Oral Answers to Questions
Marion Fellows Excerpts(6 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Order. It is very good to see the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw back in the House. As she knows, I once fought her constituency, but unfortunately for me it fought back. I call Mrs Marion Fellows.
Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)
And it continues to fight, as do I. Thank you all.
Some of our most important small businesses are local post offices. In 2017-18, post office profits rose to £35 million, while postmaster pay was cut by £17 million. Communities and the Post Office are facing a crisis as more and more postmasters resign, as they are undervalued and underpaid while executives receive a pay rise. What are the UK Government going to do to support sub-postmasters and make their businesses financially viable?
Kelly Tolhurst
Fundamentally, the Government absolutely support the post office network, and we are determined to make sure that it is provided across the country. As the Minister with responsibility for post offices, I have taken a particular interest in that since taking up my role. I am determined to make sure that we keep the network running across all parts of the country to benefit our communities.
Tuition Fees
Marion Fellows Excerpts(7 years, 5 months ago)
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Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)
It is a fundamental Scottish National party principle that access to education should be based on the ability to learn, not the ability to pay. SNP MPs have a strong and principled record of opposing tuition fee increases in England and Wales and, if we are able to, we will reject any Bill that would increase the financial burden on students.
In 1997, I personally lobbied my predecessor in this place on the introduction of student fees. I had never met him before, but I think he still remembers that meeting, because I was incensed at the idea that students should have to pay fees. I found their introduction by a Labour Government particularly objectionable, especially as so many of them had gone to university themselves; they then pulled up the ladder behind them. Neither I nor the SNP have changed our view that access to education must be based on the ability to learn, not the ability to pay.
The SNP’s commitment to free tuition is firm and unequivocal. In 2007, the SNP Scottish Government abolished tuition fees. The Scottish Government’s free tuition policy benefits 120,000 undergraduate students in Scotland every year, saving them from accruing debts of up to £27,000, unlike their peers in other parts of the UK. The SNP will always guarantee that access to education is based on the ability to learn, not the ability to pay.
Since we came to office in Scotland, the number of Scottish-domiciled full-time first-degree entrants has risen by 12%, but this is also about our values and the kind of Scotland we want to live in. Scotland as whole values free access to higher education, as does the SNP. Unlike the Tories in Scotland, we have no intention of billing our young people for their education, either up front or after they have graduated.
In 2015, the president of the National Union of Students Scotland, Vonnie Sandlan, said:
“The idea that abolishing free education—a clear recognition of the public and social good provided by higher education—would improve fair access seems bizarre.”
It is almost as bizarre as the recent comments by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on “The Andrew Marr Show”, when he said that only graduates benefit from their studies. As a Scot, has he not heard of the commonweal? Everyone benefits. Society benefits from a higher tax take, and from its teachers, its doctors, even its lawyers, and sometimes, perhaps, its MPs.
Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)
Has the hon. Lady read the report by the Sutton Trust, the social mobility charity, which was absolutely damning about social mobility in Scotland as a specific result of the SNP’s policy of capping places? Does she not deprecate the fact that social mobility in Scotland is going into reverse?
Marion Fellows
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but I totally disagree with him. I will come on to that point further on in my speech. The fact is that Scottish education is different; the way into it and how to progress in it are completely untypical.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
Does my hon. Friend share my frustration at the blatant gaslighting that is going on, once again, around the number of young people in Scotland from disadvantaged backgrounds attending university? Does she agree that our young people have many pathways to university? If children coming through further education colleges are included in UCAS figures, there are significantly higher numbers of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds in Scotland going through to university than in the rest of the UK.
Marion Fellows
As a former further education lecturer, I have personal experience of that. Indeed, I will be disseminating my wisdom on this when I take up my place on the Education Committee; I see that the Chair of the Committee, the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), is sitting on the Government Back Benches. The point that has been raised is a well-known canard. We cannot measure Scottish education by the same yardstick that we use in England and Wales because it is different.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
I thank the hon. Lady for giving way. I have for some time been trying to make the point that things are done slightly differently in Scotland. I once was a Member in another place. The scrutiny of subordinate legislation in Scotland is very thorough indeed, and consideration is given to whether it should be positive, negative or super-affirmative. The heart of the problem is that the instrument to which the parent Act refers is perhaps a little too draconian in the powers that it gives the governing party. The fault may lie with what was originally agreed months ago—this may be what is bedevilling hon. Members—and perhaps the role of the House was not made suitably strong.
Marion Fellows
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and welcome him to his place. Yes, there are many differences, and trying to compare apples and pears just does not work.
Wes Streeting
There are international comparators. The fact is that the SNP Government’s record on education in Scotland is a national disgrace: there are 4,000 fewer teachers, class sizes are up and, of the increased number of students going to university, 10 times more are coming from the wealthiest backgrounds than the poorest backgrounds. The gap is widening, and that is under an SNP Government.
Marion Fellows
If the hon. Gentleman listens to the end of my speech, he will find that I completely refute what he is saying. The facts tell a different story. Larry Flanagan, the general secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland, has said that Scottish education is not in the parlous state that is ascribed to it by other parties. I believe that he is one of the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues.
