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Part-time Employment

10. Mr. Corbett: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if she will make a statement on the change in the proportion of (a) men and (b) women at work who were employed on a part-time basis between (i) 1979 and 1990 and (ii) 1990 and 1996. [11735]

Mr. Paice: According to the work force in employment series, since 1979 the proportion of men working part time has increased from 6 to 11 per cent. and of women from 40 to 46 per cent. The labour force survey, which is internationally recognised, shows lower figures, but it did not start until 1984.

Mr. Corbett: Does not the near-doubling of the number of men working part time and often on short-term contracts explain the growing feeling of insecurity among millions of people outside these walls? Will the Minister confirm that 84 out of 100 men returning to work enter part-time rather than full-time jobs, and, while he is at it, will he examine the labour force survey and confirm that it shows--despite the Government's claims to the contrary--that unemployment among women is rising? We are given fiddled figures from a Government whom no one can trust.

Mr. Paice: Survey after survey, including the labour force survey, demonstrates that about 87 per cent. of those in part-time work wish to be in part-time work. A very small percentage of those would rather have--

Mr. Corbett: The Minister is wrong.

Mr. Paice: The hon. Gentleman quoted the labour force survey as a source of fact, but he now questions my

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reply, which is based on it. It is incorrect to mention the concepts of part-time jobs and job security in the same sentence, as the hon. Gentleman does. There has been a small increase in the number of part-time jobs, and the figures that I quoted show it. However, the increase does not relate to the level of job security.

The recently published British social attitude survey shows very little evidence of increasing job insecurity. More than 50 per cent. of people have been with the same employer for five years, and a third of employees have been with the same employer for more than 10 years. The fact is that the vast majority of people are in normal, stable jobs. Over the past quarter, the entire net increase in jobs created have been full-time jobs.

Sir Alan Haselhurst: Is it not the case that the only thing that creates jobs, be they part-ime or full-time, is the success of British companies and businesses in earning wealth for this country? No amount of fiddling around with increased taxes on industry by one means or another will improve real opportunities for people in future.

Mr. Paice: I am sure that my hon. Friend agrees that increased taxes would have quite the opposite effect. Whatever the good intentions behind policies, they can often have a negative result. If one puts burdens on business, for whatever good reason, one will end up destroying jobs, and it is time that the Labour party recognised that.

Mr. Hain: Why do the Government not come clean about the fact that there has been a huge shift from well-paid, full-time jobs to badly paid, part-time jobs, and that that has hit total earnings? Combining full-time and part-time work, as the Library has done for me for the first time, one sees that, over the past three years, real median earnings have fallen by more than 1 per cent. If that is a Tory recovery, thank goodness we do not have a recession. We have high taxes, low wages and job insecurity. This is a Del Boy Tory recovery.

Mr. Paice: This country has more people at work than any other major European country. Our unemployment has fallen by 900,000 since the peak and is continuing to fall. There have been 600,000 new jobs in the economy since the recovery began. Those are the facts. The Opposition are concerned about earnings. The only way in which people will have their earnings increased is if the businesses they work for improve their productivity and profitability, and are therefore able to employ more people at higher wages.

Mr. Congdon: Does my hon. Friend agree that the significant thing about the UK economy is that we have falling unemployment--it has fallen by 1 million since its peak--whereas our major European partners have increasing unemployment? Is not the reason for that the fact that they have imposed the social costs on their economies that the Labour party wants to impose on this economy, which would destroy jobs in this country?

Mr. Paice: My hon. Friend refers to the burdens that would be put on business by the Labour party's social policies. As I said earlier, such policies may have a good intention; I do not deny that. They have, however, a

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deleterious effect on jobs. One has only to look at all the major economies in Europe which have higher unemployment and which also have in place most of the policies that Labour espouses to realise that. That might be a coincidence if it was true of just one country, but the fact is that all the major economies in Europe share the features of high social costs and much higher unemployment than us. That is no coincidence; it is a direct result of the policies that Labour would impose on Britain.

University Research Assessment Exercise

11. Dr. Wright: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what assessment she has made of the benefits accruing from the research assessment exercise in universities. [11736]

Mrs. Gillian Shephard: The research assessment exercise supports our policy that research funding should selectively reward excellence, allowing world-class research to flourish and focusing increasing activity on higher-rated departments.

Dr. Wright: Is the Secretary of State aware of the way in which the research assessment exercise has preoccupied the attention of universities and their staff? We hear of staff being transferred between institutions, sometimes with transfer fees, to inflate the research ratings. We have the unreadable in search of the unteachable as research is produced that nobody wants to read or needs to read, while teaching is being devalued. Is it not time to sort this nonsense out?

