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London Metropolitan University

More collaboration may well be part of the answer, but we must get the management and running of London Met right before there can be any notion of collaborating with other institutions. Going forward, we must look at our funding mechanisms. The funding council has not treated London Met fairly; it colluded in the situation up to a certain point, but then there was a cliff-edge crash, and the university faces potential cuts. I wrote to the Minister about this issue many months ago, but I was disappointed with the response that I received, because he simply referred me to the funding council. Let me make a general point. We in Parliament have seen all sorts of core Government functions outsourced to organisations such as the funding council over the past 20 years. Although those functions have been outsourced, they are wholly funded and owned by the Government, and Ministers cannot hide behind such institutions. I am not suggesting that, having set up the funding council, Ministers should second-guess every decision, but it should be possible for the Government to intervene in special cases, if Members of Parliament have come to them. London Met is a special case, and Ministers have hidden behind the funding council for too long. There is a range of issues about the management of London Met and about how we can help it through the present period financially so that students do not suffer. However, there is also an issue about whether the funding council considers the circumstances of institutions that have high drop-out rates despite the best efforts of their staff. When colleagues come to the Minister with special cases such as that of London Met, I urge him not to brush us off by referring us to the funding council. I think that every Member present has written asking him to focus on the special issues at London Met. Although there may be singular problems at the university, events there also raise general issues about further and higher education, which it is wholly appropriate for a Minister to focus on and get involved in.