Oral Answers to Questions

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Tuesday 17th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

The increase in funding is actually in real terms, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right: to succeed here, we have to be open to ideas and open to talent. He will have seen the recent relaxation in the tier 5 visa restrictions for scientists. We are also investing £900 million in UKRI’s flagship future leadership fellowships and a further £350 million for the national academies to expand their prestigious fellowships. When it comes to science, innovation and research, we are open for business.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

I am sure that the Minister saw the recent report from the Office for Life Sciences, which showed that R&D investment in the pharmaceutical sector fell from £4.9 billion per annum in 2011 to £4.1 billion in 2016—a decline of £800 million per annum. To what does he attribute that, and given that life sciences are so important, what does he plan to do about it?

[Mr Gyimah]

I am aware that everyone in the life sciences sector has welcomed the life sciences sector deal. As part of our work to reach 2.4% of our GDP being invested in scientific research by 2027, we will be working with the pharmaceutical industry along with other industries to increase their research investment in the UK.

Oral Answers to Questions

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Tuesday 1st May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffiths]

This Government well understands the needs of businesses both throughout the UK and specifically in Scotland. As the hon. Gentleman will know, the Home Office will shortly present further details of the scheme that is to be introduced.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

4. What progress he has made on implementing the good work plan.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

5. What progress he has made on implementing the good work plan.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Andrew Griffiths)]

We are proceeding with work on 52 of the 53 review recommendations made by Matthew Taylor, and we are currently engaged in consultations on how best to implement those measures. We are committed to ensuring that we protect and enhance workers’ rights in the modern economy, and to legislating for that purpose. We will ensure that employment law and practices keep pace with modern ways of working, while striking the right balance between flexibility and worker protection.

[Daniel Zeichner]

The Minister may be aware that workers at McDonalds are taking strike action in Cambridge today. One of them, Sheila, told the Cambridge News at the weekend that although she has worked for 18 years, her work is insecure, she never knows what hours she will work, and fresh fruit and vegetables are luxuries. What has the good work plan to offer Sheila?

[Andrew Griffiths]

Matthew Taylor set out in the good work plan how we can further enhance the protections for workers such as Sheila. There is a huge amount of day-one protections, and we are looking at what we can do with flexible working and zero-hours contracts to give greater certainty and security to workers exactly like Sheila.

Funding Higher Education

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Wednesday 28th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mr Streeter]

It would be a little bit late, but I thank the hon. Gentleman for the thought.

Repayment of loans is a shared responsibility between the Student Loans Company and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. The Student Loans Company receives all its funding from the UK Government and the devolved Administrations. Therefore, the system is based on the student owing however much money he or she needed to borrow to get through university and gradually paying it back during their working lifetime. Perhaps not surprisingly, 93% of all students in England take up student loans.

The total amount of debt that an average student who completes a three-year undergraduate course will owe has now risen to around £50,000, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. That sum will include just under £6,000 in interest accrued during the period of study, at a rate of up to 6.1%. A student who has taken out a loan will begin repaying 9% of their income when they are earning higher than the repayment threshold, and any unpaid debts are written off after 30 years. Broadly, that is the system.

The Government announced in October 2017 that the repayment threshold on student debts would be raised from £21,000 to £25,000, commencing from April 2018. At the same time, the fee cap was frozen at £9,250.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for making a very good speech. He has just outlined the way that the system is currently working, but does he agree that what is happening now is not what people anticipated when the coalition Government introduced it? They anticipated that there would be differential fees—different amounts paid at different universities—but because the system has not worked, a whole generation has been left with enormous debts. The system is absolutely broken, and the levels of interest are unacceptable. We really have to change it quite dramatically. Does he agree?

[Mr Streeter]

I do agree. I am looking for change and I think the Government are looking for change, which I guess is why the review is taking place. When the level of fees was increased, we were led to believe that different universities would charge different fees. Some of us who have been around for quite a long time recognised that that might not happen, and indeed all universities went for the maximum more or less straight away. However, the reason why we are here today and why the Government are reviewing this matter is that the system is not working as planned, and we now need to see some real change. That is very much what I am calling for.

