The Westminster government should reduce the number of people going to university in England and “divert” the money into apprenticeships, according to a member of the New Conservatives group, the faction taking an increasingly vocal stance on restricting higher education.
Lia Nici, Conservative MP for Greater Grimsby, who co-authored a recent report for the group of “Red Wall” Tory MPs calling for entry restrictions to reduce the numbers at university, made the comments at a fringe meeting at the party’s conference in Manchester.
Ms Nici said that in Grimsby’s fish-processing sector, previously reliant on “cheap migrant labour”, Brexit had “woken up those employers to realise they have got to upgrade the way they do things” via robotics and automation, which would increase demand for apprenticeships.
But, said the former lecturer in media production at further and higher education college the Grimsby Institute, “successive governments” had prioritised entry to university.
