires in households and other vital areas of that kind. Hon. Members will not find many other universities that are researching every aspect of fire in that way. Such specialist work is being undertaken in Wolverhampton, Chester and Bolton. We ignore it at our peril, because if neither industry nor and central Government fund it, those small specialist groups will disappear and we will be the losers, not the gainers.