Tuition Fees

Angela Rayner Excerpts

Wednesday 19th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Government’s decision to increase tuition fees implemented by the Higher Education (Basic Amount) (England) Regulations 2016 (S.I., 2016, No. 1205) and the Higher Education (Higher Amount) (England) Regulations 2016 (S.I., 2016, No. 1206).

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this emergency debate. It is a shame that it has been necessary when we have a First Secretary of State who called for a national debate on tuition fees, a Brexit Secretary who says that this House always votes on statutory instruments and a Justice Secretary who, when Leader of the House, actually accepted the need for a debate and a vote. Of course, that was before the election; 100 days later, this weak and wobbly Government do not even trust their own Back Benchers with a vote on their own policies.

The Higher Education and Research Act 2017, which the Education Secretary and the Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation took through this House, is very clear on the matter. Paragraph 5 of schedule 2 states that the upper limit of fees can rise only when

“each House of Parliament has passed a resolution that, with effect from a date specified in the resolution, the higher amount should be increased”.

Will the Minister guarantee that no students will have to pay the higher fees until both Houses have passed such a resolution allowing it, and will he tell us when the votes on these resolutions will take place?

The Minister seems to be one member of the Government who does not want this vote, judging from his Twitter feed last night. He said that plans to raise fees were first outlined in July 2016, and that we have since had extensive debate. Perhaps he forgot that the plans were announced on the last day before summer recess last year, and were snuck out as one of 30 written statements on that day. The statutory instrument was then put before the House just before Christmas last year. Not long after that, the Opposition prayed against the measures, yet despite repeatedly pushing for it we were not given a debate. As the Minister said, the regulations came into force on 6 January.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

On the subject of being weak and wobbly, will the hon. Lady confirm whether it is still Labour policy to pay off all £100 billion of the outstanding student debt—yes or no?

[Angela Rayner]

I do not know how many times I have to explain this to Conservative Members before they finally understand. A cynic might say that they are wilfully misrepresenting my party’s policy. We have never said that we would simply write off all existing debt. Conservative Members refer to comments made by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, and I remind them that he said we would look at steps to reduce or ameliorate the debt burden. Perhaps that confused Conservative Members, because their Front Benchers have not done that in seven years. For instance—

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Angela Rayner]

Conservative Members may want to listen to this before they intervene. For instance, we would look again at the repayment threshold for student debts; the Government have frozen it at £21,000, which will cost lower-earning graduates the most. We would look at the interest rates on debt, which the Government have allowed to reach an extortionate, unacceptable 6.1% for the year to come. I have said it once and I will say it again: we have no plans to write off existing student debt and we never promised to do so. Unlike the Conservative party, we made sure that all our plans were fully costed and outlined in our manifesto. Perhaps it could learn something from that.

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

In 2010 the Government tripled tuition fees and then slashed the education maintenance allowance. In 2015 they took grants from students and now they are raising fees again. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is no surprise whatsoever that young people are turning away in their droves from this Government?

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, who makes an important point. Conservative Members have a sour-grapes attitude because they clearly understand that, unlike them, we have connected with the young people of this country.

[Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I wonder if the hon. Lady could put to one side the script she was given seconds before she got up and answer this very simple question. During the election, her party made it categorically clear to endless numbers of students that it would abolish the student debt. Will she now get up and apologise for using them as election fodder?

[Angela Rayner]

As I said to the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), that was not—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Members must calm down. Earlier we were blessed with the presence of the Father of the House, who asked a question at Prime Minister’s questions. The rest of the time, he exuded a Buddha-like calm, which other right hon. and hon. Members should seek to emulate. I deliberately granted this debate the full three hours, so there is plenty of time, but Members should not shout at each other across the Chamber.

[Angela Rayner]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) seems to have failed to understand our policy, which was absolutely clear: we would abolish tuition fees from the day we took office—[Interruption.] Please listen to my answers. That was absolutely clear. We said that we would abolish tuition fees from the moment we got into power. We also said that we would bring back maintenance grants. Unlike Conservative Members, who are chuntering away and not listening to what I have to say in response to their interventions—

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Angela Rayner]

I am not taking any more interventions if Conservative Members are not prepared to listen to the answers.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

May I suggest to my hon. Friend that she does not take any nonsense from Government Members? They repeatedly told this House that whenever the Opposition prayed against a statutory instrument, they would guarantee a vote in this House so that people could put their vote where their mouth was, but they have repeatedly failed to do that. They are trying to do this by the back door, which is why she is absolutely right to show them the door.

