Andrew Percy
Main Page: Andrew Percy (Conservative - Brigg and Goole)
Vince Cable
Thirdly, we will introduce a threshold for graduate repayment of a £21,000 salary—a significantly higher level than before—and it will be uprated annually in line with earnings. It is important to emphasise that point because under the Labour Government, there was a threshold of £15,000, but it was never uprated on any basis whatever. I wish to communicate what I said yesterday—that students who were pegged at that £15,000 threshold under the current arrangements established by the Labour Government, will in future have annual uprating in line with inflation. Those existing students whom the last Government did absolutely nothing to protect will have inflation-proofing in future.
Mr Denham
I must make some progress.
The “fairest” can be judged only by how much graduates pay. It must also be measured by the chance of becoming a graduate at all. Over the past few years the proportion of students from poorer backgrounds has steadily increased. There is much more to be done, and even more to be done on access to the most selective universities, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) has brilliantly shown this week.
The progress we have made was not an accident, however; it took great efforts by the majority of universities, and we constructed the support, the routes and the ladders of opportunity for more and more of those bright, talented young people. All that has been kicked away.
Andrew Percy
I wanted to make the point the shadow Secretary of State has just made when I tried to intervene on the Secretary of State’s opening speech. Participation has been widening, but there is evidence that the poorest children are not going to the best universities, and that remains a problem. The concern for many of us on the Government Benches—or some of us, certainly—is that increasing fees even further will mean they will be even less likely to go to the best universities.
Mr Denham
I am very sorry that the Secretary of State did not give way to the hon. Gentleman, because I think anybody who is showing the integrity and courage he is displaying in standing out and being critical of his party’s policies deserves a hearing from his own side of the House. In what he says, the hon. Gentleman is in some very good company, as I will show in a moment.
We created ladders of opportunity for young people from low-income backgrounds, but they are now being knocked over. The Minister for Universities and Science was recently asked a parliamentary question about the impact of Aimhigher. He said that
“evidence from colleges, schools and academies showed that involvement in the activities provided through Aimhigher was associated with higher than predicted attainment at GCSE and greater confidence among learners that they were able to achieve.”—[Official Report, 29 November 2010; Vol. 519, c. 590W.]
I repeat:
“greater confidence among learners that they were able to achieve.”
So what is the Minister doing? He is closing it down.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
This has not been the easiest of weeks, as I have wrestled with what is, to me, an incredibly important issue. We are all the sum of our experiences and our backgrounds. I say to the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) that it was outrageous to suggest that Members on the Government Benches do not understand people from ordinary backgrounds. I come from an ordinary background, as do many Government Members. I do not think that he enhanced the debate in the slightest.
I would prefer not to be making this speech on this issue, because I am a huge supporter of the coalition. I thought that the coalition was the right way to move forward and it has tackled some difficult issues with great speed and in the correct way. However, on this issue, the Government are wrong. I shall explain the particular problems that I have in a moment.
First, I will say something of my colleagues on the Government Benches who will vote in favour of the measures. Some of the criticism levelled at the people who support the measures has been incredibly unfair. The people who support the measures are not cruel or elitist, but have their own views and have come to their own hard-headed decision. They may think in different terms from me, but I do not like the way in which the debate has become polarised. I am sure that all hon. Members condemn the violence that has been associated with this issue.
I speak from my own experiences as a former schoolteacher, which I have mentioned on many occasions, and as the first person in my family to attend university—I know that I am not unique in that among hon. Members. I went to university on a full grant with all my tuition paid, shortly before tuition fees were introduced. I can only think about the impact that the proposed fees would have had on me and my family when I was growing up. Would my parents have encouraged me to attend university, had they thought I would come away with debts of £40,000 or £50,000? I do not think so. Similarly, many of the students whom I taught in deprived schools in Hull wanted to go to university, but when I encouraged them to do so, the response was often, “My dad says that we can’t afford to go to university.” That was after fees were introduced.
