:00:37. > :00:40.On the Politics Show in Northern Ireland, we talk to the Secretary
:00:40. > :00:43.of Sstate ahead of his speech to the Tory conference in Manchester.
:00:43. > :00:53.And why Magee college thinks it needs thousands more students to
:00:53. > :00:53.
:00:53. > :36:51.Apology for the loss of subtitles for 2158 seconds
:36:51. > :36:55.Hello. With demand for student places ever-increasing, why can't
:36:55. > :37:00.the north-west expand Magee College into a major centre of learning? Is
:37:00. > :37:04.it really just a matter of cash? The Higher Education Minister
:37:04. > :37:08.Stephen Farry is here to answer those questions. As the
:37:08. > :37:13.Conservative faithful gathered in Manchester, we talk to the
:37:13. > :37:17.Secretary of State about the past and the future as corporation tax
:37:17. > :37:24.plans seem to be some time away. And as the presidential field
:37:24. > :37:31.shapes up, we take our weekly look at the race for the Aras in the
:37:31. > :37:35.Republic. Executive ministers strapped for
:37:35. > :37:40.cash are having to make tough choices. The popular but expensive
:37:40. > :37:43.decision to hold down tuition fees for local students means the
:37:43. > :37:48.Department of Employment unnerving as to disappoint someone else. For
:37:48. > :37:58.example, at the University of Ulster in Londonderry has seen its
:37:58. > :38:04.
:38:04. > :38:10.plans for expansion knocked back. We have spent the week on campus.
:38:10. > :38:15.It may be small, but Magee campus has big ambitions. From a tiny base
:38:15. > :38:24.of fewer than three dozen students in the mid- 1980s, more than 4000
:38:24. > :38:27.students study here today -- 3000 students in the mid- 1980s. But the
:38:27. > :38:30.universities wings have been clipped. The Higher Education
:38:30. > :38:34.Minister Stephen Farry travelled to Magee recently to deliver the news
:38:34. > :38:39.that he was turning down his request for 1000 extra places next
:38:39. > :38:45.year. The cost of keeping tuition fees down for local students has
:38:45. > :38:49.left his two per share -- has left his department strapped for cash.
:38:49. > :38:54.Then certainly sympathetic to the case, but it is not going to happen
:38:54. > :38:58.on the scale that people have hoped for. We are looking at a region
:38:59. > :39:06.that has seen job losses over recent years. The whole demolition
:39:06. > :39:09.of the textile industry. But we need to go forward, not just in
:39:10. > :39:13.terms of student places, but delivering for Derry. I don't
:39:13. > :39:17.believe there are too many within the Executive standing up for Derry
:39:17. > :39:21.at the moment. It does have to be asked whether simply expanding the
:39:21. > :39:25.number of university places in the City would have a permanent effect
:39:25. > :39:31.on the economy. Yes, students would spend money in the area, there
:39:31. > :39:35.would be extra employment and staff, but would there be a large scale of
:39:35. > :39:40.universities spin-offs? A lot depends on how far people
:39:40. > :39:48.graduating from Bibb -- Magee would actually stake in the region.
:39:48. > :39:52.year, almost 6000 places -- people applied to Magee. It is already
:39:52. > :39:57.heavily oversubscribed with more than 5000 -- more than five
:39:57. > :40:00.students competing for every place. Next ear, demand will surge with
:40:00. > :40:07.more students applying for local universities because of the
:40:07. > :40:11.increase in fees in Great Britain. The difficulty is that it is
:40:11. > :40:15.already extremely competitive to get a place and grades are
:40:15. > :40:20.increasing. We have now taken to interviewing students as well as
:40:20. > :40:23.asking for grades. We don't want to be in a situation where we raise
:40:23. > :40:26.aspirations and then slammed the door in people's faces. Considering
:40:26. > :40:33.it will have about a billion pounds less to spend over the next four
:40:33. > :40:40.years, Executive is busy juggling figures and setting priorities.
:40:40. > :40:44.There was I financial relative. -- there is a financial reality. There
:40:45. > :40:48.is only so much money. We can either spend it on hospitals or
:40:48. > :40:52.schools or universities or social housing. You cannot spend it on all
:40:52. > :40:56.of those things. No matter what decision you make, it can have a
:40:56. > :41:00.profound effect on Northern Ireland and upset quite a lot of people.
:41:00. > :41:03.don't think there is enough long- term strategic planning and
:41:03. > :41:07.privatisation of the higher education agenda. The Department
:41:07. > :41:12.have said they are working on an evidence-based process, so we just
:41:12. > :41:17.wait and see. That translates to us lurching from crisis to crisis.