[Angela Rayner]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and I congratulate him on having more experience than I do of such matters.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Angela Rayner]

I am going to make some progress.

The Minister said that the regulations came into force on 6 January, but they did so without debate, let alone a vote in this House. Then, when we were finally granted a debate and a vote, the Prime Minister called her early election and the regulations came into force while Parliament was dissolved. We have since raised the issue repeatedly, only to be told, eventually, by the new Leader of the House that the Government do not intend to provide any time for it. So much for the Minister’s “extensive debate”.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

I promise the hon. Lady that I will listen intently to her reply. She and I will agree, I am sure, on one thing: this country is very lucky to have people with high-quality brain power at university today. They have told me and my Conservative colleagues what they thought her party leader said during the election campaign, and it is at huge variance with what the hon. Lady claims he said. Nobody remembers the weasel words and caveats that she has deployed today. Will she now apologise?

[Angela Rayner]

The hon. Gentleman calls them weasel words, but I can guarantee him that before and throughout the general election campaign I travelled up and down the country with my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and we were absolutely clear on this. Many students—

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

You were—you were smirking. Don’t smirk at me. I am telling you what the situation is and you can accept it, whether you like it or not. Behave.

[Angela Rayner]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I believe that our party was absolutely clear on the matter. The thousands of students who have contacted me are clear on it as well, so I do not know why the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) is not.

The consequence, of course, is uncertainty both for universities and for thousands of students due to go to university next year. Perhaps the Minister will tell us what will happen if, once we eventually secure a vote, the regulations are revoked during the university year. This fees hike is damaging enough in itself, but leaving it unclear is even worse.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government’s response to this debate is extraordinary? They are mocking the issues when they should be much more concerned about the recently published drop in university application figures and the rising debt of young people. Parents and grandparents have told me of debts of about £50,000 for young people and their families. Should we not be sending a message of hope to young people, not saying that we will increase their anxiety before they even start on life?

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. This was a really hot topic during the general election. I believe that the Opposition have the best interests of young people at heart, and the Government really need to listen to where the population are on this particular issue.

The current plans are all part of a pattern of behaviour from this Government. They tripled tuition fees to £9,000. They abolished maintenance grants for students, meaning that the poorest students will take on the most debt. They promised, when they tripled tuition fees, that the threshold at which graduates repay their student debts—it is currently £21,000—would rise in line with earnings. In fact, the then Universities Minister said:

“We will increase the repayment threshold to £21,000, and will thereafter increase it periodically to reflect earnings.”—[Official Report, 3 November 2010; Vol. 517, c. 924.]

They broke that promise as well. While tuition fees continue to rise, the repayment threshold remains frozen, hitting graduates on lower salaries each and every year.

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

The hon. Lady refers to broken promises. Will she tell us which party stated in 2001 that it would not introduce top-up fees because it had legislated against them, and then introduced them in 2004?

[Angela Rayner]

The hon. and learned Lady will know that when we introduced tuition fees and dealt with that issue, we invested considerably and increased the amount of maintenance grants and support on offer to poorer students. Recently, even Lord Adonis, the architect of those tuition fees, called fees a

“Frankenstein’s monster of £50,000-plus debts for graduates on modest salaries who can’t remotely afford to pay back these sums while starting families”.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

I was in Parliament at the time when that Bill went through, protesting against it. Not only has our noble Friend Lord Adonis had a change of heart; so has the entire Conservative party, because it railed against the introduction of top-up fees. George Osborne called it a “tax on learning”. Who would have thought that only a few years later, it would be the Conservative party that plunged students into the highest levels of debt in the western world?

--- Later in debate ---

[Angela Rayner]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I am really trying to make this debate constructive, instead of ping-ponging who said what. It should be about what the young people and students of today expect of us. They are telling us that the current debt levels are unsustainable, and they clearly are unsustainable.

