PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Higher Education: Staffordshire - 9 October 2024 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

It is a real pleasure to lead my first Adjournment debate as the Member of Parliament for Newcastle-under-Lyme. I would like to wish my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Leigh Ingham) a very happy—if I may say—40th birthday, and I am pleased that she is spending it in the Chamber with us this evening. There is no better way to spend a birthday than talking about the wonderful county that we represent in this House.

Newcastle-under-Lyme is home to many excellent places of learning, and with higher education in mind, none more so than Keele University. I consider it a real privilege to be Keele’s Member of Parliament, and that is why I applied for this debate tonight. Higher education in Staffordshire is primarily delivered through two universities: Keele University in my constituency, and the University of Staffordshire based in Stoke-on-Trent. I will broadly focus my remarks on Keele, where I look forward to welcoming most of my Staffordshire colleagues tomorrow.

This has been an important year for almost everyone in this House, and for people across our United Kingdom. We have had a change of Government—I welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby), to her place—and we have begun the work of getting our country back on track. However, 2024 is also important because Keele University in Newcastle-under-Lyme marks the 75th anniversary of its foundation as the first new university of the 20th century.

Keele University was born from a pioneering vision of a different kind of university. It was established in 1949 by Lord Lindsay, the former vice-chancellor of Oxford University, in a country still recovering from the second world war. The university’s founding aim was to produce graduates who not only had the technical and specialist knowledge to move society forward, but who understood the social and political landscape that drove this need.

Fast-forward 75 years, and this original ethos remains at the core of the university’s mission. A global network of over 100,000 alumni in 120 countries is creating a positive impact across the world in a range of diverse careers, including serving in this House. I am personally pleased that one of my cousins is studying medicine at Keele. He has just started his second year, which means he was able to vote for me in July—at least he told me he did! Keele currently ranks in the golden quadrangle of the top 15 universities in England that excel in both teaching and research. All have a gold award in the teaching excellence framework and high research intensity in the most recent research excellence framework.

I am pleased that Keele, and therefore Staffordshire, is a sector leader in sustainability, tackling the world’s biggest problems through its research and educating tomorrow’s leaders to help shape a brighter future. Keele’s research expertise and passion for sustainability are renowned around the world, which is why the university was named global sustainability institution of the year in 2021.

Keele’s economic impact is created not only by directly employing about 2,000 people, but by spending with local suppliers and contractors, with neighbouring businesses and residents being the primary beneficiaries. Keele is one of the largest employers in Newcastle-under-Lyme, and it is a local employer, too. Thirty-nine per cent of its workforce live in the ancient borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme, with a further 31% living in Stoke-on-Trent. Keele has a real commitment to being a good neighbour, and it has provided more than 2,000 support interactions with local organisations since 2016.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. As he says, our area is blessed with many exemplary higher education institutions, many of which are connected by the A50/A500. Does he agree that upgrades to this road are essential to allow our constituents easier access to universities, and to enable greater collaboration across our local universities?

My hon. Friend and near neighbour has made an excellent submission ahead of the Budget, and I am sure the Minister will relay that point to Treasury colleagues. He makes an important point about connectivity, accessibility and the importance of a transport network that allows people both to benefit from our higher education institutions and to contribute to our local economies.

Keele’s legacy and commitment to the wider community is why it was named among the UK’s best universities at contributing to local growth and regeneration in the recent iteration of the knowledge exchange framework run by Research England. Keele, working with the Bar Council, has advanced the “Keele in Town” programme, which will see the transformation of an empty 19th-century building in the heart of Newcastle-under-Lyme town centre into a mixed-use facility for the community. It will be kitted out with modern working and meeting spaces, offering digital connectivity to the community and helping to drive productivity.

Will my hon. Friend give way?

I will happily give way to another good man from Staffordshire.

It is wonderful to contribute to this debate. I had to intervene when my hon. Friend spoke about university campuses, and about university buildings in city centres. My Lichfield constituency does not have a large university campus, but we do have a small satellite campus of the University of Staffordshire that supports our local economy and ensures that much of Staffordshire’s learning is reinvested through its business village.

Does my hon. Friend agree about the importance of making sure that the wealth of these institutions is shared across the entire county, so that everybody can benefit from their investments?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson)—it is an honour and a privilege to say those words; I do not think many on the Labour Benches thought we would be able to say them. What an excellent decision the people of Lichfield made on 4 July. He raises an important point, because ensuring that people from all backgrounds and communities can access and benefit from education is something that I know this Government will advance. I thank him for making such a powerful point.

On that point, will my hon. Friend give way?

I will happily give way to my constituency neighbour.