:41:17. > :41:20.When we have the demand, we will scurry around and try to find the
:41:20. > :41:25.place is. We know we are facing increased pressures and we know
:41:25. > :41:30.there will be increased demand, so why can we not plan ahead?
:41:30. > :41:37.University of Ulster's ambitions far exceed the expansion of Magee.
:41:37. > :41:47.This is how its new Belfast campus might look. The Jordanstown campus
:41:47. > :41:57.is now said to be obsolete. Denude plan is largely funded by borrowing
:41:57. > :41:58.
:41:58. > :42:02.as well as the universities own resources. With the Belfast
:42:02. > :42:08.relocation, the problem that goes on is that money becomes tighter
:42:08. > :42:12.and tighter. You do worry about contingencies, about what is likely
:42:12. > :42:17.to come from left field. One group who do not have to be left
:42:17. > :42:23.convinced -- do not have to be convinced about the move is the
:42:23. > :42:28.thousands of students who commute to the odd cambers every day.
:42:28. > :42:32.Better and more convenient for people who have travelled every day,
:42:32. > :42:38.especially people who live in the country. It is very expensive
:42:38. > :42:43.travelling. It is about �30 a week. It would be great if it moved to
:42:43. > :42:47.the city centre. This is my second year. I chose it because I thought
:42:47. > :42:52.Queen's it was a bit more old- fashioned. I liked the more modern
:42:52. > :42:56.feel of the Jordanstown side. universities Minister, Stephen
:42:56. > :43:00.Farry, has promised to find the money for just a few hundred extra
:43:00. > :43:05.places in time for next year. But these will be spread across the
:43:05. > :43:08.institutions. Yvette Magee, many students come from socially
:43:08. > :43:18.disadvantaged backgrounds and the fear is that they will be squeezed
:43:18. > :43:22.
:43:22. > :43:25.out in the race for limited places. The ball is now firmly in the
:43:25. > :43:31.Minister's court and Stephen Farry is with me now. You are very
:43:31. > :43:35.welcome. You heard the professor in the broadcast say that there is too
:43:35. > :43:38.much crisis-management, not enough strategic planning. We now have
:43:38. > :43:44.clarity as to what is going to happen with student finance over
:43:44. > :43:48.the next three to four years. We have got a very good deal for more
:43:48. > :43:58.than Ireland, it is not perfect, but in the context of a fixed
:43:58. > :44:02.
:44:02. > :44:05.budget, and on the assumption -- to ask to freeze tuition fees and
:44:05. > :44:10.secondly to protect the existing budgets of the University, which we
:44:10. > :44:14.have also achieved, thirdly to have the expansion of university places,
:44:14. > :44:19.it was always going to be incredibly tough. But if you have
:44:20. > :44:23.85 empty school places and you have five students chasing up every
:44:23. > :44:33.place at university, that is bad planning by any measure boss of
:44:33. > :44:33.
:44:33. > :44:38.those at issues to be discussed at the Executive. There is a very
:44:38. > :44:43.heavy case for a lot more sharing and Integration in Education as a
:44:43. > :44:47.way of addressing that. We have to recognise that we have very high
:44:47. > :44:52.participation rates. We have the highest participation rates of any
:44:52. > :44:57.region of the UK. Something like 48 %. It looks like you will be
:44:57. > :45:01.presiding over declining numbers. I am hoping it will be maintained. If
:45:01. > :45:05.we had increased tuition fees, that would have deterred some young
:45:05. > :45:08.people from going to university. That is something we did in terms
:45:09. > :45:13.of access. We want people to go to university because it is the right
:45:13. > :45:17.thing for them, not because of whether they can pay. You have
:45:17. > :45:22.disappointed Magee, but what about the Belfast campus, is that going
:45:22. > :45:27.to go ahead? My department has signed off on the business case for
:45:27. > :45:31.that. I am confident it will proceed. In terms of Magee, I am
:45:31. > :45:35.obviously disappointed that they cannot move further with expansion
:45:36. > :45:39.and Magee. We do have some money that we did so dear in terms of the
:45:39. > :45:43.negotiations to raise finance that will allow for a modest increase in
:45:43. > :45:53.university places. But that has to be managed right across Northern
:45:53. > :45:54.
:45:54. > :45:57.Ireland. The hundred extra places next year, why did use bread does
:45:57. > :46:05.because Maya then Ireland, rather than Magee core where demand is so
:46:05. > :46:09.high? -- across Northern Ireland. The main rationale for securing the
:46:09. > :46:13.additional resources that we did get was to make sure we could
:46:13. > :46:18.manage it across the board. This is an initial investment. We know
:46:18. > :46:22.there will be increased demand in Northern Ireland. But the evidence
:46:22. > :46:28.of what that is going to be in real terms, I have the option of going
:46:28. > :46:32.back to bid for additional options, and double not hesitate to do that.