Under our current system, students in the United Kingdom are landed with the greatest amounts of student debt in the developed world—greater even than the notoriously large student debts in the United States of America, which reach an average of $36,000 on graduation. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has recently reported that 77% of UK graduates will never pay off their full debt, even if they are still repaying in their fifties, and that is projected to rise to 83% once the new figures have been introduced. This is an important point: we have a system that is almost set up to fail. Built into the system is an understanding that most of the people who participate will not repay. I do not want that system in place for the long term. When graduates immediately move abroad, that results in more unpaid debts. When a graduate’s employer is not UK-based, they are not subject to the automatic repayment system as they would be in the United Kingdom. In 2014, it was estimated that, by 2042, £90 billion of student support funded by the Treasury will remain unpaid.

It is certainly right for students to contribute to the cost of obtaining a degree. The stats still demonstrate that, over a lifetime, a graduate is likely to earn significantly more than a non-graduate. According to Universities UK:

“Official figures are clear that, on average, university graduates continue to earn substantially more than non-graduates and are more likely to be in employment.”

In debates with sixth-formers and others, I guess many of us have argued, “Why should a proverbial taxi driver who does not have a degree pay extra tax to help others improve their income?” There are pushbacks and answers to that, but it is still a compelling and important point. We must remember that the figures involved are significant, with each new crop of student loans being £13 billion a year. That is a substantial sum that we are having to find to support students going to university.

The principle of students contributing to their own higher education is surely right, but it must be sustainable. I am beginning to see that it is not sustainable for someone to have a debt of up to £50,000 around their neck when they enter the workplace.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Streeter]

I agree. When the panel reports its findings, I hope the Government take action to help us put in place a system that is both fair and sustainable. We have a world-class university system in this country that we must not in any way seek to undermine. It is hugely important that, as young people increasingly compete with people from other countries, we keep our highest university standards.

[Daniel Zeichner]

It is important to recognise that there is a dispute going on in higher education at the moment and that staff have been out on cold picket lines. Whatever one’s view of that dispute, it is partly about how resources are allocated and ensuring we have a sustainable system. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we need an urgent resolution to the dispute? If we are to support academics in future, they must have a pension scheme in which they can have confidence.

[Mr Streeter]

I must confess I do not know the details of the current dispute. I am not a huge supporter of strikes, but I agree that it would be better to have the dispute resolved as quickly as possible. All people are entitled and should aspire to a proper and decent pension settlement.

Moving on to my three points, you will be pleased to hear that the first two are very brief, Mr Hosie. I have some ideas for the Government to grapple with, although I am sure they have thought about these things in advance. One possibility to soften the blow for students could be to make the monthly repayments tax deductible, which would basically reduce the true impact of the repayments and seems both reasonable and fair. Secondly, the current interest rate of 6.1% seems almost punitive when we have interest rates so much lower. I do not think that that was ever the intention when we started off on this journey. We should consider reducing the interest rates to the amount that Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs pays us when it has our money for any length of time. The interest calculation for overpaid tax is a lot less than 6%. If it is fair for that purpose, it would be fair for students. Again, it would encourage people to embrace the student loan system if the rate of interest was significantly lower.

Thirdly, and in a little more detail, for the first time in my life I wonder whether it is time to consider a graduate contribution system in place of the current tuition fees and student loans: in other words, what some people would call a graduate tax. We have all been involved in debates over the years in which we have said that that is an absolutely disastrous idea but, for the reasons that I am about to give, I think it should be reconsidered.

A graduate contribution tax is essentially a system sub in which the student becomes obligated to an income-related additional tax on graduating in return for Government subsidisation of higher education, resulting in low or no tuition fees to the student. The Government would in effect pay all or most of the fees directly to the university, and the student would pay a contribution over and above ordinary levels of tax for a limited period of time once they start work. That removes the burden of individual borrower accounts or balances owed. The exact percentage of earnings that graduates would be required to pay back would be up for discussion, but one option is to have a banded system in which the percentage paid back is determined by income and increases across income bands. What is the point? Two things. First, a system based on the ability to pay rather than the amount of money the student has borrowed to get through university is more reasonable and fair than the current system.

Budget Resolutions

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 28th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my near neighbour, the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), although I have to say that I do not find many people on the streets who echo her thanks to her colleagues quite so effusively.