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. Will he join me in recognising the excellent work done by organisations across our area to help young people access higher education? For example, my former employer, the YMCA, received the Queen’s award for promoting opportunity for the work it does with the University of Staffordshire’s “Step up to higher education” programme. The YMCA now gets around 10 young people off to university every year and, under the leadership of Danny Flynn and his committed team, it shares our values of promoting opportunity for all.

Another example of the great decisions the people of Staffordshire made is that my hon. Friend is now sitting on the Government Benches as the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North, which we are all grateful for. He raises an important point for two reasons: first, Danny Flynn is a constituent of mine, in Newcastle-under-Lyme, and has spent many years doing amazing work with his team at the North Staffordshire YMCA, based in—

Based in my constituency.

I was just about to say that it is based in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell). Secondly, the organisation has an undiluted and clear commitment to ensuring that people from many different backgrounds are able to access the opportunities they need and deserve in order to meet their full potential.

I commend the hon. Gentleman for his presentation. I have watched him during his time in the new Parliament and have been greatly impressed, not just because of what he does but because of our friendship long before he came to the House. He married a girl from Northern Ireland so that makes him part Northern Irish. It is great to hear about what is going on in education in his area, but I have concerns about the pressures on our young people in higher education. Does he agree that those pressures are greater than ever, including financial pressures and societal expectations? We need greater mental health support for our higher education students, as well as financial help for a generation of students whose student loan debt is higher than at any time in the past.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention—it would not be an Adjournment debate without it. He raises an important point that I will come to later in my remarks. It is not just the financial pressures that young people face that have an impact on their mental health. Other pressures include the inability to secure affordable, accessible and safe places to live, as well as trying to keep down a job and study at the same time, which is pushed and caused by some of the financial pressures that he referred to. I thank him for his kind comments—I am not sure whether that is better for his street cred or for mine, but I take the compliment.

The “Keele in Town” programme will see an empty 19th century building, in the heart of Newcastle-under-Lyme town centre, made into a mixed-use facility for the community. I have already touched on this, but it is important. It will have meeting spaces offering digital connectivity to the community, helping to drive productivity and boost skill levels. The programme includes working with our brilliant local FE institutions.

I thank my hon. Friend for securing the debate and promoting my ex-employer, Keele University, which is an interest I declare. I recently had the great honour of visiting the Burslem campus of the prestigious Stoke-on-Trent College, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (David Williams), to meet with apprentices, including inspirational young people such as Robbie and superb employers such as Carson Powell Construction. Does my hon. Friend agree that apprenticeships, including degree-level apprenticeships, provide an excellent alternative route for young people and career changers to access higher education, in our FE colleges and universities, and that such apprenticeships provide a real benefit to our local employers and economies, by developing the workplace skills of the future?

My hon. Friend raises an important point. In previous years she has worked and lived in Newcastle-under-Lyme, so she understands the power and importance that the issue has for a wider north Staffordshire family.

I was talking about the excellent Newcastle college, which is further education rather than higher education, but it is important because it is from there that our wonderful institutions at Staffordshire and Keele get their young people. I was there last Friday, presenting the student of the month awards and meeting young people who look forward to staying in Staffordshire for university.

Let us focus on students for a minute. In 2022-23, 34,535 students enrolled for a degree at a higher education provider in Staffordshire. These are young people to whom we will be looking for leadership and inspiration in the years ahead. Following our departure from the European Union, the proportion of EU students in Staffordshire has decreased, while the proportion of overseas students has more than tripled, from 2.3% to 7.8%. That speaks to the challenges facing the sector not just in Staffordshire but right across Great Britain.

As my hon. Friend has made clear, the higher education sector is incredibly important to the skills and education landscape of Staffordshire. Sadly, Stafford itself lost its university campus a few years ago, although there is one just across the border. The thing that higher education also does is provide opportunities for research, development and sector-leading expertise. However, there are considerable issues in this space, to which my hon. Friend has just alluded. Only this week I have been on the phone to a constituent, a Unison member, who works at the University of Staffordshire. They told me that they are currently experiencing their third restructure in three years. Does he agree that working in such an insecure environment provides little benefit to staff or students?

I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for such an important point. Stability, certainty and structure are what we all want in our lives. I expect that is why our party received such a mandate from the people. But on a serious note, making sure that our higher education institutions have that stability and focus will benefit all of us.

In Staffordshire, students of black African ethnicity have, at 81%, the highest progression rate to higher education. Progression rates for students eligible for free school meals have increased in Staffordshire over the past 10 years, from 13.3% in 2011-12 to 19.3% in 2021-22.

In 2021-22, students with special educational needs in Staffordshire were also much less likely to progress to higher education than those with no identified special educational needs. Both those figures were lower than the national average and, in my view, speak to the need to get a grip of SEND provision in Staffordshire and across England. The system is broken and it is leaving our young people and their families behind.

