Patrick Hurley

First, I pay tribute to you, Sir Desmond, for your exemplary chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I also thank Members from across the House for their valued contributions. With your indulgence, Sir Desmond, I will touch on funding, a topic raised by several Members, through an anecdote about how I paid my Open University fees. When I studied at the OU, modules were around £700 each. Even that was too expensive for me. It was not until I realised that I could pay for my modules using Tesco Clubcard vouchers that I finally took the plunge and enrolled. The choice was this: every few months, a booklet from Tesco would come through the post, and I would have the option of getting 50% off a Pizza Express bill, or free cinema tickets, or potentially transforming my life through higher education. Given the context, it was no choice at all—it was obvious what I should do. Funding is never easy, but we need to redouble our efforts to ensure that the principle the OU was founded on—that education should be affordable and accessible to all—holds true not just for the last 60 years, but for the next 60 years. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered the impact of the University of the Air White Paper on lifelong learning opportunities.