Reading the comments of the OBR, it is hard to come to the conclusion that they are anything other than somewhat gloomy. I would suggest to Conservative Members that just one of the factors may have been the lack of an industrial strategy over the last seven years, so there is some welcome for the fact that we do now have an industrial strategy.

The city I represent has been mentioned many times, and I just want to make a couple of comments, particularly on life sciences. Cambridge has been tremendously successful. I am grateful to Savills for pointing out that, in terms of one measure—global bioscience venture capital funding per capita—Cambridge is streets ahead of all our international competitors and anywhere else in this country. But alongside the success stories that the Government trumpeted when they launched the strategy yesterday, I urge colleagues to look—I do not normally do this—at The Daily Telegraph; a couple of days ago it had a report that Johnson & Johnson, the major American healthcare giant, had pulled out of plans to build a new research and development facility in the UK, just outside Cambridge. It said those plans

“have been put on hold over concerns that the UK is both politically and economically weak while negotiations to leave the European Union are ongoing”,

so there is a mixed picture.

The missing element in all this is the people. The reason why these industries are successful in Cambridge is that people can come and go freely. In the context of Brexit, that will be a real challenge. In every lab I go to, I find people from other parts of the world, but they are leaving, and the next generation is not coming. The industrial strategy has to be seen in that context. What makes people come here? Good schools, but there is nothing in the Budget, as hon. Friends have pointed out, to improve schools, and most of all, there is nothing on housing.

Housing is complicated in Cambridge. The city council is doing a fantastic job; it is trying to build council housing, but it is dogged by Government policy changes. The council bravely bought itself out of the housing revenue account, only for the Government to change the strategy entirely a year later, completely undermining its policies. Yes, lifting the HRA cap would be good, but can we have any faith that that will continue over the next few months and years?

On the Oxford-Milton Keynes-Cambridge arc, it would be good to have more housing there, but look at the details in the Budget Book. There is talk about shifts from section 106 and the community infrastructure levy to a strategic infrastructure tariff. That is very complicated, detailed stuff, mirroring what happens in London. However, the governance arrangements on that arc are not one mayoralty; there is not one, unified structure there. This is complicated stuff, and it will not happen soon. The industrial strategy may be a very glossy, colourful document, but for most people, life is being lived in gritty black and white.

Euratom Membership

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Wednesday 12th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen), who I thought spoke with a great depth of knowledge about this subject. For those of us who are not so close to the industry, I will talk about the scientific and some of the legal issues, some of which have already been raised, but there is an elephant in the room: to many of us, it seems as though the debate is being driven by what many of us see as the Prime Minister’s longstanding antipathy towards the European Court of Justice. It seems to me almost like a fetish in some ways, because there has to be some way to resolve disputes. I often look to football for inspiration; most things can be related to football in my view. It needs a referee; people may sometimes feel hard done by, but when there are disputes, there has to be an arbitrator. The Government seem intent on bringing their own referee to the table, instead of playing by the rules. We have to have some way of resolving these issues.

One issue we have already heard about is the possibility of associate membership of Euratom, and we all want to hear much more from the Minister about that. However, if we are going to talk about associate membership, we also need to hear something about whether the Government can provide the same assurances for other areas of crucial scientific research, such as our relationship with the European Research Council, the European Research Area and the Horizon 2020 programme.

Just last week, the Government made an extraordinary policy announcement in the pages of the Financial Times, in which two Secretaries of State recognised the need for us to stay close to European Union regulatory systems in the life sciences sector—an announcement that some of us feel might have been more appropriately made in Parliament first. It is true to say, however, that a direction of travel is emerging on all of these issues, even if the proper destination has not yet been arrived at.

Exiting the EU: Science and Research

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire).

Whatever our view of the United Kingdom’s place in the world, it is probably fair to say it is indisputable that the UK is a science giant. The impact our excellent science and research base has had on the country as a whole has been profound, particularly in our great universities. As I have said previously, my constituency of Cambridge is particularly productive—a hive of science and innovation. The University of Cambridge has fostered almost 100 Nobel prize winners, and the city and surrounding area is home to a thriving network of life sciences and technology companies.