During the election, I met many of the young people who studied at Keele. I mention Molly, Martha, Olly and Bayley, who were just a few of the young people who had the wisdom both to study at Keele and to help on my campaign. From all my visits and meetings with the students, it was clear just how much they had made a home in north Staffordshire, and that is something we all want to hold on to.

I find myself somewhat conflicted, as a graduate of the wonderful Keele University but also representing its rival in the local varsity in the University of Staffordshire. My hon. Friend’s point about young people going to university and making their home in the area is absolutely right. I am a testament to that. But does he agree that one thing we now have to do collectively, as a group of MPs representing that part of the world, is ensure that those high-value, good-quality jobs are then brought to the area, so that the graduates we have can stay in north Staffordshire after they graduate and make a life and a family there?

My hon. Friend makes an important point. It is something that we have discussed and that we will keep working on together. Keele, which is a subject for another debate, is home to many brilliant local businesses, and we want to facilitate more such businesses. I hope those on the Treasury Bench will look favourably on us as they look for places in which to invest in the coming months and years.

At Keele, the number of higher education staff stands at about 2,000. Like all our public services, we rely on brilliant public sector workers, and I want to pay tribute to all the wonderful people who educate, inspire and support the leaders, the vets and the doctors of tomorrow. I would like to acknowledge my constituents. It is always dangerous to start naming people, but I just want to say a couple of things. Madam Deputy Speaker, your eyes are on me, so I shall be brief. My constituents are: Rosi Monkman; Professor Peter Lawrence; Ant Sutcliffe, who is also chair of governors at St Luke’s primary school in Silverdale; and Dr Robert Jackson, who, after almost 40 years working at Keele, has just retired—a good stint that certainly demonstrates more career stability than most of us will have in this House. Our thanks also go to all those who work at Keele and at Staffordshire University. Through Professor Trevor McMillan, the vice-chancellor at Keele, and Professor Martin Jones, the vice-chancellor at Staffordshire, I want to extend our real and meaningful gratitude to all of them for the work they do.

The future of our country is in many ways dependent on the future of our universities. Although I do not expect the Minister to second-guess the Chancellor ahead of the Budget, I do want to say on the Floor of the House that we must give serious consideration and thought to our universities as final decisions are made on the Budget. As we have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Leigh Ingham), the current situation sees universities launching voluntary redundancy schemes and carrying out constant restructurings as they seek to balance the books. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) noted, the issue is also about our young people: the household income level at which a student qualifies for the maximum level of support has remained unchanged in cash terms since 2008. That means a real-terms fall of about 39%, making students from lower household income levels less likely to be eligible for a full loan and more likely to be pushed to the brink.

When those of us in this place were students, some longer ago than others, most people were able to scrape by, but now our young people are being forced to rely on food banks or worse—go hungry if the bank of mum and dad is not an option. That should never be an option, in my view; our country should work properly, fairly and decently.

I congratulate Keele University on its 75 years of groundbreaking research, thought, ideas and change. It is an important milestone that I did not want to pass the House by. Thanks to the staff, the communities and most importantly our young people, higher education in Staffordshire is in good shape, but it can and should be made much better, and that is where this new Labour Government must come in. They will have my full support.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee) on securing this debate on the valuable contribution of the higher education sector in Staffordshire. This is personal, given that this year Keele University—as we have heard, the first new university of the 20th century—celebrates its 75th anniversary. I would also like to mention the many significant interventions from my hon. Friends the Members for Lichfield (Dave Robertson), for Stoke-on-Trent North (David Williams), for Burton and Uttoxeter (Jacob Collier), for Stoke-on-Trent South (Dr Gardner), for Stafford (Leigh Ingham) and for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell), and from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). I appreciate all those contributions, and I will address many of them in my speech.

It is right that we celebrate the success of our higher education sector, the value it brings to our economy, the valuable skills it gives to people who choose to study at our universities and colleges as well as the people who choose to work in the sector and within the regions they serve. Our universities are autonomous, vibrant and independent. We value that, as does the sector. The Government are committed to ensuring a sustainable funding model that supports high-value provision, powering opportunity and growth and meeting the skill needs of the country.

Staffordshire is home to some of the most dynamic and innovative universities in the UK, as I am sure my hon. Friends agree. Each contributes significantly to the academic and social fabric of the community. They have also played a pivotal role in shaping the future of countless students. The University of Staffordshire and Keele University foster environments where creativity and critical thinking thrive, preparing students to tackle the challenges of tomorrow. That is due to the dedication of universities and their staff in maintaining high academic standards and nurturing a culture of continuous improvement. Those universities play pivotal roles in driving local economic growth and innovation. Through strategic partnerships and initiatives such as those in Stoke-on-Trent and elsewhere in Staffordshire, these institutions collaborate closely with local industries, fostering advancements in the medical technology, healthcare and digital sectors. Those partnerships not only offer valuable learning experiences for students but have contributed significantly to the prosperity of the area.

