Higher Education Funding

Debate between Lord Johnson of Marylebone and Ben Lake

Wednesday 11th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Joseph Johnson]

As the hon. Gentleman probably knows, we regularly publish assessments of the amount the Government write off at the end of a 30-year period to reflect the fact that they want to make higher education free at the point of access to students. It is called the resource and accounting budgetary charge. Prior to the changes we announced at the party conference, the proportion of the loan book to be written off over that period was approximately 30%, but it will have risen as a result of the changes announced, and we will make the new amount public in due course.

[Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)]

I sympathise with the Labour Front-Bench team’s position on this matter. Basing higher education funding on billions of pounds of student debt that might never be repaid is neither morally right nor operationally pragmatic, so I urge the Minister to commit to a wide-ranging review of higher education funding that encompasses not only tuition fees but maintenance grants and the sustainability of funding for higher education students.

If I may be so bold, Mr Speaker, I also urge the Labour Front-Bench team to enter into a discussion on this matter with their colleagues in Wales. The only Administration now committed to raising tuition fees is the Labour Welsh Government—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am inordinately grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but it is procedurally improper for him to veer off the centre of the fairway, which he previously inhabited. Questions must be to the Government about the policy of the Government, not general exhortations to other Opposition parties, but I am sure if he wants to have a cup of tea in the Tea Room with the Labour Front-Bench spokesperson, there might be such an opportunity.