7. Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on the £21.1 million transferred from the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales to the Welsh Government? OAQ(5)0109(EDU)

Responsibility for the payment of the tuition fee grant transferred from the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales to the Welsh Government with effect from 1 April 2015. The technical adjustment of £21.1 million was confirmation of the final transfer of the ring-fenced budget outlined in the 2016 ministerial remit letter to HEFCW.

The Minister describes this as a technical change, and that was also what the Cabinet Secretary for finance said to me in a letter on 15 March, that it was a technical adjustment within the portfolio. Could the Minister therefore explain why Kirsty Williams told the Children, Young People and Education Committee on 17 October the tuition fee grant will be in excess of original estimates of £257.6m for 2016-17. We will therefore action the transfer of £21.1m from HEFCW to Welsh Government in the 2nd supplementary budget partly to cover the additional expenditure.’

Presiding Officer, the Member is at least consistent in asking the same question to a number of different Ministers and committees at different times, but I will disappoint the Member by giving the same answer as those Ministers have already given him. He’s received his letter on 15 March. I’m very happy, Presiding Officer, to test your patience again and read it in its entirety onto the record, but I’m not sure that would achieve very much. I have to say this to the Member: the points that he has raised both in Finance Committee and again here were answered in the letter of 15 March. This is a technical adjustment to the budgets that are associated with higher education. The published budget documentation explains this, and it’s been explained by both the finance Minister and by the education Secretary in these matters.

Dai Lloyd. David Rees. Oh, not doing well here. Mohammad Asghar. [Laughter.]

Thank you, Presiding Officer. Minister, I recognise that the transfer of £21 million of funding for HEFCW to support the tuition fee grant was included in the final budget. However, it is important that standards in our universities are kept high, and they need to be properly resourced to do that. What is the Cabinet Secretary doing to ensure that HEFCW’s budget is sufficient to support science, technology, engineering and maths courses that are vital in delivering the high-skilled workforce Wales needs in our future? Thank you.

Well, you’re aware, through the conversations that we’ve had previously here, that we’re making the funds available to HEFCW that they require in order to deliver the sort of higher education experience and investment that we want to achieve in Wales. But let me say this: I think we need to go further, sometimes, than simply funding the higher education estate and establishment in order to deliver those things. I think we need to look in a wider way to develop an industrial policy that is based partly within higher education, but not only within higher education, at increasing the skills, commercialising the research available to us, and investing in an economy that can withstand the difficulties that our economy will face in coming years.