Higher Education White Paper

Lord Butler of Brockwell Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

I am very grateful for the noble Lord’s admission on behalf of his party that it does not deny the deficit. I am also grateful that he has recognised that funding must come from the beneficiaries of education as well as from the taxpayer—from both sides.

The noble Lord turned to the Browne report which, as noble Lords will remember, did not recommend a maximum. However, we felt that it was probably right to fix it at £9,000, particularly as the noble Lord, Lord Browne, suggested that he did not see why universities could not provide a good education for a figure of, I think he said, round about £8,000. The noble Lord, Lord Young, says that the reports are that virtually all institutions are going for the maximum of £9,000. We will not know the final figure until it has all been confirmed next month, but I can assure him that although a lot of them are going for £9,000, that does not mean that everything in that university, that institution, will be £9,000. There might be different rates for different courses and, as the noble Lord knows, there are a number of waivers, and they will be offering bursaries and other things that will help to bring the cost down, particularly for some of the less well off.

The noble Lord also asked the very valid question: are we worried that the perceived level of debt might put off a number of individuals because they see themselves ending up with a debt of £27,000-plus? That is a genuine fear and we must address it. That is why only last week my right honourable friends Vince Cable and David Willetts sent a letter setting out what we are doing to get information across. They have set up a new independent task force on student finance information, headed by Martin Lewis and Wes Streeting, a former president of the National Union of Students, to try to get the information over that it should not be looked at as a debt but, in effect, as a sort of graduate tax, except that it is not a graduate tax; you start paying only when you start earning above a certain amount and you pay at quite a low rate over a long period of time. It is not the burden that people have when taking on other forms of debt.

[Lord Butler of Brockwell]

If I heard the Minister aright, he said that the purpose of strengthening the role of OFFA would be to ensure that the universities fulfilled their obligations about outreach. That will create no difficulties for the universities because I am convinced that all the universities I know want to widen the area of society from which they draw children of talent. However, he also said, if I heard him correctly, that there will be no interference in the academic freedom to make that selection on the basis of merit. Can he therefore assure us that the quotas that have been talked about for students to be drawn from different areas of society or different backgrounds in education will not now be pursued?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am very grateful for that intervention from the noble Lord, who speaks with considerable authority as a former master of University College, Oxford. I must add that I have enjoyed his hospitality there on a number of occasions; I declare that as an interest. I am also grateful that he welcomes the fact that there is encouragement to fulfil greater opportunities for outreach, which is what all institutions should be doing. I also stress that there will be no interference in academic freedom. As I said earlier, I bear on my back scars from the late Lord Russell about alleged attacks on academic freedom, and I do not want to reincur them. Quotas are not the right way to set about this. Each institution in discussions with OFFA, after it has proposed a level of fees above £6,000, should look at what it can do to try to improve fair access to all areas of society.