Mrs. Shephard: It is a peer review system that has been refined over 10 years, and it is as robust and sensitive as the funding bodies can make it. The hon. Gentleman will wish to place alongside it the quality assessment mechanisms developed by the universities. The mobility of academics is not necessarily unhelpful for university institutions and the health of the research base. As I am sure he is aware, research is increasingly globalised, so his criticism does not logically follow.

Mr. Forman: I welcome the good sense of seeking to concentrate our university research in a smaller number of centres of excellence, for the reasons that my right hon. Friend has stated, but I wonder whether the process could be advanced with slightly less paperwork than is currently required. Some of the frequent complaints from universities are along those lines.

Mrs. Shephard: The review was certainly thorough. The operation will have to be looked at again now that the exercise has been completed. The first necessity when allocating £700 million-worth of research is to do the job thoroughly.

University Staff Recruitment

12. Mr. Sheerman: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what steps she is taking to retain and recruit high-quality staff in British universities. [11737]

Mrs. Shephard: The staffing of universities is for institutions themselves, which are responsible for setting their own levels of pay and conditions of service.

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Mr. Sheerman: Is not the Secretary of State worried that a combination of extremely low pay and a growing number of short-term contracts--many universities have more than half their staff on such contracts--will depress standards even in the medium term? That must concern all hon. Members. Is it not time that the Government realised what an asset we have in our universities? If we run down that asset, our possibilities for wealth creation and the regeneration of local communities will be severely damaged.

Mrs. Shephard: I agree that the higher education sector is a priceless asset for this country because of its research base and the opportunities that it affords us to increase our global competitiveness. I remind the hon. Gentleman that under this Government there has been an expansion in the number of young people going to university from 12 per cent. in 1979 to 30 per cent. now. It is also encouraging that, while this country accounts for about 1 per cent. of the world's population, our universities account for 5 per cent. of the world's research. The sector is in good health and is doing well.

I remind the hon. Gentleman that pay and conditions of service are matters for the universities. Royal Society research shows that the number of British academics returning to employment in Britain exceeds the number going abroad. I do not think that there is cause for concern. Investigating that issue is one of the tasks of the national committee of inquiry into higher education.

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Will my right hon. Friend congratulate Lancaster university on its ability to attract the highest calibre of staff, enabling it to be placed third in the recent research assessments, after only Oxford and Cambridge, which it hopes to overtake eventually?

Mrs. Shephard: I should be delighted to congratulate the university of Lancaster. In the recent exercise, the best universities have done better than last time and new universities and higher education colleges have significantly increased their number of active researchers and have improved their performance. I am happy to congratulate the university.

Mr. Bryan Davies: We all understand why morale in universities is not high. What about the bombshell that the Secretary of State suddenly exploded this week among further education colleges? Will she confirm that she has refused to fund the demand-led expansion of student numbers, to which colleges are already committed, with students on their courses and private providers already under contract? What is the explanation for that disastrous decision? Why has it been taken now, in the middle of the education year? Has she any idea of the number of colleges that will be plunged into deficit as a result of the decision? How many jobs will be lost in the public and private sectors? Does she accept that the House requires an explanation?

Mrs. Shephard: I cannot confirm the hon. Gentleman's first allegation, because it is not true. The proposals announced in the recent Budget provided a funding increase of £80 million to existing baselines of further education for the next two years. The plans provide for 20 per cent. growth in the number of students in further

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education between 1993-94 and 1998-1999. However, I am discussing with the Further Education Funding Council ways of meeting costs arising from the demand-led element of its funding this year. I remind the hon. Gentleman that he should be exceedingly wary before giving any impression that additional funding pledges might be the intention of his party.

Mr. Butler: Will my hon. Friend acknowledge the superb work of the Open university, of which you, Madam Speaker, have the honour to be chancellor and which is in my constituency. It is currently rated 10th out of more than 100 such institutions in terms of its research work, in addition to producing by a multiple factor the largest number of top-quality graduates of any university in the kingdom.

Madam Speaker: It has also just won the Queen's anniversary prize for higher and further education.

Mr. Butler: Indeed, Madam Speaker, it has also just won the Queen's award.

Mrs. Shephard: Perhaps I should congratulate you, Madam Speaker, as chancellor of that excellent institution. The innovative work by the Open university is possibly showing the way for the development of the delivery of learning systems for the next century. One of its most interesting qualities is its work overseas--it has 17 outlets in Russia alone. I am delighted that you are the chancellor of such a first-class establishment.

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