Chamber and committees

You do not foresee any legal challenges that might open up that opportunity. You are confident that the regulations are robust.

We asked questions about all the things we were concerned about and we got as clear assurances as we could expect from the minister. I suspect that the regulations might come back in another form at some point, but I am satisfied for now.

I wonder whether our friends in Wales would give us an introduction to Taith, covering how it works, how successful it has been, what the organisational structure is, where it is run from and how it is funded.

That is very helpful. Will you tell me about the problems that you have faced and how you have overcome them? We have heard concerns that, with free movement of people ending, there may be problems with visas. Is that an issue? Is it an issue with the rest of the world?

You have obviously overcome them, because 5,000 people have benefited from the programme over the past year. Is that correct? You have obviously had some success.

You will have heard me talk about this before, but, with regard to research performance, our UK Research Council funding has dropped from 15 to 12.5 per cent. We were brilliant at this before—brilliant—and we are still good, but we are going down. Surely that indicates managed decline. If that position is then reinforced with a massive cut to the budget and a flat-cash situation, it is not really an indication that you are fully committed to universities—which are a major generator of economic performance, are they not?

That is all fine, but do you not think that it might just be a little too late? The colleges are already in a flat-cash situation, and the £46 million that they thought was coming is not. They are going to be making decisions right now about what to do, which positions to keep and which to remove, which departments to focus on and so on. Those decisions will be made without your having a single say, so is there not a danger that all of this is too late? Sally Mapstone at the University of St Andrews has been talking about a “managed decline”. Are you not concerned that you might just be too late to the party, that all the decisions will have been taken and that you will have had no say over any of them?

I have one more question. Are you going to do an Erasmus replacement?

Welcome to your position, minister. It is good to see you on that side of the fence.

I feel sorry for you, because you have taken on a portfolio that is mired in confusion and delay, and it has been for some years. A characteristic of your contribution, which has been impressive so far, is that you have talked about taking quick actions. That will be a dramatic change from recent years. There is no international strategy for the higher education sector. There is no final purpose and principles statement—it was promised in the spring and is still not here. There is no skills alignment—it was promised six years ago and we still do not have it. Although you talked about flexibilities for the college sector, we do not have substantial change on that, other than what you mentioned.

My concern is that, on top of that, you have a £46 million cut. How will that help all of that? How will it help the college and university sectors to plan for the longer term, which you have acknowledged that you would like to happen?

No, I can conclude on this point. It is connected with the question about what additional resource will be required to provide the extra places in the secure units. Minister, you have indicated the scale of the issue, but have you done calculations of what will be required in the secure units?