However, as Baron Rees of Ludlow once cautioned:

“Unless we get smarter, we’ll get poorer”.

Eight years later, at a time when our relationship with Europe is at a crucial juncture, that warning is all the more significant. Unfortunately, in the words of Prospect, the trade union representing many people working in the sector:

“It is inescapable that the decision to Brexit has resulted in an instant reputational hit for UK science.”

Let me begin with a plea to the Government to provide concrete, real reassurances to the EU nationals working in science and research around the country. Existing EU research staff need certainty, which is sorely missing at the moment.

I recently visited a lab at the department of physiology, development and neuroscience at the University of Cambridge as part of a pairing scheme run by the Royal Society. I shadowed a neuroscientist-neurologist, Susanna Mierau, who is studying autism, and spent much of the day with her and her colleagues. It was a brilliant and inspiring day, but what was particularly striking was the number of people working in the lab who were EU nationals. It is the same in labs around the city and across the country.

The Royal Society tells us that there are 31,000 non-UK EU citizens working in research and academia in the UK. The Babraham Institute just outside Cambridge says nearly a third of their employees and visiting researchers are non-UK EU nationals. The Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, which is on the biomedical park in Cambridge, tells us that EU nationals are a significant and valuable part of their workforce, who are dedicated to beating cancer sooner, with 33% of its PhD students and 39% of its research fellows being non-UK EU nationals. The adjoining Medical Research Council laboratory of molecular biology says that 40% of its research students and 45% of its postdoctoral researchers are from the EU. At the University of Cambridge as a whole, about a quarter of academics and postdocs are EU nationals.

EU nationals are undertaking vital work across the UK to tackle global challenges and improve people’s lives, and they make a huge contribution to UK science and research. Sadly, however, written evidence from the organisations I have mentioned testifies to those people all feeling “very anxious and unwelcome”, “insecure...or even abused”, and

“concerned about their ability to continue working here”.

I find that genuinely horrifying, and I urge the Government to tell EU nationals working in UK science that they are welcome in this country.

The evidence shows that the EU researchers attracted by the UK are at the top of their fields. More than half of European Research Council consolidator grant recipients in the UK in 2014 were non-UK EU citizens. The University of Cambridge argues that UK institutions risk losing this talent and the accompanying European Research Council funding should EU researchers no longer be attracted to the UK, which is the potential consequence of any restrictions on freedom of movement. Losing access to funding is not just about attracting talent; it is also about retaining it.

All of this is not just about the UK’s standing, but about scientific progress itself. Collaboration and the pooling of international talent are essential to scientific innovation. The famous discovery of the structure of DNA by Watson and Crick involved a visiting US scientist, and monoclonal antibodies were developed by an Argentinian and a German postdoctoral fellow. Science knows no borders, so talented people and their ideas must be allowed to flow freely. If EU citizens are required to apply for a tier 2 visa to work in UK universities, that will pose a risk to universities’ ability to recruit and retain staff. Maintaining researcher mobility and refusing to create barriers to internationalism must be a priority in Brexit negotiations.

I will conclude by briefly mentioning a couple of other vital areas. I have spoken previously about the importance of ensuring that the UK has continued access to the EU regulatory framework for new medicines under the European Medicines Agency. If we reject the importance of that—as, alarmingly, the Secretary of State for International Trade did in extraordinarily cursory fashion very recently—access to new treatments will slow down, drugs prices will go up and our NHS will foot the bill. Furthermore, our life sciences sector will suffer. In Cambridge there are more than 160 life science companies, but if our country is outside the single market and is no longer able to work with the EMA, and if it moves its headquarters from London, parts of the industry will surely follow. Just recently Sweden was reported to have thrown its hat into the ring to host the EMA headquarters.

Likewise, our technology sector is reliant upon retaining the current regulatory system, in this case ensuring that UK data protection rules are at least in line with the new general data protection regulation following Brexit. The cross-border sharing of international data flows is essential if we want our technology and financial services sectors to remain globally competitive. The Minister for Digital and Culture said in response to an Adjournment debate that I secured recently:

“We want a data protection framework that works best for the UK and meets our needs. Those consultations will be forthcoming.” —[Official Report, 12 December 2016; Vol. 618, c. 594.]

