---

Higher Education

I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from "2010–11" to the end of the Question and add:""commends the Government for its record levels of investment in higher education, an increase of over 25 per cent. in real terms since 1997, which has supported more students participating in higher education than ever before; notes a 24 per cent. increase in the number of students participating in higher education since 1997, more young entrants to full-time first degrees in England who are from state schools, lower socio-economic groups, and low participation backgrounds, and recent studies which have shown that over 50 per cent. of young people aspire to go on to higher education; recognises the Government's commitment to expanding the range of pathways to higher education, including through apprenticeships, and to expanding the opportunities to participate in higher education, including through the development of foundation degrees, which have benefited 100,000 students; further notes that the Government is providing students with high levels of student support to enable them to access higher education; and welcomes the proposals in the papers Quality, Choice and Aspiration, published in October 2009, and Higher Ambitions, published in November 2009, to provide prospective students with better information, advice and guidance to enable them to fulfil their full potential.'."" Given the performance we have just witnessed, I do not really know where to start. I notice that the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) is wearing a spotted tie; this is a leopard changing his spots. We have witnessed an amazing Damascene conversion. In the opening part of his speech he used words such as "access" and "opportunity", and at the end he mentioned "the student experience". As we look forward to what is to come this year, with the general election, it is important that students focus on the hon. Gentleman's past form. They should remember, as we do, university buildings falling to pieces. The hon. Gentleman ended with a flurry by waving the document by Dyson and saying, "Believe me, we are going to take care of science in this country." We remember science facilities falling apart; there was no ring-fenced science budget at that time. We remember the unit of resource falling, not by 10, 20 or 30 per cent, but by 40 per cent between 1991 to 1997—that is according to the figures of Universities UK. What was it about students back in the days when the hon. Gentleman was sitting in a Conservative Cabinet that meant that the student experience did not matter, that the unit of resource did not matter and that science did not matter? Why should we, and why should students in this country, believe him now?