Education Bill

Debate between Lord Young of Norwood Green and Lord Peston

Tuesday 4th October 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

My Lords, this is one of those amendments that speaks for itself so I do not intend to detain noble Lords long on this particular issue. Nevertheless, it is an important issue these days given the levels of redundancy and the need for people to retrain and reskill throughout their working lives. It is important that there is an assessment of the impact. It is difficult enough for people with disabilities to gain employment without any further impediments. Of course, there is the impact on women as well. I would welcome a response from the Minister.

[Lord Peston]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendment. I do so with a certain degree of sadness. It is just under 50 years since I wrote the first paper ever written in the Treasury on loan schemes, and it would never have occurred to me then that we would end up discussing this sort of thing 50 years later. It would never have occurred to any of us who were among the first to think that loan schemes were the right way into student support that we would live in a world in which tuition fees were charged in higher education. That is why I say that there is a certain sadness here.

It may well be that the economy is so dire and so many people want to benefit from higher education that we have to have tuition fees, but it has always seemed quite awful to me. I assume that this amendment has been tabled so that the Minister can tell us exactly what preparations the Government looked at before deciding to go along the path that they have chosen.

I would like to hear what the research is that tells us that those who are disabled will not suffer from extreme disincentives because of these fee increases, and that there is no gender bias in them. I find it very hard to believe that there is no gender bias in what is happening here; quite the contrary. My noble friend has not told us this, but I assume this is why the amendment was tabled. This is all in preparation for the next stage, and for how we analyse these things. I look forward to a lecture from the Minister answering everything implicit in this amendment.