Higher Education: Student Loans

Baroness Perry of Southwark Excerpts

Wednesday 26th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble Lord always adds colour to Question Time. The principle behind our reforms, as I have said already, was to put higher education on a sustainable footing for the long term, coupled with a rebalancing. This was of course, as the noble Lord will know, in response to and following the recommendations made by the noble Lord, Lord Browne. I believe it was the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, who set up that particular review. As for his question on decoupling and coalition, in coalition, sometimes you agree, sometimes you disagree and sometimes you agree to disagree. That is called healthy coalition government.

[Baroness Perry of Southwark (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree with me that, in the days when universities were funded through grant and not student loans, the Government could recoup none of the money that was given in grant? Even if we do not now recoup the whole 100%, we and the universities are still much better off all the time.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

As ever, my noble friend speaks with great experience in this area, and she is of course correct. If we look at the previous quarter, in which the overall university funding pot for this year has now risen to more than £29 billion, and compare it to just a few years ago, when the funding was £12 billion, that shows once again, as I have said already, that our universities can now benefit from sustainable long-term funding.