Johnson warns Tories against ‘opportunistic’ fee rise opposition

The Conservatives “lost their way” on English higher education funding while in government and should not “opportunistically” reject a fee rise from opposition, a former universities minister has told the party’s conference.

Allowing inflation to erode the real-terms value of the £9,250 tuition fee over the past six years had been “irresponsible”, said Lord Johnson of Marylebone, the last minister to approve a rise, and had “stretched the unit of resource beyond what it can endure”.

This was having a “detrimental” impact on students, who are experiencing “worse quality teaching” as a result, and was also “depriving institutions of the resources they need to undertake a whole host of activities including research”, Lord Johnson told a fringe event hosted by the Higher Education Policy Institute and King’s College London’s Policy Institute.

“The Conservatives need to re-find their way in that respect and, in my view, return to the system that was in place that enables fees to be indexed to inflation and I’m encouraged by recent reports in the media that this might be what the Labour party is intending,” he said.

Lord Johnson said it would be a mistake for the party to “be opportunistic in criticising Labour and indeed opposing them if that is the path they choose”.

“The only grounds it would be legitimate to oppose such an increase in fees with inflation would be if there were not a link to quality and outcomes,” he said, adding that there should not be a “something for nothing” approach and any fee rise should be aligned with the performance of universities.

The party is meeting in Birmingham for its first conference outside government in 14 years and having suffered its worst election result in modern history.

Members have been hearing from the four leadership candidates throughout the conference, with one of Kemi Badenoch, Robert Jenrick, James Cleverly or Tom Tugendhat set to be elected on 2 November.

Lord Johnson said it was “too early to say” whether the party would return to a more moderate position on higher education under a new leader, having adopted a hostile approach to the sector in the run-up to the election.

But he said whoever wins will face “strong headwinds” influenced by “fundamental misconceptions” to “do with the higher education system and the value that it brings to our economy and society”, and there was a need for universities to “communicate their value in our political system” but this was a “piece of work that is going to take a long time”.

Nick Hillman, the director of Hepi and a former adviser to Conservative universities ministers, said the party’s record in government had been characterised by two phases: one in which they secured more money for teaching, expanded places and introduced a new regulatory regime and a second that had been a “bit of a disaster” and had seen them “make enemies for the sake of making enemies”.

The party had fought the election, according to Mr Hillman, emphasising the bad stuff about universities and “playing down the good stuff”.

“I think it is time for the Conservative Party – if they are serious about showing they’ve changed – to say the war on universities is over”, he said, pointing out that Labour’s science secretary, Peter Kyle, declaring this didn’t mean as much as he hadn’t been a participant.

Mr Hillman said if he were the shadow universities minister, he would focus on putting pressure on the government to allow universities to help themselves by relaxing the law on participating in costly pension schemes and sharpening the regulatory focus of the Office for Students.

tom.williams@timeshighereducation.com