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19 Nov 2008 : Column 621W—continued

Literacy

Mr. Skinner: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills what recent estimate he has made of the levels of adult literacy in England; and if he will make a statement. [237902]

Mr. Simon: The 2003 Skills for Life Needs Survey estimated that 5.2 million adults have literacy skills below Level 1 (broadly equivalent to an English GCSE at grades D to G.) A further survey will be conducted during this spending review period.

Good literacy skills are crucial to life and work, and the Government are committed to enabling adults to improve these skills. Free literacy courses are available to adults in England through the Government's Skills for Life strategy, which was launched in 2001. So far 2,276,000 adults have improved their literacy, language and numeracy skills and gained a first qualification, meaning the Government have met the 2010 Skills for Life target over two years early. Well over 1 million of these qualifications were achieved in literacy.

Our long-term ambition, as set out in World Class Skills, is for 95 per cent. of adults to have functional literacy skills by 2020, up from 85 per cent. in 2005. To achieve this trajectory the Learning and Skills Council's 2007 Statement of Priorities set out plans to deliver 597,000 literacy achievements at Level 1 or above during the period 2008 to 2011.

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North West Lifelong Learning Network

Mr. Marsden: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills what discussions (a) he and (b) his officials have had with the Higher Education Funding Council for England on the North West Lifelong Learning network. [235948]

Mr. Lammy: Ministers and officials speak to many institutions and organisations about issues that affect individuals’ progression to higher education. The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) is responsible for managing the lifelong learning network (LLN) programme and they lead in discussions about the progress that the individual networks are making.

There are five lifelong learning networks in the North West: Cheshire and Warrington, Cumbria Higher Learning, Lancashire, Greater Merseyside and West Lancashire. These LLNs have received over £15 million of HEFCE funding.

The overall objective for LLNs is to improve the coherence, clarity and certainty of progression opportunities for vocational learners into and through higher education. HEFCE officials have discussed with individual LLNs matters relating to additional student numbers, the interim evaluation of LLNs and the use of e-systems to support learners.

The HEFCE institutional team also attend the HEFCE funded HEEL (Higher Education in East Lancashire) group which is in its second year of operation. HEEL has four working groups: curriculum development, community engagement, employer engagement and marketing.

Research: Agriculture

Mr. Peter Ainsworth: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills how much his Department has spent on (a) direct grants and (b) joint projects with universities for research on agriculture in each of the last 10 years. [237231]

Mr. Simon: The Department does not provide direct funding for agricultural research, but allocates the science and research budget to research councils who then fund different areas of research. The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) is responsible for agricultural research. BBSRC estimated spend on research in agriculture in the last 10 years is set out in the following tables.

Estimated spend ( £ million )
	1998/99	1999/2000	2000/01	2001/02	2002/03	2003/04	2004/05	2005/06	2006/07	2007/08
Joint projects with universities	16.4	17.9	20.0	22.6	23.2	22.5	21.6	20.4	22.9	23.6
Direct grants	33.1	33.6	34.9	35.8	37.1	35.9	37.1	39.0	40.1	46.0
Total	49.5	51.6	54.9	58.4	60.3	58.4	58.7	59.4	63.0	69.7
Notes: 1. ‘Direct grants’ includes core strategic grant (CSG) and research grant spend at BBSRC-sponsored institutes. 2. ‘Joint projects with universities’ includes research grants* at other institutions.

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Estimated spend ( £ million )
	1998/99	1999/2000	2000/01	2001/02	2002/03	2003/04	2004/05	2005/06	2006/07	2007/08
Institutes: CSG	27.4	28.5	28.8	28.6	29.1	27.8	29.8	31.8	32.0	34.3
Institutes: grants	5.8	5.2	6.1	7.1	8.0	8.2	7.3	7.2	8.0	11.7
Direct grants (institutes): total	33.1	33.6	34.9	35.8	37.1	35.9	37.1	39.0	40.1	46.0
Note: This table shows the breakdown of institute funding by CSG and research grant spend.

Research: Finance

Adam Afriyie: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills how much co-funding from the private sector the research councils attracted in each of the last 15 years, expressed in (a) cash and (b) real terms. [235377]

Mr. Simon [holding answer 18 November 2008]: The total value of co-funding from the private sector for the 10 complete years since 1998/99, the earliest year from which figures for the councils are available without incurring disproportionate cost, is as follows:

Table 1. Cash terms or nearest approximation( 1)
	Total (£000)
1998/99	72,890
1999/2000	69,365
2000/01	79,396
2001/02	117,508
2002/03	139,519
2003/04	96,027
2004/05	89,496
2005/06	81,399
2006/07	89,767
2007/08	108,733

Table 2. Real terms or nearest approximation( 1)
	GDP deflator	Total (£000)
1998/99	80.396	90,644
1999/2000	81.976	84,616
2000/01	83.051	95,599
2001/02	84.903	138,403
2002/03	87.64	159,196
2003/04	90.138	106,533
2004/05	92.589	96,659
2005/06	94.485	86,150
2006/07	97.03	92,525
2007/08	100	108,733
(1) Some of the figures included in table 1 are on resource/accrual terms and represent the nearest approximation available for cash terms without incurring disproportionate cost. Real terms value in table 2 were calculated from these figures by applying GDP deflators, which were last updated 30 September 2008. Notes: 1. The private sector has been defined as organisations not controlled by Government. 2. AHRC was not formed until 1 April 2005. 3. ESRC data are not available for 1998/99, 1999/2000 or 2000/01.

