Higher Education and Research Bill

Baroness Thomas of Winchester Excerpts

Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 13th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hussain (LD)]

My Lords, I also support the amendment. In doing so, I declare an interest as vice-chairman of the recently set up APPG on Islamic Finance. As we all know from the 2011 census, it is recognised that more than 2 million Muslims live in this country and many of them would like sharia-compliant finances. Many of us must make compromises when such finances are not available and take interest-based finances. Particularly with student finances, where a scheme has in many ways already been agreed to go ahead, it is beyond my understanding why it has taken so long for the Government to complete the legislative process for it to be introduced.

The case for the amendment was made very well by my noble friend Lord Sharkey, the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, and the noble Baroness, Lady Cohen. I add only that when this sharia-supported Takaful scheme is introduced we need to make sure that it is available easily and to all Muslim and non-Muslim students who want to benefit from it. I am mindful of one other thing and ask the Government to bear it in mind: that the scheme does not become more expensive to students in any way. I have seen in some countries zero-interest-based finances which, in the small print, have built in various administration and handling charges and fees. At the end of the day, they become more or just as expensive as the interest-based schemes. I hope that the Government will at least make sure that this scheme does not become more expensive to students. With that, I urge the Government to complete the legislative process as quickly as possible to make the scheme available to students by the beginning of the next academic year, in 2018.

[Baroness Thomas of Winchester (LD)]

My Lords, I was speaking to a Muslim friend this morning who has six young children. She and her husband take education extremely seriously; the children go to extra tuition. Families such as that will find it very difficult if a scheme is not put in place soon as far as choices are concerned for the children’s education. She was very excited to see such an amendment on the Marshalled List today. I hope it will be supported this afternoon.

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, briefly, I support this amendment. I declare my interest as a vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Islamic Finance. I want simply to ask the Minister to reflect on what his colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, said in Committee as to why the Government could not give a timescale for this. She said:

“This careful, sensitive and important work cannot be rushed towards a deadline that is simply chosen and written into legislation. Our timeframes must be grounded in the realities of the work necessary to deliver a workable system”.—[Official Report, 25/1/17; col. 171.]


What are these realities which mean that not only is there inordinate delay but we do not even know how long the delay is likely to be? As we have heard, this is a relatively modest proposal. There is a lot of expertise which would enable it to take place. Can the Minister assure us that the real reason for the delay is not simply that there is such a shortage of staff in the relevant departments and so many other priorities, not least with Brexit, that the Government are not prepared to put Civil Service resources into getting this scheme off the ground?

If you were in a Muslim community it would be very easy to believe that the Government were not taking their commitments seriously in this respect because there is so little action to show. If the Minister is not prepared today to give a firm date for when the Government expect the scheme to be introduced, will he at least give his support to my noble friend Lord Sharkey’s amendment, which would bring some degree of limited certainty into the process?