Conservative Members say all the time that a record number of students from disadvantaged backgrounds are going to university. If only that was the whole story. The evidence shows that students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds are the most likely to be deterred by debt.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that something different is happening in Wales, with the implementation of the Diamond review? It is moving back to a grant-based system, so the vast majority of students will receive a full grant and support for living costs, which is something that the National Union of Students and various other student union bodies have called for. That shows that there can be a different way. That is the difference between having a Labour Government in Wales and a Tory Government in England.

[Angela Rayner]

I am sure that my hon. Friend will have pre-empted some of the interventions from Conservative Members, who like to say that the Welsh Government are not doing things right. Of course, the Welsh Government have invested in their young people. They believe that their young people are the future of the Welsh economy. I congratulate them on making those decisions. Of course, the Welsh Government make decisions about education—before I get an intervention about what Wales is doing about loans.

As I was saying, burdening students with more than £50,000 of debt means that we will see more disadvantaged young people not going to university. After all, we have seen that at many of the most prestigious universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, the number of disadvantaged students is falling.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

The hon. Lady complains that we keep asking questions about who said what and when. The trouble is that the Opposition perpetrated a scam on the British people. They clearly led students in our constituencies to believe that their loans would be written off. If she is now saying that that was not the intention, but that they would just cancel future tuition fees, how is it fair to those people, including my children, who have notched up tens of thousands of pounds of debt, which she is complaining about, that she leaves them with a debt when future students will not have a debt? What is fair about that?

[Angela Rayner]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but I cannot really say it any more clearly than we have said it. We said we would look at that, but that we would not do anything with it unless we could afford it.

I have put forward and will continue to put forward three things that the Government could do right away to help our students, including the hon. Gentleman’s family members. First, the Government have decided to freeze the repayment threshold, which they do not have to do. They could put it in line with earnings. Secondly, they could look at the percentage rate of the loans. It is 6.1%, but it does not have to be that much. It was the Bank of England rate plus 1%, which would now be 1.25%—considerably lower than the current 6.1%. Lastly, if the Government really care about social mobility and getting students into university, let them bring back maintenance grants.

[Ms Karen Lee (Lincoln) (Lab)]

I was a nurse until a month ago. I was not even adequately paid, let alone overpaid. I got a bursary when I trained. I was a single parent and I could not have trained without it. The fact that nursing applications have fallen by 23% since the Government took away bursaries means that people like me will not be able to train. What are my hon. Friend’s comments on that?

[Angela Rayner]

I welcome my hon. Friend to this place. She makes an extremely important point. Ending nursing bursaries has had a negative impact on people applying to go to university to do nursing courses. As we look to exit the European Union, Members on both sides of the House know that we have to train and skill up our own workforce in order to provide all the nurses, doctors and other skilled workers we require. Conservative Members said during the general election campaign that they wanted to cut immigration. If they truly want to do that, they have to invest in young people in this country.

It seems that the Secretary of State believes that access to higher education simply ends with admissions. Figures from the Office for Fair Access show that the proportion of students dropping out before they finish their studies is at a five-year high. Disadvantaged students are nearly twice as likely to drop out than their more affluent peers.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

I appreciate that this is a difficult day for the hon. Lady because she has come to raise some important issues, which we should debate, but her credibility is completely undermined by the difficulty of her saying that she speaks in the best interests of young people on the one hand, while on the other hand her party’s policy has changed to a position where today she says she has no plans to write off student debt. Therefore, her party’s word cannot be trusted on anything and young people will become more cynical about what politicians say.

[Angela Rayner]

The hon. Gentleman knows that we are talking about the tuition fee rise that his party said it would not impose on students and that it is trying to deny us a vote on. I hope he will push his Government to ensure that we do get a vote and that he will vote with us not to hike up tuition fees for young people.

Social mobility is stalling and drop-out rates are rising. Student debt in the UK is the highest in the world and more than 75% of students will never pay off their debts. The fact is that the Government’s policy on higher education simply is not working.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

My position on tuition fees is perfectly clear, as my voting record in this Chamber will attest. The difference in what the hon. Lady has outlined today is that the normal run of things with Labour policy is to promise students something and backtrack when in government; this time, Labour has promised to write off students’ debts and then backtracked in opposition. Will she therefore apologise to the grandfather in my constituency who simply got his information from the news and wrote to me to tell me that he was going to vote Labour so that his children’s debts would be written off? If not, is she accusing him of being a bit stupid?

