It is Westminster’s higher education policies that are wrong, not ours

Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised at the backlash following my announcement that Welsh –domiciled students would not have to find the additional money for higher fees charged in our higher education institutions in Wales – or those in England. I have worked in the BBC in London after all. Metropolitan provincialism defines the culture of most of the national newspapers and indeed, the television newsrooms. Senior figures in the BBC have told me that our announcement in Cardiff suddenly brought home to the BBC network newsroom what devolution actually meant.

And yet – the ferocity of response from some of the newspapers has been revealing. The use of the word ‘apartheid’ in both the Mail and Telegraph to define Welsh policies on the day after our announcement suggested either collusion or a collective narrowness of vision. Perhaps both.

I want to see English students continuing to come to Wales to study. However, I am responsible for the student support arrangements for students domiciled in Wales. The Scottish government is responsible for students domiciled in Scotland. Northern Ireland Ministers in their Assembly for students domiciled in Northern Ireland. And – wait for it – Vince Cable and David Willetts in the UK coalition government for students domiciled in England. They are welcome to follow our example in Wales. We are making a policy choice. So are they.

So the Daily Mail, which tells us it ‘has reservations about the plan to treble the cap on fees’, should direct its fire at the UK Coalition Government, rather than wittering on about Wales ‘exempting its nationals from Whitehall’s increases in tuition fees’. The UK Coalition government has chosen to levy in England the highest tuition fees in the world outside the United States. Facing a cost of between £70-110 million to support Welsh students attending English universities, the One Wales Labour-Plaid Cymru coalition government has found a route which protects our students and at the same time gives our own higher education institutions a fighting chance of holding their own against universities east of the border.

Let there be no mistake – I would prefer not to have to raise fees in Welsh institutions. I would prefer to leave them at about the current level. But I am not prepared, and nor are my Cabinet colleagues, to see a one-way transfer from the Welsh Assembly Government budget into the English higher education system, which is what would happen if we did not raise fees in Wales but supported Welsh students who wanted to study in England to do so. Fees are rising in England, not as was originally intended, to provide additional income for higher education institutions in England, but instead to plug the 80% cut in the university teaching grant in England.

Of course, the suggestion that under EU laws, EU students could benefit, was guaranteed to raise the blood pressure of the Daily Mail. But then, in most EU countries, tuition fees are far, far lower than in the UK. So why they would be racing to study here is an interesting question. This is precisely why I doubt the long-term sustainability of the UK coalition government’s policy. It is the policies made in England which are out of kilter with those of most of Europe. In any case, Welsh and English students studying in EU countries will enjoy the same fee regimes as the inhabitants of those countries. Remember all the stories in the summer about students from the UK, unable to get places at UK institutions, studying in Maastricht or elsewhere with lower fees than at home?

Welsh graduates will, of course, pay a contribution and will be repaying the loans that they require to pay the fees that will be levied on them. But they will be at a more affordable rate, not at the full-cost or near full-cost level others will face.

By the way, though you wouldn’t think it, we also pay taxes in Wales. We do not live off English subsidies. Taxes collected in Wales exceed significantly the budget of the National Assembly, as the independent commission on the financing of Wales chaired by Gerry Holtham found.

This is a policy choice we are making. We are continuing to provide more generous support for university teaching than in England. We will not be saying that there are academic subjects not worthy of subsidy. We do not believe that the market will protect culture, history and language and we will intervene to protect these. We will plan the development of our higher education system in Wales. If that puts us in the European mainstream, while England swims in a different direction, so be it.

 

 

 

Comments

[Peter Coles]

The plan to provide financial support for Welsh domiciled students is welcome, because it's good for students. However, you propose to pay for it by cutting teaching funds to Welsh universities. Since a large number of Welsh students study in England, this means that an enormous chunk of Welsh Assembly funds will used to subsidise *English* universities. Your plan is therefore bad for the Welsh Higher Education sector.

Why not instead have the best of both worlds? Keep the fee subsidy but only for Welsh students studying in Welsh universities? Then we'll all be winners, and Welsh Assembly money will actually be spent in Wales, rather than in England.

[Leighton]

We had a One Wales commitment to mitigate the cost of higher fees for Welsh students studying in England. To simply do that would have entailed a straightforward transfer of funds to HE institutions in England, as I said in a statement on 12 October. That would have required cutting the HE budget without the benefit of additional fees charged to students from outside Wales. As I say above 'I am not prepared, and nor are my Cabinet colleagues, to see a one-way transfer from the Welsh Assembly Government budget into the English higher education system, which is what would happen if we did not raise fees in Wales but supported Welsh students who wanted to study in England to do so'.

So we are raising fees in Wales but covering the cost for Welsh domiciled students wherever they study. Our HE institutions will receive additional fee income from students from outside Wales, and will receive our payments in lieu of the fees for Welsh domiciled students, as well as teaching grant and research income. Our cuts in teaching grant are nothing like those in England - and our HE institutions will be receiving the same in real terms in 2016-17 as in 2012-13.

[Peter Coles]

Thank you. Your comment clarifies a number of things, but there are sill some question marks.

First, the calculation you present in your final sentence assumes that the same number of Welsh students will go to England and the same number of English students will come to Wales. This is unlikely to be the case because: (a) student numbers in Wales will be capped, while those in England will not be; and (b) the £1890 grant to subsidise Welsh students studying in Wales is disappearing after this year anyway. I predict a large increase in Welsh students going to England, and a reduction in English students coming to Wales because English universities will be under great pressure to recruit more students than before.

There is also a question about how the 35% cuts in teaching are to be implemented and how this influences student choice. Your statement makes it clear that, e.g., Arts and Humanities will be protected much more than in England but if this is done at the expense of STEM disciplines there could be an exodus of science students to English universities. A 35% cut means a bigger loss of cash per student in Physics, say, than it does in Languages.

The One Wales statement to which you refer states "whatever is possible to mitigate the effects on Welsh-domiciled students if the Westminster government lifts the cap on fees". I don't read "mitigate" as meaning "completely cover" and in any case the new arrangements would not come into power until after the next Welsh Assembly elections in May 2011.

I think the arrangements you announced have a great many positive features - especially for studies - but a simple change could make them equally good for Welsh Higher Education Insitutions also, i.e. if Welsh money were restricted to Welsh universities. That seems to me to be the best of all worlds.

After all, you wouldn't want the WAG to pay for Welsh students to study in, say, the USA....

[Leighton]

Not sure why you think that student numbers won't be capped in England. Browne said they wouldn't, but there have been several things in Browne that have not been taken up by the UK Government. Still waiting for full clarity on this from DBIS. In any case, a pool of 200,000 young people not getting HE places this year means it is unlikely that the flow of students cross-border will dry up. No reason to assume a radical re-distribution of students from Wales to England. Welsh universities have been highly successful at attracting students and there is no reason this should stop. The 35% cut in teaching grant - incidentally that is the 2016-17 percentage, it is lower before that - is a global figure and HEFCW will have to work out how best to ensure that STEM subjects are protected.

You can interpret One Wales in that way if you want, but the One Wales government is responding to it in the way I announced.