Higher Education (Basic Amount) (England) Regulations 2010

Debate between Lord Patten of Barnes and Lord Giddens

Tuesday 14th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[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?

[Lord Giddens]

Does the noble Lord agree that it would take many years for a substantial proportion of universities here to build up enough endowment to create a needs-blind admissions system?

[Lord Patten of Barnes]

Yes, it would take time, even for those universities which do not have as many foreign students as his university does.