[Angela Rayner]

What I promise I will do for any of the hon. Members in this Chamber and any of their constituents who potentially were misguided is ask them to refer to our website, where they can get a copy of “For the many not the few”, which highlights our national education service. That is a huge number of pages longer than the policy in the Conservative manifesto, which was, quite frankly, to take the food from children’s mouths. That was rejected by the people of this country quite outstandingly.

There is an alternative—one that was outlined by the Labour party at the last general election. We pledged to end university tuition fees so that future generations will not be burdened with debt simply for seeking an education. We would fund that by taxing only the wealthiest individuals and the biggest businesses, rather than forcing only those graduates unfortunate enough to be £50,000 in debt to foot the bill. By contrast, the Government’s system will still cost the taxpayer nearly £6 billion a year in the long term. We would also bring back student maintenance grants to support students from low and middle-income backgrounds with their living costs, reversing one of the Government’s most regressive decisions.

There is someone in the Conservative party who for a long time agreed with that policy. There was a Tory shadow Education Secretary who said that the removal of the maintenance grant would

“far from widening access, narrow it.”

She told her party that it needed to

“show we care about the student who wants to go to university, but can’t afford tuition fees.”

She then helped to write, and stood on, a manifesto that would have scrapped tuition fees altogether. She is now the Prime Minister. But she is now the one narrowing access, not widening it. She is showing students that she does not care, and is hoping that her manifesto promises can be disposed of as quickly as Nick and Fiona were.

To think that on Monday the Secretary of State accused me of peddling “snake oil propaganda”. I guess that is her specialist subject. She promised to protect school budgets in her manifesto in 2015 before cutting them in real terms. She pledged to give 30 hours of free childcare to working parents only to tell tens of thousands of them that they do not earn enough to be eligible. Now she is breaking every single promise the Conservative party has made to students.

I have told the Secretary of State again and again what could be done to address the existing debt burden. I repeat that she could look again at the extortionate interest rates on students, due to rise to more than 6% at a time when the Bank of England base rate is 0.25%. She could keep the promise originally made to students to raise the repayment threshold on their debt in line with average earnings. She could look again at the unacceptable levels of disadvantaged students dropping out of university, and give them proper maintenance support.

All of those things would reduce the burden of debt on today’s graduates, and most of them would not cost the taxpayer an extra penny. The 2015 general election feels like a long time ago, but I remember a time when the Conservatives stood on a manifesto that said that

“we as a nation should not be piling up and passing on unaffordable levels of debt to the next generation.”

But that is exactly what the Government are doing. Increasing tuition fees again will simply leave more and more young people with debts they will never repay. Labour believes that is the wrong thing to do. Conservative Members may disagree, and that is their right, but what is not right is to deny this House the chance to decide.

Tuition fees are an important issue, but they are not the main issue before us today. The question before us today is much more fundamental. It is about trust in our Government and ultimately our democracy. Frankly, if Ministers cannot keep their promises to us, why should anyone else believe them?

[James Cartlidge]

On a point of order—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman must resume his seat. It was a nice try, and he is an industrious fellow, but that is a matter of debate. He cannot ask the Chair to adjudicate on who said what when, especially when it was outside the Chamber. I appreciate his assiduity, but he needs a rather better disguise than that.

[Angela Rayner]

I am sure the Minister is about to make what he believes is a convincing case. However, the real test is not to give us his words, but to give us a vote on them. That is the question I put to him now. If he is so convinced that what he is doing is right, will he have the courage of those convictions and put them to the House?

--- Later in debate ---

[Joseph Johnson]

My hon. Friend makes some superb points, and he is a tireless champion of his constituents.

On the repayment of loans, our repayment system offers a fair deal to students. The current student loan system is deliberately subsidised by the taxpayer and is universally accessible to all eligible students, regardless of their personal financial circumstances or credit history. Our repayment system is based on income, not on the amount borrowed. Graduates with post-2012 loans pay back only when they are earning more than £21,000, and then only 9% of earnings above that threshold. After 30 years, all outstanding debts will be written off altogether with no detriment to the borrower, and the Student Loans Company has no recourse to their other assets. The maximum fee cap is being maintained in line with inflation in 2017-18, so it will not be increasing in real terms for anyone going to university. We believe that it is right for those who benefit most from the higher education they receive to contribute to the cost of it. We should not forget that higher education leads to an average net lifetime earnings premium that is comfortably over £100,000.

