"How are we supposed to get these higher wages?"

An education minister got owned during an interview about the government’s new policy to stop ‘rip-off degrees’, as he defined good outcomes as higher wages, before being reminded that his government was encouraging people not to increase workers’ pay.

Rishi Sunak announced a ‘crackdown on rip-off university degrees’ which the Prime Minister and Education Secretary said leave young people with poor pay and high debts. Universities will be forced to limit the number of students on these so called ‘rip-off’ courses.

To talk about the plan, education minister Robert Halfon appeared on Good Morning Britain. However, his interview faced widespread ridicule as he got caught out undermining his own party’s claim that wages should not be increased to tackle inflation.

During the interview, Halfon explained: “What we are saying is that if people are doing degrees they should get good jobs at the end, that’s in public service or it might be in the private sector, but there are too many students not getting those jobs.”

Presenter Susanna Reid probed whether doing a history degree and ending up working in a shop would then count as worthless, “does that make my history degree worthless or does that make working in a shop worthless?”

“Of course it doesn’t make it worthless but what we’re trying to do is ensure those who do a degree have good outcomes when they finish their university degree,” defended Halfon.

Reid went on: “Would working in a shop not be a good outcome for someone who does a History degree?”

Halfon replied: “It depends what the progress is in the shop, do you have progression to higher wages in the shop depending on what job you are doing? We want good progression, we want good earnings and good skills.”

To which Reid pointed out: “You are aware that your government is saying that people shouldn’t be giving higher wages right now because they fuel inflation?”

Halfon then attempted to defend the government’s economic position as he struggled to provide an answer: “Well, I’m aware that we have very difficult economic challenges.”

But Reid didn’t let the contradiction go: “So how are people supposed to get these higher wages? You’re saying that one of the factors is that people should be getting higher and higher wages and that would be the definition of a good outcome.

“Right at the time when you, as a government are saying, don’t go and ask for higher wages because that’s going to wreck the economy.”

Halfon replied: “The priority for the government is to bear down on inflation because that’s the biggest tax on the cost of living. So it’s inevitable that there are very difficult decisions about wages.”

To which Susanna Reid noted: “Slightly undermines the criteria of the good quality degree.”

‘I think this can be described as being “owned”…’ noted one Twitter user.  

Halfon also failed multiple times to answer the question of what exact courses with ‘poor quality outcome’ would be capped. Or even how to judge what the worth of a course is, throwing even more holes into the plan, which Labour attacked as putting ‘caps on the aspirations of our young people’.

It comes as another report by experts has further undermined Rishi Sunak and Tory minister’s claim that public sector pay rises fuel inflation.

In the report, experts said that a 10% pay rise for public sector workers would add little to inflation and that the government ‘should commit to real-terms pay increases for the public sector every year for the next five years.’

(Good Morning Britain / Youtube)

Hannah Davenport is trade union reporter at Left Foot Forward

Left Foot Forward’s trade union reporting is supported by the Barry Amiel and Norman Melburn Trust

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