Angus Brendan MacNeil
Main Page: Angus Brendan MacNeil (Independent - Na h-Eileanan an Iar)
Mr Gyimah
May I develop my argument?
Why is that outcome important? Unless we understand the outcomes we want from our universities, the debate on fees is totally out of context. I began as a sceptic. I adopted the view that we perhaps needed to row back and have a system that involved fewer people going to university. I thought that a system of grants could be better, or that we could charge less. However, the truth is that higher participation in higher education is here to stay, which is good. We must therefore work out how we can continue to fund that, and how to ensure that our universities remain world class and experiences such as mine at university—if parents cannot contribute, the student is really stuck—are not a key factor in the equation.
My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) mentioned a mother who is worried that she is unable to fund her child’s education. He is right to raise that concern, because a lot of people will feel that they must dip their hands into their pockets to pay the fees. However, more than anything else, the policy shifts the burden from parents—students pay when they have graduated and when they benefit.
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.
Mr Gyimah
I want to develop my argument.
Let us look at the proposal in simple terms. Before I went to university, if someone had said to me, “Sam, if you want to improve your life, I will give you money so you can go and do that. When you finish, come back to me only if you have found a job. I’m not going to charge you any interest unless you’re earning more than a certain amount, but I want you to improve your life, so go ahead and do so,” I would have bitten their hand off.
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
I am very grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this debate, particularly as a former Higher Education Minister.
Young people outside this building are deeply angered, concerned and frustrated by the debate that we are having, and it is right that we all reflect on a generation that may inherit something far less than many of us in the Chamber did. Many of us grew up in a period of largely full employment and pretty generous pension schemes into which the system had paid over a sustained period. Many benefited from free education, which is at the heart of this discussion.
Mr Brine
No thank you.
I strongly supported setting up the Browne review. I did not sign any pledges about what it might or might not recommend—I think that was the right decision—and I welcome a new system in which no students will pay up-front fees. It is also a system in which, for the first time, part-time students will pay no fees up front. That is a real development. I welcome lifting the repayment figure from £15,000 to £21,000, and I very much welcome the repayment figure being linked to earnings.
I am new here, and I have wrestled with this decision like no other. I opposed the £1,000 fee in 1998 after the Dearing report, because I feared that it would breach the principle of free higher education. I said that there would be no turning back, and I think that I was right about that. I was not in this House then, but my party opposed top-up fees in 2003-04, because we feared that they would restrict access to higher education. I have to say that I think we were wrong, and we have been proved so, because the number wanting to go keeps going up and up.
Mr MacNeil
If the hon. Gentleman is such a fan of tuition fees of £9,000 per annum, will he pay £9,000 in retrospect for every year that he was at university? He is not duty bound to do so, given that he was not charged when he was at university, but he can freely pay now. He is at liberty to do so. If he so strongly believes in the principle of paying tuition fees, will he now pay £9,000 for each year that he was at university?
Mr Brine
I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has access to my bank accounts, but if he did, he might not have asked that question.
Whether or not we all agree that 50% of young people should go to university, that is a decision that millions of young people and families across the country choose to take. That is the situation that the House faces. I hope that these proposals will put higher education funding and student finance on a sustainable footing, improve the quality of university degrees and put a progressive support package in place for students that will not deter access on account of the absence of up-front fees.
The Minister will be disappointed in me—I am glad to see him back in his place—if I do not make a point once again about Aimhigher. I think it works and that it has been proved to work, and it worries me that it is disappearing. I urge the Secretary of State and the Minister for Universities and Science to revisit this decision or, at the very least, to do more to safeguard the functions of Aimhigher. Aimhigher Hampshire is based at the university of Winchester in my constituency; it does a very good job.
Robert Flello
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question, because the course my daughter chose is of great benefit to the community as it looks at applying theatre in places like prisons and special schools. She looked upon the course not as an investment for herself, but as an investment much more broadly.
Mr MacNeil
In Scotland, Labour’s tuition fees were abolished by the Scottish National party. Does the hon. Gentleman think that Labour made a mistake by putting tuition fees on to the political landscape?
Robert Flello
I knew that it would be a great gift to give way to the hon. Gentleman, but I think he knows the situation in Scotland well enough.
Staffordshire university and Keele university serve my constituency and the wider local area. Combined, they are looking at £100 million-plus of cuts: cuts that will affect every possible course, and certainly ones that greatly benefit my constituents. We have heard from Government Members that the cuts are all somehow the fault of the previous Labour Government—I am sure that they will all start shouting, “Yes” in a moment—but they seem to have forgotten the bankers. They have forgotten that it was the banks and the global banking crisis that got us into this mess and that other countries were looking to the previous Prime Minister and Chancellor for a way out of it. If the problems, which require such massive cuts and therefore these fees, are all about cutting the deficit, will Government Front Benchers say that in four years’ time—when they intend to have paid off the deficit—these proposals will be reversed and the money will go back into the higher education sector?
Alok Sharma
No, I will not give way now. That approach comes from a party that appears to have no consistent or developed policy on higher education funding. The Leader of the Opposition, who is not in his place, has said that that Labour party policy is a “blank sheet of paper”. Well is it not time that he started scribbling on it? The Opposition have raised a number of objections to the proposed tuition fees increase. They say that it will put people off going to university, that it will have a negative impact on social mobility and that, overall, the increase is just not fair. Let us examine each of those points.
Will the increase put students off going to university? Tuition fees have been in place for more than a decade and the number of students has increased by 44%. Why the increase? It is because students realise that having a good degree adds value to their prospects and is a passport to a better job. OECD figures clearly indicate that UK graduates earn, on average, 50% more than those who finished education at A-level.
Alok Sharma
No, I will not just now because I want to make some progress. The proposed changes will be an important step in ensuring that the money follows the student and will go further towards making universities more accountable to students as customers.
I do not subscribe to the view that the proposal will reduce social mobility, because it ensures that no one has to pay anything up front and no one has to repay anything until they earn at least £21,000 a year, a 40% increase on the current figure. Everyone, whatever their background, will be able to take advantage of the opportunities offered by a university education.
Mr MacNeil
If the hon. Gentleman is such a supporter of tuition fees, will he pay £9,000 for every year that he was at university?
Alok Sharma
Another tax rise. That is what we get from the Opposition. Another tax rise. They left us with the biggest budget deficit of all time, and now the hon. Gentleman proposes that we increase taxes further. That is their answer to absolutely everything.
Let me continue with the proposed extra help. Through the national scholarship programme, the increase in maintenance grants and the required checks to ensure that universities take people from disadvantaged backgrounds before they are able to charge more than £6,000, social mobility will be further encouraged. But social mobility—