Labour continues to scaremonger about the changes to higher education. The Conservative-led coalition and this Government have introduced important reforms. The Opposition have promised to write off student debts, to cut tuition fees and to restore maintenance grants. However, they have failed to set out a credible plan on how to fund their promises, and are now shamelessly abandoning them just weeks after the general election. That is hardly surprising, given that they had not even managed to persuade key figures in the Labour party who served in their previous Government. For example, Lord Mandelson described their policy offer as “not credible” and urged Labour to

“be honest about the cost of providing higher education”.

Of course, it is not just Lord Mandelson who has commented on this. The former shadow Chancellor, Ed Balls, said that his party’s failure to identify a sustainable funding mechanism was a “blot on Labour’s copybook”.

I therefore challenge the Opposition to explain how they would fund their alternative proposals on tuition fees, maintenance grants and the write-off of student debt. We estimate the annual cost of their policy on tuition fees to be £12 billion a year over the next five years of this Parliament. In addition, a one-off expenditure would be required to make good the promise of writing off historical student debt to the tune of £89.3 billion in cash costs. If Labour wanted to go the whole hog, a further £14 billion would be required to compensate graduates for historical borrowing that they had already repaid.

Make no mistake, Labour’s policy of abolishing fees would be a calamity. It would be ruinous for our world-class university sector, leading almost certainly to a fall in per-student funding of the same magnitude we saw in the decades before the introduction of top-up fees—a fall of around 40% in terms of the unit of resource. It would lead to the inevitable re-imposition of student number controls, which would cause the poorest and most disadvantaged to miss out on university, throwing social mobility into reverse. It would do all this at an eye-watering cost to the hard-working general taxpayer, whether he or she had been to university or not. Gone would be the concept of a fair sharing of the costs of university between graduates with higher-than-average lifetime earnings and society at large; taxpayers would foot the entire bill. That would be bad for universities, bad for students and bad for the taxpayer. It is no surprise that in the one place where Labour is in power, it has chosen a different approach. Last week, the Labour Government in Wales quietly increased their tuition fees for 2018-19 to £9,295 a year, making them marginally higher than the current rates in England. Labour in Wales at least knows that the party opposite’s plans are unfair to students and ruinous to universities. Perhaps it should tell the Labour party leader.

[Angela Rayner]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

I hope that it is not a point of debate.

[Angela Rayner]

It is not, Mr Speaker. I did not want to interrupt the Minister earlier, but he claimed that the Opposition had had the chance to call a vote on the statutory instrument and did not do so. Perhaps you could confirm for the record that a prayer was laid against the regulations, and that the Government have simply refused to allow the House a vote on them since then. I understand that the Minister has a particular responsibility not to misinform the House and I therefore ask for this matter to be clarified.

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Lady has put me on the spot, but I make no complaint about that. Knowing the Minister as I do, I know him to be a person of integrity, and I would not and am not doubting that for one moment. My recollection—I am open to advice and possibly even scholarly correction from the source from which it usually derives—is that the Opposition had prayed against this set of regulations. My further recollection—I think this is in the Official Report—is that the Government had indicated an intention for this matter to be debate and voted upon. It is not always possible to predict the course of events, but I think the commitment was made on 31 March for 19 April. Members will recall, and others will be aware, that on 19 April the House debated a motion to facilitate the calling of an early general election. Thereafter, there was a small amount of business in what we normally call the wash-up session, and then we departed to our constituencies, so there was no debate and vote. That is how I remember it.

It is not desirable for the Chair to be asked to take sides between the parties, and I am not taking sides. I am certainly not taking sides on the merits or demerits of this issue; the Speaker should not do that. I had thought there was an expectation of a debate and a vote, and that the Opposition had done what was necessary to maximise the chance of such a vote. To be honest, I thought that the Government were open to such a debate and vote, until events overtook. That is history; we are where we are.

As to whether there is to be a substantive vote now, I await the development of events. [Interruption.] I am being fed a note. Oh, that is very helpful—and I mean very helpful. It is from one of our senior Clerks and says: “Don’t have the details. Believe you are correct. We can check.” I am very grateful to the Clerk, who is extremely committed to the public service.