European Affairs Committee — hearing of 7 July 2026: transcript & video

00:04 - 01:20

Speaker 1

Well, good morning and welcome to this session of the House of Lords Select Committee on European Affairs, in which we're looking into the issue of Erasmus Plus, the prospects for the future and how that relates to the Turing scheme, which has been running up to now. And we're delighted to have as our witnesses this morning Ms. Vivienne Stern, who is the CEO of Universities UK, and also Emma Meredith, who's Director of Skills Policy and Global Engagement at the Association of Colleges. We're very grateful to you for sparing us the time this morning, we much look forward to what you have to say. This is a public session which is being broadcast. A transcript will be taken and you'll be provided with a draft to check for any errors and omissions that you might find.

And we're aiming to get it done within 60 minutes if we can, not least because you'll probably have had enough of the temperature in here by then. So if you are content, we'll get underway with the first question, which is a sort of a rather general one just to set the scene, which is about Erasmus Plus. I mean, how has it changed since the UK last participated in the program? And crucially, how does it compare with the Turing scheme? Who would like to start?

01:20 - 02:42

Speaker 12

Well, thank you very much for the invitation to the Association of Colleges to participate this morning. We're the national membership body for colleges of further and higher education in England. There are 213 colleges delivering education and training to 1.6 million learners in England. And we were really pleased that the UK decided to reassociate to Erasmus Plus. Student mobility is really, I think, the mainstay of college international activity.

So in terms of the schemes, the two schemes, Erasmus and Turing, I think it's important to see them as two very different schemes. I think they are united by the common principle of mobility, of outbound mobility, but they're quite different. And I think in terms of how Erasmus has changed since the UK last participated, it now includes digital mobility, which when we were last in the scheme it didn't. I think there are more non-EU members of the scheme as well, so a broader pool of countries for us to partnership with, partner with. But also, I think in terms of our participation since we were last in it, I think there's probably now a lack of institutional memory amongst colleges, universities, other providers about what it means to be involved in Erasmus in terms of the program, its management, its audit, etc.

The rest of the transcript is for Pro customers

Unlock the full transcript, chat, and every analysis feature with Polyfact Pro.

The video itself stays free to watch, in full, no account needed.