Higher Education Funding

Debate between Brian Binley and Adrian Bailey

Thursday 8th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bailey]

It is fair to say that the full implications and potential consequences of the projected level of debt for millions of people have yet to be worked through. We are not yet aware of how it will affect people’s economic behaviour when they have that level of debt.

[Mr Brian Binley (Northampton South) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Bailey]

I will give way to my fellow Committee member.

[Mr Binley]

Many of us feel that the contributions being demanded are often too great, but I would not want to overstate that to the point at which we begin to believe that no student will ever be able to buy their own house. That is more than a slight exaggeration and it needs to be corrected.

[Mr Bailey]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his observation. When I speak to sixth formers and potential undergraduates I always make the point that, compared with the cumulative spend in their lifetimes on cars that depreciate immediately, investing in their education is a very good investment. But it will have consequences for patterns of consumer expenditure, the full implications of which we do not yet know.

Amendment of the Law

Debate between Brian Binley and Adrian Bailey

Thursday 24th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)]

As Chair of the Select Committee on Business, Innovation and Skills, I wish to address my remarks to the so-called plan for growth. It is fair to say that I share with many people a sense of bafflement that the plan was published in the context of a Budget that shows that this year’s projected growth rates are lower than last year’s. That makes me wonder how a plan for growth works within the Government’s overall policies. This is the first plan for growth that I have ever known to predict a drop in the growth rate.

The plan is conspicuously devoid of references to jobs. If we have a plan for growth, we should reasonably expect an element of job creation to be included. The private sector is supposed to be mopping up those cut from the public sector as a result of cuts in public spending, and we ought reasonably to be able to expect to see how the plan deals with that.

The problem is that the plan incorporates a series of micro-measures. I approve of some and would not object to others, but they are intended to deal with a macro-economic programme that fundamentally undermines their objectives. The statistics have been reeled out several times, but the most important one is that the Government, in trying to keep interest rates down, have a fiscal policy that includes VAT increases. Those push inflation up, therefore increasing the chances that interest rates will go up. That could fundamentally damage the potential for growth in our economic capacity.

I welcome some elements of the plan, not least because some, such as the export credit insurance measures, were recommended by my Committee. I have to hand it to the Government, because I pushed for those when I was a Government Member, but I did not make much progress. At least on the surface, those measures address some of the issues that the manufacturing industry raises. I do not know whether they will be successful, but they are a step in the right direction.

Similarly, the creation of a creative industry council addresses a gap in the recognition that the creative industries play in exports and employment. My churlish quibble might be that among the 32 or so industrial ambassadors who promote our industries abroad there is not a representative of the creative industries. Given the huge export market of our creative industries, and in the light of some of the issues involving IPT abroad in particular, I would ask the Government to consider that point in order to reinforce the measures they have already taken.

Many of the objectives and plans of other Departments cut across what the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is trying to do. We are just recovering—I hope—from the damage that the visa issue has inflicted on our export potential and ability to attract bright research students and undergraduates into our universities. All the feedback that the Select Committee received during its recent visit to China demonstrated that in the country that will be the economic driver of the world economy over the next 30 years, that issue has given the impression that Britain is not open for business. It is too early to say whether the measures announced on Tuesday will address that problem, but the initial indications from universities are that they will go some way towards doing so. However, damage has been done that is fundamentally at odds with all the objectives incorporated in the plan.

[Mr Binley]

I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman has found space in his speech to make the point about visas. I had the good fortune, owing to the sad occurrence that happened to the Chairman of the Select Committee, to lead that delegation to China, and I want to impress on the House how many people in both the British and the Chinese business community made the same point. This is a really important issue, because they think that Britain is closed for business. We need to change that perception. Does he agree that the Home Secretary needs to do more to ensure that the message gets through loud and clear in China?

[Mr Bailey]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. For personal reasons, I could not join the Committee’s visit to China. However, he put those proposals to me forcefully, and I have spent the morning with the appropriate Ministers pressing that very point, because a lot of damage has been done. We need to rectify it if we are to realise any of the potential in the document.

On the localism agenda, noises were made in the Budget about improving planning for local businesses. Despite the fact, however, that the Localism Bill places planning priorities in the hands of local communities and neighbour planners, the local organisations set up by the Government—the local enterprise partnerships—have no defined role in that. I do not understand how we can have a legal process for devising planning programmes locally without incorporating the representatives of the local business community. There is enormous concern among the business community about the potential damage that that could cause.