With reports over the weekend of an inflationary increase to tuition fees that will take them over £10,000 and Monday’s Times covering an aspiration for 70% of school leavers to go to University, higher education is once again becoming a hot topic. There was a time when the old Universities had their own Members of Parliament. To read some of the papers recently, you might think that was still the case, but today it is the Lords rather than the Commons who routinely make the case for the sector.

The ground has been carefully prepared: Lord Mandelson in the Guardian one day, Lord Hague the next (perhaps no accident as both are involved in an election to be Chancellor of Oxford), Lord Willetts, the “two brains” of the Coalition Government consistently and working closely with friends at the Higher Education Policy Institute and for political balance, Lord Wallace, the Liberal Democrat Emeritus Professor at the LSE. The problem for the university sector is that their champions may speak loudly in the second chamber but all too rarely in the first.

As Chair of the Commons Education Select Committee I thrice asked colleagues to consider inquiries on the University sector, one, predictably, on the hot topic of international students, another, uncontroversially, on the impact on students of industrial action and the other, widely called for by the sector themselves on their regulator, the Office for Students (OFS). The reaction of cross-party colleagues from all parts of the country to the latter was striking and perhaps not what the sector would have asked for. They felt that the suggestion was driven by “producer interest” and did not reflect the interest of students. Some suggested that rather than investigating the challenges of a new independent regulator, we should be asking the more fundamental question of “what are universities for?”. Predictably perhaps, the OFS inquiry was taken on by a Lords Committee whose recommendations have been welcomed by the sector.

The inquiry on international students was agreed and launched, as it was supported by a mixture of the advocates and critics of Universities increasing economic reliance on this group, though it could not be completed as a result of the timing of the election. Speaking to my predecessor as Chair, who spent years talking about the wider skills sector and encouraging Universities to partner more with Further Education, it is striking how he also found a cross-party committee keener to show the value in apprenticeships, FE or T levels than more traditional degrees.

The challenge for the Universities is threefold. First a political pincer. On one side, left wing MPs who grew up in student politics fighting tuition fees and felt they suffered under a burden of debt not imposed on previous generations. On the other, right-wing MPs who embraced the argument that apprenticeships provided a better route to prosperity or that Universities don’t turn out work-ready graduates with the right kind of degrees. Each are rarely inclined to see the benefits in listening to the financial concerns of the sector.

Secondly. in previous generations, the Commons was dominated by MPs who were often the first in their family go to University and felt a duty to support the institutions who drove forward their own social mobility. This generation contains more consumers, who feel they paid at least their fair share, often the second generation, whose expectations of Universities were higher and may or may not have been met. An excellent think tank article on the emerging thinking of the new Lords Minister for the sector reflects this consumer focus.

Lastly, every MP is conscious that a large proportion of their constituents did not benefit from a university education and a focus on “working people” on both sides of the political spectrum, periodic rows about Vice Chancellor’s pay and the tone of high-minded liberalism at Universities makes them easily caricatured as “elite” institutions, targets of left and right alike.

It is a sector that is seen to have benefited enormously from the miscalculation in Government that a range of fees would be set when the cap was raised and the decision of pretty much every University to charge the top of the range. This was a logical step when you consider that all Universities are selling a premium product but not the intention of what were intended as marketising reforms. Regardless of their output, Universities became richer and expanded hugely in the years that followed. A glut of cash has been followed by a long freeze in income, as Tortoise media recently pointed out, but sympathy is limited. Anyone who thinks a single inflationary increase to fees will solve the financial challenge is in for a shock.

Many Universities can make a strong case for their contribution to local and regional economies, and they should be able to use this to build coalitions of support amongst MPs, Councils, regional mayors and other key stakeholders. This aspect of their role does not seem to have cut through in the Commons. The Russell Group periodically reminds Government of the enormous contribution it makes to the UK science base. Increasingly research-intensive universities as well as some business schools, are growing their role as incubators for spinouts and engines of economic growth. More must be made of these offers for the sector to get the that hearing it knows or thinks that it deserves.

The challenge is that for most MPs the sector represents the better paid elements of their constituency. In the race for funding against the NHS, nurseries, schools, disability groups or welfare, it is hard for the Universities to make an emotional case for funding from the taxpayer.

Sector bodies such as Universities UK regularly trumpet research that shows high returns on investment such as the much heralded London Economics report. The problem with these is that Government is inundated with cases that say if you spend £x here it will generate £10x there, but the Treasury tends to tune out at this point.

I genuinely believe the case that Universities should be seen as an asset to the UK – both in terms of the economy and global soft power - far more than a cost centre, but it doesn’t always seem to look that way from the Treasury or the DfE. It was striking that, apart from a dig at her predecessors for stoking up controversy, in the Education Secretary’s conference speech, the sector barely got a mention.

Universities need advocates, not just on the red benches of the Lords but in their local communities, on the green benches and on bodies such as the Commons Education Committee. All politics is local and to get them they need to start from the bottom up. If the case for University funding to be increased, as echoed in recent weeks, in the Financial Times, the BBC, Times and even the Telegraph, is to get beyond the Lords and into the Commons, the sector needs to get smarter about the case that it makes, to communicate strategically and, tough though this may be for some to hear, it does need to justify its existence.

About the author

Robin Walker chaired the Education Select Committee from 2022-2024, served on the Business Innovation and Skills Committee from 2012 to 2014 and served as a Member of Parliament from 2010 to 2024. He has recently joined Cardew Group, the strategic communications company as practice leader in Education.