Speeches by Glen.

“But you get the conception.”

“But we heard in the previous session that other countries provide a very different offer at university. In France, you see more people going to university near where they live, which removes the living costs, and the degree of wraparound care and welfare is different. Would that be an area where you could find ways of …”

“But not decreasing others?”

“Respectfully, all of that is true but, as Vivienne Stern said in her evidence, you have vast differences in the cost of providing these courses and, I am afraid, a finite budget. How do you reconcile that? I understand that you do not want to identify a specific course at a specific institution, but do you think that t…”

“Most usually do.”

“Can I just put to you what Sir Philip Augar, whom we had here earlier, said in his review? He concluded: “Generous and undirected funding has led to an oversupply of some courses at great cost to the taxpayer and a corresponding undersupply of graduates in strategically important sectors.” How do you respond to the cla…”

“That is fine.”

“No, I am not asking for a simple “gotcha” thing. Over the last 20 or 25 years, we have seen vastly higher numbers of people go to university, and therefore we have seen the provision that the state has to make for it increase. You probably heard in the earlier panel how that money is distributed. Do you have a view abo…”

“I want to move on to the way we fund universities overall. It is important we act responsibly on this Committee. We cannot recommend spending more on everything without recognising there are consequences. If you can, I would like you to address where the UK sits, compared with comparator economies, in terms of the amou…”

“For plan 2?”

“Having recently visited Wiltshire cadets in Old Sarum, I very much welcome what the Minister said about National Cadet Week. Will she ensure that all schools, particularly those in Pride in Place areas, such as the one in Salisbury, are made aware of the transformational opportunities of attending the cadets? That will…”

“I want to turn to the growth outlook. Before I ask my question, I think one of the things that people will have noticed is the great amount of volatility in the predictions and the numbers. For March, I think the GDP figure from the ONS was an expansion of 0.3% but, as has been reported, Reuters polled economists and a…”

“When we look at this situation—that we have the lowest fiscal headroom among the G7, at a time when gilts are at their highest since 1998—it feels like we are in quite a vulnerable position if you look at the two key drivers. What can you say about the best-case scenario for underlying GDP growth up to, say, 2030, give…”

“What do we do about it then? The country sees the growth figures, for which we as politicians generate great big headlines, one way or the other, but they seem pretty meaningless, because they are often restated. If they had been true to what they actually were on the restatement, they would not have generated anything…”

“That just smooths it, so this notion that somehow we are 0.1% higher than other countries in the G7 is—”

“Dr Dhingra, is there anything you would like to say on this subject?”

“That has been a pattern for a few years—”

“On that point—this is my last question—we are often told that we are in a much weaker position in terms of our energy costs, but in terms of AI, as a strength and momentum for the economy, how would you characterise where we stand relative to other economies in the G7?”

“Can you be optimistic about our relative position, notwithstanding the US’s leadership?”

“You mean that outside of financial services is where the sluggishness exists.”