:46:32. > :46:35.What about the programme for government? We have heard Paul
:46:35. > :46:38.Gosling from the University for dairy campaign so that he has seen
:46:39. > :46:44.a need to draft and it does not make reference to the regeneration
:46:44. > :46:48.of debris. It will cover a very wide range of issues. It will not
:46:48. > :46:54.cover every single thing that every department will do over the next
:46:54. > :46:58.three or four years. If you look passed over the last government, it
:46:58. > :47:02.did not take all of those boxes either. I am confident that this
:47:02. > :47:07.will be a much more rounded document than what has been seen in
:47:07. > :47:15.the past. You cannot separate the grace of the economy from a very
:47:15. > :47:19.well educated at well -- workforce. Where is the vision? We have a very
:47:19. > :47:23.difficult and tough decision but we took where we managed to achieve by
:47:23. > :47:26.the freezing of tuition fees and sustaining the funding of our
:47:26. > :47:30.universities. Some people are arguing that we should take money
:47:30. > :47:34.away from the universities in order to keep the fees down. But we have
:47:34. > :47:39.managed to achieve both of those. Our universities are central to our
:47:39. > :47:49.economic vision into respect. Purfleet by providing a critical
:47:49. > :47:51.
:47:51. > :47:55.mass of graduates. -- firstly. have heard in the Assembly this
:47:55. > :47:59.week the education minister say he is going to tackle those 85,000
:47:59. > :48:05.empty places. Doing your department might benefit from that in the
:48:05. > :48:09.longer term? I don't think we will see those savings filtering through
:48:09. > :48:16.during this current round of the Budget. It will be a long-term
:48:16. > :48:21.change. There is going to be more demand locally whenever we have a
:48:21. > :48:24.situation where fees are kept down in Northern Ireland. We are going
:48:24. > :48:28.to see increased demand from students who perhaps would
:48:28. > :48:34.otherwise have gone too great Britain. That is a pressure we have
:48:34. > :48:40.to face up to. Will you charge, in future, more for arts degrees than
:48:40. > :48:44.science degrees Question Of but is currently not part of our thinking.
:48:44. > :48:49.But we will encourage people to do degrees that up economic the
:48:49. > :48:53.relevant to our future. Conservatives are gathering in
:48:53. > :48:57.Manchester for their annual conference. Bins and speed limits
:48:57. > :49:01.appeared to be high on the agenda, but our Secretary of State is also
:49:01. > :49:05.busy. I managed to get a quick chat with Owen Paterson and asked him
:49:05. > :49:11.about the likely delay to changes in corporation tax here, a policy
:49:11. > :49:15.he has championed. I have made a major plank of our programme a
:49:15. > :49:19.necessity to rebalance the economy every number of years. We all know
:49:19. > :49:23.the reasons in recent decades where there is a series over-dependence
:49:23. > :49:27.on public spending in the Northern Ireland economy. The promised in
:49:27. > :49:30.the election that we would bring forward a consultation paper on
:49:30. > :49:34.rebalancing the economy, in particular looking at the
:49:34. > :49:38.possibility of dissolving corporation tax -- devolving
:49:38. > :49:43.corporation tax to the Executive and the Assembly. We have done just
:49:43. > :49:50.that. We have had a vigorous consultation process. You are
:49:50. > :49:54.embarking on more talks. promised a paper and a consultation,
:49:54. > :49:57.which we did. They had been a significant number of whispers one
:49:57. > :50:02.-- the sponsors and we will shortly make our announcement about the
:50:03. > :50:08.next steps. It does seem to be more about process in progress. You are
:50:08. > :50:12.talking more than actually doing anything. The you can make that
:50:12. > :50:15.accusation if you want. I think we are behaving in a responsible
:50:15. > :50:20.manner. We said we would have a consultation based on a Treasury
:50:20. > :50:25.paper and we did exactly that. They have been a significant number of
:50:25. > :50:29.responses. As I understand it, a positive. A sensible, rational
:50:29. > :50:33.government will progress in a sensible, rational manner. That is
:50:33. > :50:37.what we intend to do and we will make our announcements shortly.
:50:37. > :50:41.say your party is the party of the Union, but there is a view that
:50:41. > :50:51.devolution is undermining the union. When you get the issue of tuition
:50:51. > :50:52.
