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London Metropolitan University

The university has been innovative through many of its special sections, departments and courses. The institute for Cuban studies is a good example, as is the working lives research institute. The university should be congratulated on and praised for establishing courses on such subjects as sustainable tourism. My concern, however, is about the problems faced by the university. The HEFC has a duty and obligation to count the number of students in colleges, and module and course completions. Essentially, the funding of the rest of the university's life is based on those figures. When an audit was undertaken by the HEFC, it concluded that student numbers and completions had been over-counted. As a result, huge cuts have been made to the university's budget for future years and there has been a request for repayment. We are talking about very large sums: £38 million is to be repaid, and about £10 million a year will be cut from the university's funding indefinitely. As a result, 550 full-time equivalent jobs—that probably adds up to 800 people, because many staff are part-time—will go. In addition, many jobs for hourly-paid lecturing staff and others on short-term contracts will be lost, although the number is unquantified. Student numbers will fall by about a third, so 5,000 student places will be lost if this financial package goes through. That would be devastating for any institution. I have two questions for the Minister in this part of my contribution. First, does the HEFC's counting process take sufficient account of the difficulties faced by some students, especially those from poorer backgrounds, those living in difficult housing conditions and those facing other related issues? As the hon. Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) pointed out, such people do not necessarily complete the whole course, but they might well use the modules that they do complete to gain a place somewhere else or to better themselves in some other way. I get the feeling that a degree of punishment might be involved for those students and types of completions. Secondly, on a difficult and more delicate area, what happened within the university to allow this systematic approach to reporting to lead to such a devastating consequence for the university itself? Apparently the figures became known to the vice-chancellor and the university's governing body some time last year. In December, the governing body discussed redundancies but, bizarrely, the unions were not informed of the possible redundancies until two months later. A question mark therefore hangs over the management style of the former vice-chancellor and the flow of information. May we please have an independent inquiry to which unions, staff and many others can give evidence so that we can establish the truth? The vice-chancellor subsequently tendered his resignation, but he will remain on the university's payroll for a further six months. He therefore remains an employee of the university, albeit not in office, while a further vice-chancellor has been appointed.