Higher Education Fees

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Leech]

That is not relevant to the debate, or to the point that I am trying to make. The proposals mean that the least well-off quarter of graduates will be better off than they are under the scheme introduced by the last Labour Government. However, the flaw that I see in the proposal of my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary is that no one goes to university believing that they will be among the bottom 25% of graduates. Their assumption will always be that they will have to pay off the whole of their student debt, although for a large proportion of them, that will never be the case. I believe that a number will be put off choosing to go to university in the first place.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Leech]

I will not give way a third time.

As I said earlier, I signed the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West. However, I also strongly support the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert). Along with most other Members who are graduates, I benefited from a free education, and left university with a very small amount of debt. I am not about to vote to leave future graduates with tens of thousands of pounds of debt. I hold to the old-fashioned principle that a university education benefits the country and the economy as well as the individual. Graduates who are successful and earn high wages after they leave university pay more taxes and repay the cost of their university education that way. I am therefore slightly disappointed that the amendment to which I have put my name has not been selected and will not be voted on, because that vote would have revealed which Members support the principle of free education, and Opposition Members would have had a chance to show their support for the existing unfair regressive fees system. We are not going to get that opportunity, however.

All we are getting from the Opposition is pathetic political opportunism. The House witnessed that last week, yesterday and this afternoon. The Leader of the Opposition has suggested he supports a graduate tax, but is not prepared to tell us how much it would cost and how many graduates would be worse off under his proposals. This week we are told that the shadow Chancellor has had a road to Damascus-style conversion to the concept of a graduate tax; either that or, more likely, he has had a North Korean conversion to the graduate tax. Both the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Chancellor were members of the Cabinet that introduced the Browne review with the explicit intention of raising tuition fees. Nobody in this House or outside it should be duped into believing that Labour would not be proposing an increase in tuition fees if they were still in government. While I welcome their convenient conversion to opposing a rise in tuition fees, the House should be under no illusion: if they were in government they would be doing exactly the same as what is being done today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rehman Chishti]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that pertinent point. It is not simply about money, but about aspiration, commitment, dedication and determination to go to university. My hon. Friend makes an excellent point.

[Chris Bryant]

May I put a slightly different version of the facts to the hon. Gentleman? By the end of a three-year, perhaps four-year course, somebody could have debts of £40,000 or £45,000. For many people in my constituency and in many mining constituencies in this land, that is more than the value of their home. That is the equation that goes through their mind.

[Rehman Chishti]

The hon. Gentleman makes a pertinent point. I was at university in Wales and I know the community there. However, the key element is that there are no up-front fees and that is why the motion is a good one.

One has to consider the overall package rather than single elements for its progressiveness, fairness and justness. As well as there being no up-front fees, the increase in the threshold from £15,000 to £21,000 has to be a good thing. There will be a cap at £6,000 and then at £9,000, linked to exceptional circumstances. Some of the highest-performing universities will have to go out and ensure that students from less privileged backgrounds take part. That is absolutely right and fair.

--- Later in debate ---

[Guto Bebb]

I am afraid that I cannot take any more interventions because of the time.

We are talking about creating a system that will allow greater access, be more affordable and, in my view, ensure that higher education is properly funded.

Let me address the issue of better access. I am proud to be a graduate of Aberystwyth university, and when I graduated 20 years ago, the university had 2,700 undergraduates, whereas the current figure is almost 10,000. That increase is most welcome; I think both sides of the House welcome the fact that more young people have opportunities in education. However, those opportunities come at a cost and the Labour party continually allowed a situation to develop in which more and more people were going to university but sufficient funding provision was not put in place.

[Chris Bryant]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Guto Bebb]

No, I will not.

It is important to point out that access comes with a cost. The coalition Government are trying to introduce a system that will ensure that fair and reasonable access to further education continues. Access has been discussed at length. I particularly welcome the fact that we are doing so much to ensure that there is fair support for people who study part-time. I have mature-student and single-parent constituents who want to move into further education, and they will be supported as a result of these decisions.

[Chris Bryant]

In Wales.

[Guto Bebb]

I will respond to the heckling in a minute, but I am quite confident that better access will be delivered as a result of these measures.

Affordability was discussed at great length by my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), who made an impressive speech. The cost of tuition fees might seem very daunting to some, and I am sure that many students will be daunted by the prospect of having debts of £20,000 or £30,000, but we need to consider this issue in the round. The other day, I had an e-mail from a parent asking whether their child, who hoped to become a teacher, would end up having to pay those astronomical fees. My response was clear: on a teacher’s starting salary of £20,500, that person would not pay those fees, because we are raising the threshold.

[Chris Bryant]

In Wales, they would not.

[Guto Bebb]

I will come back to that point about Wales.

The average salary in a constituency such as mine is £25,000 a year. Someone on such a salary would make repayments of about £360 a year. Dare I say that many people from north Wales will spend £360 on a weekend in Cardiff for a rugby international? Let us consider the option of spending £360 on a rugby weekend or £360 a year for an education: I think the choice is fairly clear.

Opposition Members have been heckling me about Wales. Yes, I stand here as a Welsh MP and I am embarrassed by the public relations stunt of the Welsh Assembly Government. I am embarrassed by the fact that they are willing to raid the education budget to pay for a policy to take them through to the next Assembly election. I am embarrassed that, increasingly, the Welsh education system will not be able to deliver a quality education and that as a result more and more Welsh students will choose to study in England, leaving less money for the Welsh system. I support the measures because they will improve access, increase affordability and ensure proper funding for the higher education system in this country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jonathan Edwards]

My Scottish friends have an even better and honourable position of having no tuition fees, and I wish that that was the case in my country. We are putting forward the best-case scenario given what we face in our country. The Welsh Government will pay for this measure by top-slicing the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales teaching grant, but Welsh higher education institutions will still enjoy a higher level of teaching grant support than institutions in England. The UK Government are proposing an 80% cut in the university teaching grant in England, moving the cost of education almost completely on to the student—it is the consumer who pays. The cut in teaching grant in Wales will be 35% and, thus, the vital contribution and principle of public funding for higher education will be maintained.

[Chris Bryant]

But is it not also important that one of the measures introduced in Wales ensures that individual youngsters in Wales can study any course anywhere in the United Kingdom that is right for them? The money will follow them, including to English universities. For example, they could not train to be a vet in a Welsh university, but they will be able to do so elsewhere under this system.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and of course I fully agree. I made that point earlier in a slightly different context.

That measure is a good deal for Welsh students and a good deal for Welsh universities.