UK’s science minister declares end to Tory ‘war on universities’

Peter Kyle, who applied to university three times, said Tory government’s ‘war’ on higher education was over

Britain’s future Nobel prizes will come from encouraging young people into university rather than making sandwiches in high street chains, according to the science secretary Peter Kyle, who declared that the previous government’s “war on universities” had ended.

Taking aim at claims that too many school-leavers went to university, Kyle said attacks on “rip-off” degrees from the former prime minister Rishi Sunak risked putting off future innovators and scientists. 

“Where is the next generation of innovation going to come from? It’s not going to come out of a sandwich shop,” Kyle told the Guardian.

Kyle, the secretary of state for science, innovation and technology, was able to attend university only thanks to a dramatic intervention by Anita Roddick, the founder of Body Shop. Roddick had urged Kyle to apply to university after spotting him working long hours at her company, and when he was rejected by Sussex University she threatened to return her honorary degree unless he was admitted.

Kyle said: “The value of an undergraduate degree has been called into question by the previous government, and that is a psychological barrier.

“Not to people who come from affluent, assertive families but to people from lower incomes, for whom the consideration of money has a far more direct impact on their lives because their families live and breathe it every day.

“I don’t know a single Tory [MP] who stood up saying that too many people are going to universities, who didn’t want their own kids to go. I used to go around and ask them after I heard them say it. In one case, I asked one: ‘Which one of your three kids did you not want to go to university?’ 

“This is real. For me, you can imagine how personal this all feels. Because every time they say too many people go to university, that’s me.”

Kyle said Roddick was the first person who suggested he should go on to higher education after he left school in Brighton with no qualifications and joined the Body Shop after applying five times.

He said: “They gave me the lowest-paid job in the company, inputting invoices, which was the worst job in the world for me, because I only found out later in life I was so profoundly dyslexic.

“I was terrible at the job but loved the company, so I used to go in on a Sunday and work my socks off secretly so that I could stay up to date with everything. And that’s how I met Anita, because she spotted me working on a Sunday.”

After Roddick suggested he go to university, Kyle applied twice to Sussex and was rejected each time, so he returned to his old school as a 25-year-old to gain the entry qualifications that he needed.

“Then I applied and I got rejected again. But a few days later, I then got an acceptance to Sussex. I only found out some time later, because her PA told me, that Anita had called the university, and said: ‘If you don’t have Peter Kyle as a student, I’m returning my honorary doctorate.’ That is how I got in,” he added. 

“When I look back at those times, I have no idea why I persisted. Most young people will take no for an answer the first time, and I feel very privileged for the education I got.”

Since 2015, Kyle has been the Labour MP for Hove and Portslade, and was appointed by Keir Starmer to cabinet as science and innovation secretary after the general election in July.

Asked how the government would improve the financial plight of universities and students, Kyle said their struggles mirrored the UK’s problems as a whole.

Elizabeth Baker