Pre Budget Report

The full report is available from here. The specific references to HE that I could find were:

This action to reduce the deficit follows a decade of unprecedented levels of investment in transport infrastructure, skills, higher education, etc

It has also created the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) which, alongside the Research Councils and the Regional Development Agencies, will invest over £1 billion in business innovation between 2008 and 2011, and will be investing £150 million in knowledge exchange in 2010-11 to support innovative start-up companies. As a result, research is increasingly being translated into commercial products and economic benefit: patent applications have doubled since 2000, to 1,913 in 2006-07; 31 university spinout companies were launched between 2003 and 2007 (note that doesn't sound very many to me?);

Higher Ambitions, published in November 2009, set the forward-looking framework
for the Higher Education sector, and identified the challenges and opportunities facing the
sector if it is to remain world-class. In November 2009, the Independent Review of Higher
Education Funding and Student Finance was also launched. The Review, due to report in
2010, will examine the balance of contributions to higher education funding by taxpayers,
students, graduates and employers.

Going further, the Government has also looked at what other efficiences can be
achieved across the public sector through better procurement, or through cutting lower value
or lower-priority programmes or projects on the basis of the early findings of the PVP.
The Government will continue to identify further opportunities for savings through the PVP,
but the 2009 Pre-Budget Report can already announce £5 billion of additional savings
by 2012-13: £600 million from higher education and science and research budgets from
a combination of changes to student support within existing arrangements;
efficiency savings and prioritisation across universities, science and research;
some switching of modes of study in higher education; and reductions in
budgets that do not support student participation;