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Higher Education

Look, I do not want to embarrass the hon. Gentleman, but I should refer him to the fundamentals of our democracy and he would, thus, realise that the Government do not run physics and other science departments in our universities; vice-chancellors do. He should know that. I should remind hon. Members that the chancellor of Oxford university said about the Conservative party's period in office that""in just over a decade we doubled the number of students and halved the investment in each. The Treasury calls that higher productivity—it's a euphemism for poorer pay, degraded facilities, less money to support the teaching of each student"." That is what we saw previously and it is against that that we will be judged.