Higher Education - 16th March 2010

Stephen Williams

It is also important that we pay some attention to the subjects that young people study when they achieve access to higher education. We have said many times in this debate that we need a revolution in information, advice and guidance provided to young people. A related specific proposal that the Liberal Democrats will put forward at the election is of a national bursary scheme to incentivise people to take certain shortage subjects or strategically important subjects at university. If we do not get more people taking science, technology, engineering and maths, we will not have the people with the answers to climate change, we will not be able to build 21st-century transport infrastructure and we will not have the people who can develop our digital economy in the future.

Investment in higher education and research is key both to this country’s future prosperity and to ensuring that we have some of the answers for the future, whether they be in health, climate change, or delivering social mobility, which we have also discussed this afternoon. The response of the rest of the developed world to the current recession has been to announce investment in higher education and research over the next decade. We will have to wait eight days to see whether the Government share that vision. The Liberal Democrats certainly believe that there must be investment in higher education and research so that we can have both an economically prosperous future and genuine social mobility.

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