Scottish-domiciled full-time first-degree university entrants rose 12% in 2006-07. The figure now stands at 28,777, 58% of whom are women. As I have said, the SNP firmly believes that access to university should be based on the ability to learn. To support that, the SNP Government have invested record levels of funding in our universities—£5 billion since 2012-13, with a further £1 billion planned in 2017-18.
The latest UCAS statistics have shown a drop in Scottish-domiciled students applying to higher education institutions, but that is not necessarily a negative. Indeed, it is further evidence that the approach taken in Scotland to ensuring that young people have equal choices and chances to succeed in life is working. For example, the youth unemployment rate has fallen from 14% since 2007 and now stands at 8.4%, and Scotland continues to have among the lowest rates of all the EU countries.
A record proportion of young people from Scotland’s most deprived communities are continuing their education, entering training or getting a job after they leave school, with 88.7% of school leavers from these communities going on to a positive initial destination—the highest ever proportion, and up since 2011-12. A record 93.3% of young people are continuing their education, going into training or getting a job—that includes modern apprenticeships—after leaving school. This is a good news story. They do not all want to go to university; many of them want to earn and learn.
According to the Scottish Funding Council, nearly 85% of further education students who achieve a qualification go on to a positive destination such as further study, training or employment. In 2015-16, almost 12,000 more students than in 2008-09 in both further and higher education at college successfully completed full-time courses leading to a recognised qualification. I know about that because I taught in a further education college. People in the most deprived areas of Livingston and West Lothian, where I taught, started in further education colleges at 16, and in some cases at 15. They progressed through college. They did further education for perhaps one or two years—in the same place—and continued on to higher education courses at higher national certificate and higher national diploma level. They were then able to articulate into the second or third year of Scottish university courses. That is how it is done in Scotland.
I was privileged to be part of the educational journey made by these people, some of whom were from the worst areas. I can think of one woman student who got pregnant at 15, had to leave school and came back to university. I interviewed her and saw her potential; she had no formal qualifications, yet she ended up with a degree—and no debt. I think that answers the question of the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) about social mobility.
Thanks to free tuition, Scotland is making progress towards achieving the target of 20% of students who enter university coming from the 20% of Scottish communities that are most deprived. There is no doubt about the SNP Government’s investment in additional places for access students; my husband was an access student. He decided to go to university aged 65 and joined the local college, which at that time was called Motherwell College. He took an access programme, did a year at college and gained a place at Glasgow University. He was unable to continue his educational journey for various reasons, but I know many others who have followed the same route. These students go to not only former technical colleges or institutes of technology that have since become universities, but our ancient universities. That is to be cherished and encouraged—and they have no fees.
That is why the Scottish Government continue to invest £51 million a year in supporting approximately 7,000 places. Scotland’s universities continue to attract students from around the world, and the number of non-EU international applicants has increased by 6% since last year; that is higher than the 2% increase in the UK as a whole. This is good news for Scotland, and we are keen to welcome those who wish to come to Scotland to live, learn and work.
The Scottish Government are determined to support our valuable higher education sector and are committed to working with our universities to continue to attract the very best students from around the world.The UK Government’s failure to provide an offer that goes far enough for EU nationals after Brexit has had a worrying knock-on effect on applications to HEIs in Scotland.
Down here, the Tories are all for front-door fees; back in Scotland, the Tories are all about back-door fees. If Ruth Davidson’s Tories had had their way in the 2016 election in Scotland, they would have introduced a £6,000 graduate tax, which would have had to be paid back when graduates earned £20,000. The UK Tories want to stop international students studying in the UK by abolishing the vital post-study work visa, but the Scottish Tories want to deter EU students by threatening them with additional taxes. By contrast, the SNP Scottish Government have pledged to reform student loan repayments: graduates will not pay loan debt until they earn £22,000; the repayment period is reduced to 30 years. If even a wee country like Scotland can do that, so can any other.
Over the past 10 years, the SNP Scottish Government have worked hard to make Scotland the best country it can be. It is no wonder that other parties are now taking their lead from the SNP on tuition fees. Labour and the Tories opposed progressive SNP policies tooth and nail for a decade; now they have changed their minds. The SNP has opposed tuition fees since they were first introduced by Labour in 1997, and scrapped them in 2008. Now Labour has said it will follow our lead in England—imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery.
Average student loan debt in Scotland continues to be the lowest in the UK: £10,500 per student in 2015-16, compared with £24,640—up 2% since 2014-15. By contrast with the UK Government, who abolished maintenance grants entirely for new students in England from the 2016-17 academic year, we raised the income threshold for the maximum bursary from £17,000 to £19,000. That will benefit an additional 2,500 young students and 400 independent students.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
Have not further education budgets in Scotland been cut continually, which has led to a reduction of 152,000 young students in Scotland? Is it not high time to do what the Conservative party manifesto pledged to do, which is to reverse those cuts so that we give our young people a fair chance in life?
