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Vol. 727 Wednesday No. 141 27 April 2011 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES (HANSARD) HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICIAL REPORT ORDER OF BUSINESS Questions Higher Education: ERASMUS Scheme Oak Processionary Moth Schools: Curriculum and PSHE Reviews Iraq: Camp Ashraf Postal Services Bill Order of Consideration Motion Pensions Bill [HL] Third Reading Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill Second Reading Grand Committee Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (Amendment of List of Responders) Order 2011 Debated Charities (Pre-consolidation Amendments) Order 2011 Debated Companies Act 2006 (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Order 2011 Debated Pensions Appeal Tribunals Act 1943 (Time Limit for Appeals) (Amendment) Regulations 2011 Pensions Appeal Tribunals Act 1943 (Armed Forces and Reserve Forces Compensation Scheme) (Rights of Appeal) Regulations 2011 Debated Written Statements Written Answers For column numbers see back page £3·50 Lords wishing to be supplied with these Daily Reports should give notice to this effect to the Printed Paper Office. 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All prices are inclusive of postage. © Parliamentary Copyright House of Lords 2011, this publication may be reproduced under the terms of the Parliamentary Click-Use Licence, available online through The National Archives website at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/information-management/our-services/parliamentary-licence-information.htm Enquiries to The National Archives, Kew, Richmond, Surrey, TW9 4DU; email: [email protected] 105 Higher Education: ERASMUS Scheme[27 APRIL 2011] Higher Education: ERASMUS Scheme 106 there has not been an increase in the proportion of the House of Lords cohort going in, there has been an increase in overall numbers. We will certainly make a decision as soon as Wednesday, 27 April 2011. possible. 3pm Lord Willis of Knaresborough: My Lords, we welcome Prayers—read by the Lord Bishop of Gloucester. the Government’s support for ERASMUS, but although we have spent £3.1 billion on that programme over six Lord Turner of Ecchinswell took the oath. years few of our students take part in it. A significant number of students with disabilities do not get places Higher Education: ERASMUS Scheme at all and apprentices in advanced apprenticeships Question cannot operate there either. Only one in four students who come from a STEM background can get a place 3.06 pm on an ERASMUS course. Is it not time that the Minister, in negotiating the new ERASMUS programme, Asked By Baroness Coussins renegotiated the terms of this very useful but ill focused To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they programme? will maintain the fee waiver after 2012 for students spending a year of their university degree courses Lord Henley: My noble friend is right to highlight abroad through the ERASMUS scheme; and what the importance of the ERASMUS programme. I can plans they have to extend the waiver to students give him an assurance that my right honourable friend going outside the European Union. David Willetts has written recently to the appropriate Commissioner about where ERASMUS should go in The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, the next seven-year cycle. His more detailed points Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs about dealing with disabled students and others is (Lord Henley): My Lords, the Higher Education Funding another matter, but we will certainly do what we can to Council for England has made the ERASMUS fee encourage ERASMUS and its development. That is waiver available for the 2011-12 academic year for why my right honourable friend has written to the students at English institutions which participate in appropriate Commissioner. the ERASMUS programme. No decisions have been made on the fee waiver for future years. An announcement Lord McFall of Alcluith: My Lords, the Minister will be made in due course. The ERASMUS programme will be aware that since the start of this programme in is limited to exchanges within the European Union 1987 more than 2 million young people have benefited and five other countries so the question of extending and for many of them it was the first time they had the fee waiver to students going outside these countries lived abroad and studied, so it is a cultural phenomenon. does not arise. If this programme is stopped or curtailed it will be a shattering blow to the Government’s social mobility Baroness Coussins: I thank the Minister for that agenda. Will the noble Lord keep that in mind when reply and declare an interest as chair of the All-Party making that decision? Group on Modern Languages. Will the Minister accept that there needs to be more long-term certainty about Lord Henley: My Lords, I agree with virtually the fee waiver because the quality and even the survival everything that the noble Lord said. No one is talking of modern languages degrees will be threatened if about stopping ERASMUS; we are talking about universities cannot afford to offer a year abroad or if encouraging the Union to make changes to ERASMUS only well-off students can afford to take one, even as it develops. The specific question about fee waivers though the experience and skill that they acquire is is a detailed question for Her Majesty’s Government what employers say they want? Would the Government and one that colleagues in the Department for Business, be prepared to consider a package of measures to Innovation and Skills will consider and make the encourage linguists and others by increasing the proportion appropriate decision in due course. of the fees covered by the waiver by freezing the loan interest during the year abroad and offering financial incentives to universities to run programmes in Europe Lord Low of Dalston: My Lords, is the noble Lord and world wide? aware that the limiting of fee remission to those aged up to 25 studying for a first full level 2 and specified Lord Henley: My Lords, I agree with the noble level 3 qualification will negatively impact on disabled Baroness that there is a need for long-term certainty people seeking apprenticeships, because they can take and I say that as the parent of a child who is about to rather longer? Will he agree to look at the matter make decisions about universities as he completes his again? AS year. Obviously that is something that the Government will do and I hope that colleagues will be able to make Lord Henley: My Lords, again, that would be a a decision as soon as is appropriate. We also understand matter for the European Union to look at. Again, I the point underlying the noble Baroness’s Question will pass that question on to my right honourable about the importance of improving and encouraging friend and I am sure that it is one that he will want to the teaching of foreign languages. We are glad that take up with the Commissioner in his further consultations there has been an increase over previous years. Although about the future development of ERASMUS. 107 Higher Education: ERASMUS Scheme[LORDS] Oak Processionary Moth 108 Lord Knight of Weymouth: My Lords, ERASMUS now been set aside. Can he tell us how containment is is an important scheme to gain valuable work experience going to work; and can he give assurances that areas and language skills. Applicants to that scheme are not of oak woodland will not have to be closed to the the only group who would like a fee waiver from 2012, public, as they have been in Holland and Germany, as more than 70 per cent of universities will be charging because of the impact of this moth? the maximum fees of £9,000 per year. Has the Minister seen the outcome of the High Fliers Research study Lord Henley: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble published today, which finds that more than half of friend for all she has said. She is quite right in, first, current final year students would not have gone to underlining the public health issues and, secondly, university if they had faced fees of £9,000? Given underlining the fact that some oak woodland areas those findings and the consequences to the Exchequer might have to be removed from public access, as has of higher than budgeted fees, how will the Government happened in other parts of the EU, although we hope square extending access with deficit reduction? Is it that it will not happen here.