:50:52. > :50:58.fees, you see regions acting very selfishly. Scotland had lower fees
:50:58. > :51:03.for Scottish students. Northern Ireland looks set to follow. Some
:51:03. > :51:07.of these announcements have caused anger, particularly in England. I
:51:07. > :51:13.think it is for politicians in the devolved administrations to think
:51:13. > :51:18.carefully about the UK impact of some of their announcements. But
:51:18. > :51:21.for us at UK level, we have to accept that devolution will bring
:51:21. > :51:25.forward a variation and there will be different regimes in different
:51:25. > :51:33.areas of policy according to which part of the United Kingdom you are
:51:33. > :51:38.run. You are championing Conservative policies cost --
:51:38. > :51:44.policies, how committed a you took rebranding them in Northern
:51:44. > :51:48.Ireland? We have been quite clear. The Prime Minister has been clear
:51:48. > :51:54.about this. We think it would be a good thing if people right across
:51:54. > :51:58.the United Kingdom could vote for candidates who could end up in
:51:58. > :52:00.government in Westminster and it could also pose a bigger one to be
:52:00. > :52:06.ministers if they were good enough. We're clearly committed to that of
:52:06. > :52:12.gold. We would like to see Northern Ireland brought into the mainstream
:52:12. > :52:16.of national politics. We are committed to working to that.
:52:16. > :52:21.also say you are committed to the security of Northern Ireland. You
:52:21. > :52:27.are remembering the murder, the policeman murdered earlier this
:52:27. > :52:32.year. What more can you do to stamp out this dissident threat? That was
:52:32. > :52:41.a really dreadful crime, and to murder a young man he had decided
:52:41. > :52:45.to devote himself to the whole community. I think we owe it to
:52:45. > :52:48.work together. There was an extraordinary coming together of
:52:48. > :52:54.the community shortly after the murder when so many people from so
:52:54. > :53:00.many different parts of the community attended D funeral. We
:53:00. > :53:08.work very closely with deep the bald Minister and he PSNI. We work
:53:08. > :53:14.extremely closely with the government into Dublin. We did put
:53:14. > :53:19.in and endorse an extra �50 million for the PSNI last year. This year,
:53:19. > :53:25.we negotiated a really quite exceptional extra �200 million over
:53:25. > :53:30.the next four years as requested by the PSNI. Together, will we are
:53:30. > :53:36.absolutely determined to beat this very small number of violent people
:53:36. > :53:40.who do not accept the peace process and the opportunity that the
:53:40. > :53:44.institutions we have offered to everybody in Northern Ireland.
:53:44. > :53:49.want to move beyond the politics of the peace process, but we still
:53:49. > :53:53.have the legacy of the past. How you going to redress that? We heard
:53:53. > :53:58.the deputy leader of the Alliance Party say it is time for all party
:53:58. > :54:02.talks on the issue. Is that something you would support? I have
:54:02. > :54:07.been talking to all parties over the last few months. But sadly
:54:07. > :54:12.there is no consensus across the parties on how to handle the past.
:54:12. > :54:16.We, the UK government, do not own the past. We can help work with the
:54:16. > :54:23.local parties, local politicians and local groups, but this is not
:54:23. > :54:27.entirely in our hands. The Minister of State and I have been talking to
:54:27. > :54:37.numerous people over recent months. Looking to see a way forward and
:54:37. > :54:43.
:54:43. > :54:47.picking up on some of the very good ideas. In some ways, it is a major
:54:47. > :54:53.element of what has been proposed. We will continue to talk to local
:54:53. > :54:57.people, local politicians and local groups to see a way forward.
:54:57. > :55:00.After months of guesswork over who would run and he would not, this
:55:00. > :55:05.week, the nominations process for the Irish presidential election
:55:05. > :55:11.finally ended. After a frantic scrabble around local councils and
:55:11. > :55:16.the Republic, Dana Rosemary Scallon and Michael Norris got the support
:55:16. > :55:26.they needed and the Irish presidential election was settled
:55:26. > :55:28.
:55:28. > :55:32.with seven nominations. The starting gun finally fired this
:55:32. > :55:37.week for the magnificent seven. Nominations closed at high noon on
:55:37. > :55:43.Wednesday and first up on the campaign trail was here for the
:55:43. > :55:47.first in a series of radio and TV debates. What did we learn?
:55:47. > :55:53.Mitchell told us he had the experience to put his shoulder to
:55:53. > :56:03.the wheel. Dana Rosemary Gallup -- Dana Rosemary Scallon said she
:56:03. > :56:09.
:56:09. > :56:14.would learn on the job. Mary Davies wants to rename the Aras. Michael D
:56:14. > :56:23.Higgins said he would run a vigorous campaign. Certainly not
:56:23. > :56:27.more walking and talking to come over the next four weeks.