Williams speaks in Commons debate on 'Access To Higher Education'

11.12.48am GMT Fri 19th Mar 2010

Williams speaks in Commons debate on 'Access To Higher Education'

On Tuesday 16th March Stephen Williams defended the Liberal Democrats' determined vision of widening participation in higher education in a House of Commons Opposition Day debate.

During this debate on access to higher education, Mr Williams reinforced the Liberal Democrats' commitment to scrapping tuition fees for anyone undertaking their first undergraduate level degree:

"I am happy to confirm that scrapping tuition fees remains the position of my party. We have a six-year proposal to achieve that objective. It is fully costed and will be set out in our manifesto...

"Turning to the crisis in university places and to the way in which young people have become victims of the recession, we think that higher education is a good place for young people to shelter from the recession. We therefore propose 15,000 extra places, specifically in foundation degrees delivered in further education colleges in subjects such as engineering, IT and logistics-skills that we need-thus directly tackling the issues of social mobility and fair access to higher education"

After outlining the Liberal Democrat position, he then turned to the proposals set forward by the opposition parties, stating that the current and the next generation of university students will not benefit from Labour or the Conservatives: the Liberal Democrats are the only Party to advocate complete fairness in their policies.

"The only people who are certain to benefit from the proposal from the Conservatives are those students who are going to university and were always going to do so, and who come from the wealthiest families. There is no certainty that poorer students or those may lose out on a place this year will benefit, although it is certain that richer students will do so."

Finally, Stephen discussed the Liberal Democrat policy of a establishing a 'Pupil Premium' in schools, aimed at targeting help and support to children who are struggling in school in order to improve social mobility early on and ensure that no child falls behind in class.

To view the video of Stephen speaking in this debate please click on the following link:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/house_of_commons/newsid_8568000/8568920.stm

Or to view the text of this debate in full, please click on the following link:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmhansrd/cm100316/debtext/100316-0018.htm