Higher Education Fees
Debate between Adrian Bailey and Stella Creasy(13 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Bailey
I cannot give way any more—I apologise.
Unfortunately, the rungs that were going to sustain that improvement are being removed. Above all, that £40,000 debt will play on the minds of would-be graduates in my constituency. To potential graduates from low-income households, such a sum appears to be disproportionately more than to those who come from higher-income households. The measures that the Minister said would be put forward to replace Aimhigher appear to be reinventing the wheel, and privatising the wheel, because in effect they will ensure that low-income graduates will pay £9,000 to go to universities that will recycle that money to encourage more low-income graduates to go to university and incur the same debt.
A system that has been effective in improving social mobility and supporting people from low-income households into university is being replaced with one that will be essentially self-funding. It will not work, and the potential consequences for social mobility are most profound. I believe that these proposals are hasty and ill considered, and that they will be ineffective.