Students: Finance

Mr. Willetts: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills how many students funded by the Learning and Skills Council were resident in each English region in each year since 2003-04. [235326]

Mr. Simon: Table 1 shows the number of learners funded by the Learning and Skills Council resident in each region. Figures are presented from 2003/04 to 2006/07, the latest year for which fully audited data are available.

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Table 1: Number of Learners funded by the Learning and Skills Council by region and funding stream, 2003/04 to 2006/07
Region	Adult and community learning	Further education colleges	University for industry	Work based learning	Train to gain	Grand total
2003/04
East of England	91,600	341,100	18,800	24,700	—	476,200
East Midlands	74,100	367,700	3,000	26,100	—	471,000
Greater London	139,100	501,700	71,800	19,900	—	732,500
North East	37,800	248,800	14,900	20,100	—	321,600
North West	116,600	531,300	72,000	48,400	—	768,300
South East	176,500	516,800	29,800	36,100	—	759,100
South West	85,500	417,100	5,800	28,600	—	536,900
West Midlands	65,800	467,900	23,000	34,600	—	591,200
Yorkshire and the Humber	66,700	420,500	26,700	35,900	—	549,800
Other	33,400	86,800	3,800	7,100	—	131,000
Total	887,000	3,899,700	269,400	281,500	—	5,337,500
2004/05
East of England	93,600	331,700	36,700	21,300	—	483,300
East Midlands	67,900	352,400	50,500	22,700	—	493,500
Greater London	140,700	499,800	70,300	18,700	—	729,500
North East	38,900	252,400	30,000	19,300	—	340,600
North West	100,700	507,900	65,900	44,400	—	718,900
South East	150,400	479,500	53,200	31,700	—	714,900
South West	86,500	406,000	30,500	23,400	—	546,400
West Midlands	53,700	452,800	41,500	30,400	—	578,400
Yorkshire and the Humber	60,600	414,100	45,600	31,500	—	551,800
Other	51,500	90,000	7,400	5,900	—	154,900
Total	844,500	3,786,700	431,700	249,400	—	5,312,200
2005/06
East of England	83,600	279,100	31,200	10,100	—	404,000
East Midlands	50,200	297,000	34,500	3,100	—	384,700
Greater London	132,200	463,800	52,100	17,000	—	665,200
North East	38,200	200,000	23,200	18,000	—	279,400
North West	113,000	448,500	43,900	39,300	—	644,700
South East	129,400	403,900	43,300	28,500	—	605,100
South West	59,100	342,300	24,000	23,200	—	448,500
West Midlands	53,300	411,600	32,200	27,000	—	524,100
Yorkshire and the Humber	63,600	350,000	33,400	28,800	—	475,900
Other	38,100	95,000	6,700	33,100	—	172,900
Total	760,600	3,291,300	324,400	228,200	—	4,604,500
2006-07
East of England	80,200	226,100	18,800	21,200	20,700	367,100
East Midlands	48,600	224,100	15,000	21,800	17,800	327,300
Greater London	132,300	407,700	32,800	16,800	21,700	611,300
North East	39,900	158,100	9,300	16,800	17,700	241,700
North West	105,900	354,800	22,900	41,700	35,400	560,800
South East	127,100	331,900	25,800	30,800	20,300	536,000
South West	63,900	265,500	16,300	24,300	16,400	386,400
West Midlands	57,600	325,900	20,800	26,500	29,700	460,600
Yorkshire and the Humber	52,100	287,200	16,300	30,800	22,900	409,200
Other	34,500	51,600	2,500	5,100	36,100	129,800
Total	742,100	2,633,000	180,500	235,800	238,700	4,030,000
Notes: 1. Figures are taken from the Individualised Learner Record final F05 data freezes. An earlier freeze of University for Industry data has been used due to data issues with the final freeze. 2. Region is based on home postcode of the learner. 3. The ‘other’ category includes incomplete records and learners not resident in England, but who are learning in England (for example, learners resident in Scotland or Wales). 4. For Train to Gain and Work Based Learning, participation is counted as the number of starters. 5. There will be an element of double counting in the figures as some learners will participate in more than one funding area. 6. Totals may not equal the sum of their components due to rounding. 7. Train to Gain was created in April 2006. Standard reporting practice is to include the months of April to July 2006 in the 2006/07 academic year. Source: Individualised Learner records

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