Too many people across the country do not get the opportunity to succeed. We will act to address that. We will support the aspiration of everybody who wants to attend higher education. Higher education providers registered with the access and participation plans outline how they will support under-represented and disadvantaged student groups.

Keele University hosts the Uni Connect hub for North Staffordshire Higher Horizons. On average, 18% of our young people go to university; for those who have interacted with Higher Horizons, the figure jumps to nearly 64%, yet the funding for the scheme is questionable for the next year. I know that the Minister cannot comment on the Budget, but could she take back to her colleagues in the Treasury the importance of securing the funding for that scheme, so that the young people she talked about in north Staffordshire get the opportunity that they deserve?

I thank my hon. Friend for his significant contribution and for advocating for students and for the university. I will bring the issue to the attention of my noble Friend the Minister for Skills in the other place and I am sure my hon. Friend will receive a response.

Interventions can include tutoring, summer schools and student bursaries. Both Keele University and the University of Staffordshire have revised their access and participation plans, implementing new ones in September 2024. They have addressed risks identified in the Office for Students’ equality of opportunity risk register and through assessment of local risk. We see that reflected in their initiatives, such as Steps2Medicine at Keele and the Staffordshire Children’s University. The Steps2Medicine initiative provides aspiring medical students with the support they need to pursue a career in medicine, ensuring that students from disadvantaged and deprived backgrounds can explore and prepare for medical education. Equally, the Staffordshire Children’s University engages young learners outside the traditional classroom, fostering a passion for learning and academic ambition early on.

Meeting the skill needs of the next decade is central to delivering the Government’s mission across all regions and nations. That is why we are building a flexible and high-quality system that breaks down the barriers to opportunity and drives growth. We have established Skills England and tasked it with providing authoritative assessments of skills needs. We envisage Skills England’s role in higher education closely mirroring its role in the wider skills system. Skills England will ensure local, regional, and national systems, including higher education providers, are meeting skill needs. It will work with those providers and other partners to ensure it is aligned with our industrial strategy.

All that will be backed by a new post-16 skills and initiation strategy that will set out a coherent vision for the skills system. It will support adults and young people, ensuring they have access to valuable work experience, giving them access to opportunity through our youth guarantee and supporting their ambitions to access higher education.

This Government are transforming the apprenticeships levy into a new growth and skills levy, which will offer greater flexibility to employers and learners, help more people to develop high skills at work and fuel innovation in businesses across the country. As a key step, the Prime Minister announced shorter-duration apprenticeships and new foundation apprenticeships for young people in areas such as construction, green skills and digital.

Those measures will support our mission to break down barriers to opportunity and to help to get young people to achieve. That is why I am delighted to see the work of Keele University and the University of Staffordshire in delivering degree apprenticeships. Keele collaborates with a diverse range of employers, including the NHS and Unilever, and has been recognised as outstanding by Ofsted for its climate change skills bootcamps, while the University of Staffordshire, through its state-of-the-art, £40 million Catalyst building, supports more than 2,000 apprenticeships, partnering with more than 150 employers, including police forces and the NHS.

Both universities are receiving significant funding from the Office for Students degree apprenticeship development fund, which will help them do even more to improve access. Skills England will work closely with employers, training providers, unions and other key partners to identify priority skills gaps, helping to ensure that levy-funded training, including degree apprenticeships, delivers value for money, meets the needs of businesses and drives economic growth.

Mental health and wellbeing have been mentioned and are extremely important. The Office for Students is providing £15 million in funding for mental health support this year. Many higher education providers, including the universities of Staffordshire and of Keele, have demonstrated their commitment to student mental health by joining the universities mental health charter programme. But we need to go further and that is why the higher education student support champion Edward Peck is working closely with students, parents and mental health experts and the sector through the higher education mental health implementation task force to drive meaningful change in mental health practice and improve the lives of students. We must do all we can to support our students and to prevent tragedies.

Both Keele and Staffordshire universities maintain robust partnerships with local industries. For instance Keele’s science and innovation park is home to numerous businesses and promotes collaboration between academia and industry. This synergy not only stimulates the local economy but offers students valuable work experience. The value that these collaborations provide to regional economies cannot be overstated and we would encourage all universities to pursue them.

We should not forget the valuable contribution of further education providers such as Burton and South Derbyshire College. These institutions play a crucial role in ensuring that every person who meets the requirements and wishes to pursue higher education can do so.

Finally, I thank all the Members who have contributed to this debate and again congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme on securing it. I hope, as I have explained, that it addresses the issues that have been raised but also celebrates the success of higher education in Staffordshire and shines a light on the sector throughout our country.

Question put and agreed to.