I wonder whether we can now be told when those consultations will be published. He also said that the Government were considering all options for the most beneficial way of ensuring that the UK’s data protection regime continues to build a culture of data confidence and trust, which safeguards citizens and supports businesses in a global data economy. Perhaps the Minister responding today can outline some of those options.

We need better answers from the Government and soon, or we risk seeing the great advantages and opportunities achieved by UK science and tech squandered, at great cost to us all.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Legislative Grand Committee: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 21st November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Gordon Marsden]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. It would, of course, be invidious for me to single out Queen’s University over and above others—if I did, my postbag would no doubt be full—but he is absolutely right to champion what it is doing. There is an important point, which I am not sure the Government have entirely grasped. The research done at Queen’s and other universities and HE institutions under the devolved Administrations does not depend only on whether the Government get a good Brexit settlement with the European Union; it depends on maintaining the trust and support of those EU nations that we will rely on to get that sort of investment for clinical trials. For example, a lot of charities—the Minister will be aware of this because they made representations to his Department—particularly those relating to heart disease and cancer, are concerned that if we do not get a decent settlement, the problems of getting field trials in Francophone Africa or Lusophone South America will become more and more complicated because we rely on those researchers and the good offices of our EU counterparts in those countries. I do not think that the Government are taking anywhere near enough notice of that particular issue.

As I said, the architecture is complex, and it is crucial to get it right. Although the Minister may think that some of these amendments are nit-picking and do not need to be on the face of the Bill, as I said to him throughout our discussions in Committee, I think he neglects the importance of sending a signal to the devolved Administrations and others that their interests are going to be represented. That is why these amendments were tabled.

Our amendments 43, 44 and 45 would ensure that there is co-operation and information sharing between the OFS and UKRI. The Minister obviously knows that UKRI and Innovate UK have historically done different things. Again, he is at pains to try to reassure us that all we will get under the new structure is the best of both worlds. Unfortunately, we sometimes end up getting the worst of both worlds. I was struck, particularly during evidence sessions in Committee, by the fact that certain concerns remain—amendment 53, tabled by the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh), is also relevant here. The chief executive of Innovate UK outlined his concerns in Committee about whether Innovate UK and the Department that supports it will be sufficiently fleet of foot to do the sort of innovative things in finance and everything else that they have so far been very good at. This is not to say that the architecture cannot work; it is just saying that the Minister and his officials need to think rather harder about the how the process will go forward.

There is also, of course, the broader issue in part 3 that the process of separating teaching and research—and in this context, the Research England body is relevant—will mean that issues and activities at the interface of teaching and research, such as the health of disciplines, the awarding of research degrees, post-grad training and sharing of facilities, might not be effectively identified and supported.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend will appreciate that a number of institutions are concerned—I suspect he was about to make this point—about this gap between teaching and research. I was quite surprised when my University of Cambridge told me that 89% of people who are involved in teaching at the university are also involved in research. That integration between the two is absolutely essential, yet it seems to be what is missing in some people’s eyes from the Bill. I believe that this is the force of the amendment that my hon. Friend is proposing.

[Gordon Marsden]

I was going to say that my hon. Friend, as the MP for Cambridge, is at the cutting-edge, or certainly at the coal face, of this particular issue. I know it is important to Cambridge University and indeed to Oxford University, whose vice-chancellor has expressed similar concerns. This is not the Minister’s fault, but it is unfortunate that at the time this comes through, we will have had the machinery of government changes in terms of the Department for Education and the new expanded Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Time alone will tell what the benefits of that are—I think there might be a number of them—but there could be problems in the short term. With the best will in the world, that bedding-down process between the two Departments—I know the Minister has a foot in both camps, so I hope he will be able to help—is going to be a real concern.

We have talked about the OFS and UKRI co-operating on the health of disciplines and so on. Our amendment proposes a mechanism by which this collaboration could be achieved. The Royal Society, as I am sure the Minister is aware, has suggested that a committee on teaching and research should be established. The Wellcome institute, with which I am sure Members are familiar, has also offered its thoughts. Teaching and research are intrinsically linked, but that intrinsic link would be lost from higher education if the bond between them were broken.

