Commons Sense

House of Commons · Ministers' Questions

University Performance

Wednesday 22 November 2023 · 3 questions

Summarised by AI from the official record, so it can contain mistakes.

Read the full transcript on Parliament.uk

At a glance

Answered 0 Partly answered 3 Not answered 0

Key points

  • Barry Sheerman inquired about discussions with the Northern Ireland Department for the Economy on enhancing university performance.
  • Barry Sheerman expressed concerns about the worries of universities and local businesses regarding the impact of the government's policies.
  • Theresa Villiers asked about deploying Queen's University Belfast's cyber-security expertise to strengthen national cyber resilience.

Topics (select to filter)

Questions & Answers

Q1 Barry Sheerman Lab
Education Northern Ireland
Context

The question arises from concerns about the performance and recognition of Northern Ireland's universities based on impact rankings.

Question

Whether he has had discussions with the Northern Ireland Department for the Economy on improving the performance of Northern Irish universities as measured by the impact rankings.

Answer from Steven Baker

Northern Ireland has outstanding universities and a high share of its population is educated to degree level. My ministerial colleagues and I have the pleasure of regularly engaging with Queen's University Belfast and Ulster University, and we are proud to promote these institutions in the rest of the UK and internationally.

Partly answered

Not addressed: Specific strategies or actions to improve university rankings were not addressed

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Q2 Barry Sheerman Lab
Education Northern Ireland Business & Trade
Context

The question stems from a visit where the MP discussed with local businesses and universities their concerns about the government's lack of responsiveness, impacting their ability to meet UN targets.

Question

Is the Minister aware that when I was speaking on the deck of the Titanic centre only two weeks ago, I was thinking about him and the Conservative Government? Is he also aware that I was speaking to universities and local businesses that are deeply worried about the inability of universities and businesses to get answers from the Government to enable them to meet the targets of the very important impact assessment from the United Nations?

Answer from Steven Baker

As keen as I am to keep abreast of the hon. Gentleman's thoughts, I was not aware of his particular insights on that occasion. Of course, we continue to work with the universities and the Northern Ireland civil service, and I am keen to work with him on the success of those universities.

Partly answered

Not addressed: Specific actions or responses from the government were not addressed

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Q3 Theresa Villiers Con
Northern Ireland Science & Technology
Context

The question arises from impressive work on cyber-security being done at Queen's University Belfast, raising the need to utilise this expertise for national cyber-resilience.

Question

Staff and students at Queen's University Belfast are doing some incredibly impressive work on cyber-security. What can Ministers do to ensure that that expertise is deployed to make us a more cyber-resilient nation?

Answer from Steven Baker

I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend. I had the pleasure of visiting the national Centre for Secure Information Technologies, and I had a particularly interesting time testing some of its systems—I do not think I should comment any further on that particular experience.

Partly answered

Not addressed: Specific measures or deployment strategies were not provided

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