David Willetts MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities & Skills, explains the purpose of the Conservative Party's announcement on science and engineering.
I am grateful to ConservativeHome for inviting me to respond to the interesting thread on the proposals put forward by George Osborne and myself. One question is how we finance them. Earlier this year we announced a £5billion reduction in the rate of growth of public spending in 2009-2010, most of which financed our proposal to cut the tax burden on people with modest savings. But that left funds which we have put towards this package to meet a specific crisis for university leavers and apprentices in 2009-2010. Of course we must reduce the growth of spending overall but that is not a reason why we cannot also have Tory initiatives to shift money towards things we value.
Some comments ask whether there are any jobs for these people to do. In the foreword to the new 2009 CBI Education and Skills survey, Richard Lambert says ‘Science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) skills are integral to success’ but warned the survey found ‘further evidence of the serious mismatch in demand and supply, with two thirds of businesses having difficulty recruiting stem-skills staff and a particular concern at graduate and postgraduate level.’ So there is still demand from employers but it is not being met as taught masters are being cut back as they lose research council funding.
The problem was first raised with me at a Cambridge University biotechnology centre. I have also been approached by the Universities Transport Partnership, who tell me that the decision taken by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council not to fund Masters courses in the same way as in the past ‘leaves some disciplines for which Masters level education is the only source of higher education, including many transport skills, without Government support. … the withdrawal of support for Masters level education will create higher level skill shortages, or aggravate existing shortages, in many areas.’ So there is a real problem here which we are right to try to address by funding 25,000 taught masters courses in STEM subjects.
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