Clause 105 sets out the interactions between the OFS and UKRI, but we wanted to strengthen that co-operation by replacing the word “may”—no disrespect to the Prime Minister—with “must”. In parliamentary and governmental terms, “must” is a great deal more useful than “may”. The Royal Society of Chemistry has said:

“In many HE Institutions we see positive interactions between teaching and research responsibilities…There is a risk that the separation of teaching and research in the new HE architecture will mean that the benefits of research informing teaching and learning practices could be lost.”

No one is suggesting that that would be done deliberately, but it could happen. The society has also said:

“The current draft of the Bill allows for information sharing between the OfS and UKRI. It does not, however, require their cooperation unless directed by the Secretary of State”.

Other learned bodies and societies have contacted me, and fellow members of the Committee, to make similar points.

The Minister referred to the guidance paper that he has issued. I thank him for that paper, which provides some further clarity, but it has come very late in the day. I wonder whether it was issued with an eye to the passing interest in the other place, to which the Bill is shortly to be committed, rather than with the aim of keeping us happy down here, but it is useful nevertheless. At the end of the day, however, it still does not establish an obligation or mechanism for co-operation; that is left to the whim of an individual Secretary of State or universities Minister.

As I have said, the issue is made more pressing by the new machinery of government structure and the responsibilities shared by the two Departments. Who knows what will happen in the future? The Minister may be looking forward to a long period as the universities Minister, but at some point, no doubt, he will go onward and upward, and there is no guarantee that his successor, in this or any future Government, will also share responsibilities with BEIS.

For all those reasons, we are suggesting that the Bill be amended to provide that the OFS and UKRI must co-operate without having to be required to do so by the Secretary of State. If SNP Members choose to press their amendments, we will support them.

Student Loans Agreement

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2016 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

I thank the Petitions Committee and my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) for scheduling this important debate. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Mr Pritchard. I am glad to have the opportunity to speak about an issue that will affect many young people in university cities such as my constituency of Cambridge, where more than 700 petitioned me on this issue.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North said, the issue is not new. In fact, I raised it at Prime Minister’s Question Time in December last year, which seems a lifetime ago. At the time—it is extraordinary—the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr Cameron) was otherwise engaged touring Europe and negotiating his deal; it seems such a long time ago. In his absence, the then Chancellor answered. I had asked:

“When the Chancellor tripled student tuition fees, he set the repayment threshold at £21,000. He has now frozen the threshold, and the Institute for Fiscal Studies tells us that many students will bear many extra thousands of pounds in repayments. Given that he has broken his promise, will he send students an apology or just the bill?”—[Official Report, 9 December 2015; Vol. 603, c. 989.]

Unsurprisingly, he did not apologise, and students, I fear, are now left with the bill. What he is left with is rather less clear, but he has obviously got more time on his hands.

Changing the threshold at which student loans are to be repaid, as other Members have pointed out, really does not do politics any good. As all of us here know, one of the major challenges facing us is to slowly rebuild, piece by piece, the trust that has been lost in politics. We need to repair the connection between voter and elected representative, and moving the goalposts really does not help. It is clear that current and prospective students are angry, and I cannot blame them. They are being pulled out of the European Union when the majority of them wanted to remain. They are now being denied opportunities and experiences across the continent that just a month ago seemed boundless. Back in 2010 they were misled and tuition fees tripled under the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives. In many university cities like mine, they are being locked out of the housing market, and in many cases locked out of the rental market, with the cost of living constantly rising. The Government have gambled their future away on an exceptionally bad hand. To top it all, young people are being shafted by the Government on student loan agreements. How can we expect them to put any trust in us when this is how they are treated?

As other Members have pointed out, the Government are keen to remind us that there was a consultation, and when 84% responses came back saying, “Don’t do it,” it was ignored. Of 489 responses, 410 were explicitly against keeping the threshold of £21,000 the same for all post-2012 borrowers until April 2021. As others have said, the Government—and local councils, too—lose all authority if they consult the public having already made up their mind what they are going to do. The consultation seems as if it was a charade. In fact, it was a sham, which is a shame, because the respondents’ points were worth listening to. Their main arguments, some of which have been rehearsed, were against freezing the repayment threshold for five years for all existing and new loans. They argued that the policy represents a retrospective change to borrowers’ terms and conditions which, as others have said, would not be allowed to commercial lenders, and that leads to a further loss of trust.

