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London Metropolitan University

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Perhaps another great benefit of this debate is that it will push home the point that not everybody comes from a traditional background. If, according to the Leitch agenda, we want to reskill, upskill and get mature learners back into education to learn new skills, we need exactly that kind of model. HEFC, the Government and the Department need to realise that the stigma attached to non-traditional styles of learning has got to go. They are the way forward, and that is why this debate is useful. Hopefully that message will get through, and the funding streams and how they work will be reconsidered. The big question is who or which group of people is responsible for the crisis. Before I come on to that, I shall point out, as other hon. Members have done, that there are two groups who are not responsible. The first is the majority of the staff of London Metropolitan university who did not contribute to the erroneous accounting or the poor leadership and management that might have led to the difficulties. We must bear that in mind, and the hon. Member for Islington, North made a good case on behalf of the staff. The second group of people who are blameless is the students, who have done their best to make their way into higher education. Many of them are paying fees. It is interesting to note that 8,000 international students from 155 countries write cheques to the LMU to conduct their studies, which subsidises to a certain degree the studies of some UK students. Students are now terrified that they will not be able to complete a course that is perhaps one of the biggest commitments that they have made in their lives to education—it is a major step forward and a major development for their life chances. The students are not to blame, and they are my primary consideration. So who is to blame? It seems clear that there has been a management failure; the vice-chancellor has stepped down. However, it has come through loud and clear in other Members' comments that the Higher Education Funding Council may well have played a role. If there were nudges and winks—"Well, we may overlook those numbers of non-completions for a couple of years"—that is a serious matter. The allegations are significant. It is the least that the Minister can do to hold an inquiry—we should look not just at the role that HEFC thought that it was playing, but step back and see whether any collusion took place. Does the Minister believe that the current HEFC funding rules adequately reflect support for part-time and modular learning? More than that, are the accounting errors at London Metropolitan university a one-off? Does he have any reason to believe that the misdeclaration and the slight tweaking of drop-out rates in a direction favourable to funding have happened anywhere else? Given the staggering size of public finance troubles at the moment, what steps has the Minister taken to ensure that more careful attention will be paid to overpayments in future? What specific steps have been taken to ensure that we do not find out next year that the same thing has happened somewhere else? What assurances can the Minister provide that the quality of teaching at London Metropolitan university—I certainly admired what I saw when I visited—will not be adversely affected by the clawback of £15 million over three years and the £38 million? In addition to what HEFC has done, what discussions have he and his Department had with HEFC to help the LMU improve its data reporting in future? There is a bigger question concerning the viability of higher education institutions. I am sure that the LMU's situation—an organisation getting into difficulty, for whatever reason—will not be a one-off. We have heard calls for the Government to step in and consider the situation, including a call from the Liberal Democrat Front Bench for direct intervention to sort it out. If it looks as if the LMU will not make it—if it cannot pay back the £38 million loan and is in danger of going bankrupt—will the Minister and his Department allow that to happen, or will they step in?