Since fees were introduced, the evidence has shown that although there has been widening participation, students from some backgrounds are not attending the best universities, as I said to the shadow Secretary of State. They choose where to attend based on money and finances, rather than on what is best for them. They often choose to stay at home.
Mrs Main
My hon. Friend is giving a very sensitive speech and I sympathise hugely. Indeed, I marched against student fees in 2004, because they opened a Pandora’s box. He is right that the fairest thing is not to deter people with up-front fees, but to have pay-later graduate contributions. Labour let that out of the box, and there is no going back.
Andrew Percy
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. There is, of course, a choice to be made, and Governments can make whatever choices they want to make on important issues such as this. However, I do not think that the case has been made for this proposal, and I shall go on to say a little about that in a moment.
I have a particular issue with the loss of funding to the arts and humanities. It is wrong for the Government to say that there is no value to the state in the arts and humanities. We lead the world in research in the arts and humanities, and the loss of funding in its entirety for those who want to pursue degrees in those subjects certainly does not sit well with me.
I accept that the mechanism that the Government are proposing to put in place could not be much more progressive. I believe that it is fair, and that it will protect the poorest students. However, I have made the point to Ministers on several occasions over the past few days that we have not won the argument on that basis. Many of the choices that young people make about higher education are based on perception, and there is a perception out there that this measure will lead to huge debts of £40,000 to £50,000 at least. We have not won the argument relating to that perception.
Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making some good points, but does he accept that one third of students will be better off? The progressive nature of the proposal means that some students will never pay off their debt unless their earnings take them into the higher-rate tax band. Surely that is an argument against what he has been saying.
Andrew Percy
A number of hon. Members have made that very point today, and I accept that the principle of tripling fees—in many cases, they will go up not to £6,000 but to £7,000, £8,000 or £9,000—means that the system is progressive. My concern is that we have not had a proper debate. We have not had time to consider the options and we have not had time to have a sensible, grown-up debate—
Andrew Percy
I am not going to give way again, as I have only three minutes left and other Members wish to speak in this important debate.
My major concern is that, in the public’s mind, we have not made the case for trebling tuition fees. I also have a huge concern about where our young people are going to end up going to university. Everyone knows that this is not just about tuition fees; we also have to take into account living costs. Speaking from personal experience, I was at university on a full grant and had no tuition fees to pay, but I left with considerable additional debts on my credit cards and so on. It is just the same for students today, and that is going to continue. When we look at students’ debt issues, we need to take into account not only tuition fees but living costs and the other debts that students inevitably rack up while they are at university.
Andrew Percy
I am not going to give way, because a lot of Members want to contribute to the debate.
I have struggled with this issue, as I hope Members will understand from my speech. I urge the Government to row back a little bit, to think again, to delay this decision today and to give proper, grown-up, sensible consideration to all the possible alternatives. I accept that the Opposition might well have found themselves in exactly the same position, and that they have not offered a credible alternative to this proposal. I am in a strange position, as I have said to my local paper many times over the last couple of days, because I do not have a credible alternative to it either. Perhaps I am therefore making an emotional decision rather than a hard-headed one, but I urge the Government to think again and to come back to the issue next year, in six months’ time, when we have had a proper conversation about it. We get to do this only once, and if we cede the principle of £9,000 tuition fees, I will be deeply concerned about the message it will send to people out there. I need no more proof than the e-mail I received this week from one of my constituents, Cathy from Burton-upon-Stather. I am sure that she and her son will be supported, but the message that has gone out because of the debate on this issue is that she will not be able to afford to send her child to university. I can only wrestle with my conscience and stick to what I believe, and my view is that the Government have not made their case. I will not be supporting the proposal this evening.
Andrew Percy
The situation is that working class families, who are least able to support their children at university, will bear the additional costs. That was my point.
Mr Gyimah
If any lie has been perpetrated in this debate, it is that working class children who want to university cannot get there—[Interruption.] May I finish? The truth is that our education system is so bad that for a lot of underprivileged kids, the whole concept of university is simply academic.