Such loss of trust occurs on a number of levels. The policy goes back on the original deal made between the Government and each student, saddling them with more debt than they signed up for and undermining the fundamental fairness that a contract should entail. It completely disregards the views of those consulting on the policy, including student unions and higher education providers—perhaps they are a part of the group of experts the world no longer believes in. Those most directly affected are the ones who know what the policy will do. It was snuck in through the back door. It was omitted from the now ex-Chancellor’s spending review speech, and it was introduced furtively and somewhat undemocratically through secondary legislation.

The effects are severe, as we have heard. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said in its post-consultation report:

“In 2020-21 borrowers will be paying £6 per week, or £306 in the year, more than they will be in 2016-17.”

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has found that freezing the repayment threshold has a proportionately larger impact on repayments by graduates with lower lifetime earnings. It also estimates that a five-year threshold freeze would increase average repayments by almost £4,000, and that it expects middle-income earners to be hardest hit by the threshold freeze. The Government’s own equality analysis agreed. It concluded that the largest increase in lifetime repayments in absolute terms is among middle earners, and the largest increase as a proportion of earnings is among lower earners. The analysis also concluded that the average increase in repayments would be greater for women than for men.

A constituent wrote to me:

“It breaks my heart to see my family saddled with huge debts that will certainly affect their life chances.”

It is imperative that we do not underestimate the impact that an unexpected loss of several thousand extra pounds could have on middle and lower earners struggling to get by. We must look at the changes in a wider context. They come alongside the scrapping of student grants and their replacement with loans, a policy change that the IFS estimates will most affect graduates from lower-income families who go on to become higher earners. Just as we have seen with the Government’s damaging pay to stay housing proposals, the policy effectively penalises social mobility and aspiration. It creates extra barriers for successful graduates from low-income backgrounds, but has little impact on students from the richest households.

I was fascinated to discover that the new Prime Minister said in 1997—we have all said things in the past—that she had a real concern that

“to abolish the maintenance grant and replace it with loans will, far from widening access, narrow it.”—[Official Report, 4 November 1997; Vol. 300, c. 155.]

I wonder whether she will, some years later, revisit her predecessor’s schemes.

Freezing the student repayment threshold also comes alongside changes to tuition fees expected in the Higher Education and Research Bill, which I am sure we will discuss in the days ahead. The Bill will allow some universities to charge tuition fees that rise in line with inflation, creating a greater hierarchy of education, with some simply costing more. As the University and College Union points out, further increasing the cost of higher education to the individual is hardly conducive to widening participation.

The UCU also identifies further potential retrospective changes: many students could begin their courses without knowing the full cost of their study, which could change if the institutional rating changes. All that comes at a time of great instability in the sector. The Universities Minister recently said:

“This Government have done more than any other to put the financing of higher education on to a secure and sustainable footing.”—[Official Report, 27 June 2016; Vol. 612, c. 125.]

Others may see it slightly differently, especially as that was said a few days after the EU referendum, the shockwaves of which are resonating around our universities and research sector. It may be one of the most destabilising events that our higher education sector has experienced in many, many years.

The Government’s original justification for implementing a repayment threshold freeze was that it was necessary to contribute towards debt reduction and to balance the books. As others have said, the rule book seems to have changed. The budget surplus target has been abandoned. Higher education policy has been carved away from one Department and bolted on to another. The Prime Minister said:

“When it comes to opportunity, we won’t entrench the advantages of the fortunate few. We will do everything we can to help anybody, whatever your background, to go as far as your talents will take you.”

Hear, hear to that; let us hold her to that.

Change is afoot, so I hope the Minister can confirm that students will no longer be treated in such a shabby way, but will be treated better. We are already standing amid the broken pieces of the big society and the wreckage of BIS and our place in Europe. Please do not add to that wreckage. Do not break your promises to all those students who trusted you to keep them.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

I shall call the Front-Bench spokesmen and women in a moment. We have a little time today. Typically, Front-Bench spokespersons speak for 10 minutes. However, we have a little extra time if required.