Marion Fellows
May I also rebut that canard? When I started teaching in further education in Scotland in 1992, many college courses were not vocational but leisure courses. West Lothian College ran a very successful one on which people my age—now—spent six hours a week doing art. The Scottish Government cut funding for courses like that and increased funding for vocational training. They also do huge programmes in places where there has been a loss of jobs locally, and the first thing the Scottish Government do when they send in a taskforce is include local colleges to provide short-term training courses. More people now leave further education with good qualifications—and that is totally what matters.
Marion Fellows
I am sorry, but I would like to continue—I am feeling a little dizzy, to be fair.
The SNP Government are not complacent and are committed to doing more to support students. They want to ensure that support is equitable, in particular for the most vulnerable, which is why the Scottish Government are conducting a comprehensive review of student support under an independent chair and a wide range of membership, from Scotland’s colleges to the National Union of Students and other bodies.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
The hon. Lady is generous in giving way. She has talked about the most vulnerable students in Scotland and about being able to work and learn. Can she explain why the Scottish Government receive the apprenticeship levy yet sponsor only a very modest 30,000 apprenticeships, compared with the 3 million awarded in the UK during the last Parliament?
Marion Fellows
Let me say one thing in response to that. The Scottish Government consulted businesses in Scotland; they were already doing good work with businesses, encouraging them to take on modern apprenticeships. Modern apprenticeships were far further advanced. The Scottish Government did not just make decisions for themselves. There was almost an imposition on the Scottish Government because our devolved Parliament deals with issues such as training and education. When the UK Government introduced the new levy for all employers, we consulted those employers and the agreement went forward.
I am not prepared to take any more interventions; I have almost finished.
The terrible decision to introduce fees for nurses and to scrap bursaries in England and Wales is clearly having an impact on nursing application numbers from England; figures show a massive 23% fall on last year. In Scotland, we remain committed to free tuition fees and protecting the non-means-tested, non-repayable nursing and midwifery student bursary, which we believe is essential to ensure a steady supply of trainees into the profession.
Those who want a highly educated workforce should follow Scotland’s example. After all, it ranks at the top of the world’s statistics, with Canada and Russia: 45% of Scotland’s population aged between 25 and 64 are educated to degree level. Will the Minister consider doing what the Scottish Government have done so well? Do not attempt to increase fees for students in England and Wales—abolish them. We have world-class universities too, and what the Scottish Government do works.
Mr Speaker
I call the Chair of the Education Select Committee, Mr Robert Halfon. As we have discussed, the right hon. Gentleman is welcome to speak from a seated position if he wishes.
Julian Knight
I am not going to give way at the moment.
Loans are available in this progressive system to everybody. They are paid back only when the student is earning enough to afford it, and the amount to be repaid scales up with income. Effectively, student loans are a type of graduate tax, rather than a tax on everyone, including everyone who does not go to university. No bailiffs are sent out to collect on student loans, and after 30 years any outstanding debt is forgiven by the Government. No other loan has so many protections built in for low earners.
However, to focus narrowly on the repayment structure is to ignore so much of what makes the current system a good deal for less-advantaged students. It secures more places and higher-quality teaching.
I know there is a lot of nostalgia in some circles for the days when university was free, but too often those people fail to acknowledge that this was only possible because the proportion of school leavers who went on to higher education was tiny. I was the first member of my family to go to university. I come from a council house background and a lone-parent family. It was a really unusual event at my school to go to university, to such an extent that when people found out that I had a place, I and a few others at my school were called on stage. When I went to university, only one in 10 were able to take up the advantages that I had, and I do not want us to go back there, under any circumstances.
When the previous Labour Government decided to massively expand higher education, the costs for universities ballooned, and it was rightly decided that those who stood to benefit should shoulder a share of the cost. The alternative was to fund the entire cost from general taxation—shifting the burden to millions of people who have never had higher education—or to leave it to universities to fill in the gaps in their budgets themselves. Scotland illustrates the dangers of that approach. Local students, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, have been consistently squeezed out of Scottish universities in favour of fee-paying international students.
Julian Knight
Scotland used to say to the rest of the United Kingdom, “We have a gold standard in education.” I think it is a matter of shame that the SNP has presided over the collapse of Scottish education in the way that it has.
Julian Knight
No—you had your chance.
As all studies show, the introduction of fees in England has seen an increase in the number of students from poorer backgrounds. Tuition fees have opened up the opportunity to study, and the repayment structure shelters them if they do not get the graduate dividend that they hoped for.
Of course, the current system is not perfect. There are legitimate questions over the interest levied on loans, and especially about the fact that nearly every university charges the maximum amount of fees. Price signals should be an important way for students to gauge the actual value of a degree course. I also think that some courses may be too long, and if they were to be time-limited, that would bring down the costs for all. But abolishing fees and forgiving debts that will only ever be repaid by high earners, and replacing the current system with one that taxes those who do not benefit or leaves universities fighting over high-income applicants, would be a huge transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich, and a ferocious attack on opportunity and social mobility.