Higher Education (Basic Amount) (England) Regulations 2010

Debate between Lord Patten of Barnes and Baroness Blackstone

Tuesday 14th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patten of Barnes]

My Lords, I disclose an interest as the Chancellor of the university of which Jesus College is a distinguished part. However, on this occasion, I am afraid that I do not agree with Jesus, and for reasons which have made me for 20 years a passionate believer in a bigger contribution by students to their education. I say with respect to the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, that his speech was a triumph of hope over experience because for years, under Governments of both political persuasions, and one that I recall of no political persuasion whatever, we have spent substantially less on higher education as a proportion of GDP than almost all our competitors, and certainly less than the OECD average. The latest OECD comparisons, published in 2010, show that in 2007—the latest authorised figures—we spent 1.2 per cent to 1.3 per cent of our GDP on higher education. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, that British taxpayers spent less on it than did American taxpayers. We also spent less than the OECD average, and considerably less than the United States, which spent 3.1 per cent of GDP on higher education—and that was before the cuts of £1 billion which were introduced by the former Lord President. I am sorry that he is not in his place today to explain to us exactly what he intended when he asked the noble Lord, Lord Browne, to undertake his review of tuition fees.

There are only four ways in which you can get money for higher education. You can get it through research income, endowments—we know very well that only three universities in Europe would get into the top 150 in the United States in terms of the size of their endowments—the taxpayer or tuition fees. We know from the experience of the past 10, 20, 30 or 40 years that the taxpayer will not provide the money, so the only revenue stream that is left is the student. I totally agree not with the spiritual authority of the right reverend Prelate, but with almost as great a spiritual authority—I agree with what Mr Blair had to say about the social equity of students making a contribution to what will make such an impact on their lifetime earnings. It seems to me a wholly defensible proposition.

[Baroness Blackstone]

My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that what the former Prime Minister Tony Blair said was that it should be a contribution? He used the words himself. He did not say, and never did, that students should pay the whole of the cost of their higher education.

[Lord Patten of Barnes]

No, as I shall explain in a moment, they will not be doing that in the case of the university that I know best. I remind the noble Baroness that the former Prime Minister wanted to introduce fees in 2004, not of £3,000 but of £5,000. He could not get that through the House of Commons largely because of the views of his honourable friends in the Parliamentary Labour Party, so let us not rewrite history. I suggest that the noble Baroness should refresh her memory by reading Mr Blair’s autobiography.

My Liberal Democrat noble friends have been teased about changing their mind. As my noble friend Lady Sharp pointed out, there are very strong reasons for their change of mind. It was slightly ironic that in his flirtation with the Liberal Democrats yesterday, the leader of the Labour Party, in a less than bravura performance, offered them the opportunity of talks with Liam Byrne. That must have set their pulses racing with excitement. But what makes it particularly ironic is that it is the same Mr Byrne who, as my noble friend Lady Shephard pointed out, gave the game away and told us after the election that there was no money left—zilch. I am not sure that it is the right moment to follow the right reverend Prelate in questioning why public debt is so terrific but private debt is such a bad thing. At some stage we could seek the authority of the New Testament on that proposition, but perhaps this is not the right moment.

When we consider changes to what one has promised the electorate, I seem to recall what happened in January 2004, after the then Labour Government had changed their position. When asked,

“Is the party open to the charge that it has broken a manifesto commitment?”,

Mr Alan Johnson replied yes. When asked:

“Is that crime of a century for a government to do?”,

he replied no. If one is to believe what is said about the public accounts under Labour, Mr Johnson did not have the excuse then of the bank having been broken.

I want to make a couple of points about the proposals themselves, not going any further into the seam of intellectual integrity which has underpinned the Labour Party’s position. I have a couple of questions. First, I think that all of us want to see an increase in the endowments for our universities, which are well behind our American competitors in that regard, as the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, pointed out. Can we be sure that the Government will look at how they can encourage philanthropic donations in the future, not just to charities in general but to our university sector in particular because it is of considerable significance?