David Lammy
Main Page: David Lammy (Labour - Tottenham)
Vince Cable
Wait a moment. I shall deal with interventions later.
There was no coalition agreement. The Labour Government had a majority of 167. There was no financial crisis. At the time, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was going round telling us that Britain was outperforming every Government since the days of the Hanoverians. There was no economic crisis, yet the Labour Government introduced a system that transferred the burden of paying for universities from the state to individual graduates. They introduced it. We are now dealing with a real crisis and we are trying to deal with it in a coalition context. That is the issue the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen has to address.
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
Does the right hon. Gentleman want to withdraw that last statement? It is wrong to suggest that the current arrangements withdraw funding from the state. He knows that his cut of 80% does that.
Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)
I welcome Lord Browne’s report and the six principles on which it was based, in particular those of increased student choice and of everyone having the potential to benefit from higher education, no matter what background they come from. It was an excellent piece of work, and was set up by the previous Labour Government, but it has apparently been rejected by Labour in favour of a graduate tax—although I have difficulty understanding what the Labour party’s policy is, because it seems to be using a blank sheet of paper, and I am not sure what is on it at any given time.
Lord Browne specifically rejected a graduate tax, and the case against a pure graduate tax is damning. The shadow Secretary of State complained that graduates will be repaying loans for up to 30 years, yet they would pay his graduate tax for the rest of their working lives, resulting in some graduates paying the cost of their courses many times over. In addition, most graduates would have to repay separately any debt incurred for living costs while studying.
There are serious questions about the ability of a graduate tax to produce the necessary revenue to fund higher education. Faced with the record budget deficit left by Labour, a graduate tax would mean the Government having to spend an additional £3 billion a year for at least the next five years. According to the Browne review estimates, a graduate tax would not produce enough revenue to fund higher education until 2041-42. Importantly, a graduate tax would not give universities any additional incentive to focus on the quality of the teaching or student experience that they offer. The Browne review concluded that
“the graduate tax significantly weakens universities’ independence”
and that their relationship with students would matter “much less”. That cannot be the modern, forward-looking, 21st-century higher education system that we want for this country.
The shadow Secretary of State complained recently, as he did tonight, that the Government’s reforms will
“create a market in which solely student choice, shapes the size of universities and courses on offer.”
I wonder what he fears from a model under which students are fully empowered and can make informed decisions about the type of higher education that is best for them. Labour has always disliked personal choice because it instinctively prefers command and control structures, operated from the centre. Is the Labour party really suggesting that successful and popular universities should continue to ration places, forcing ambitious students to settle for their second or third choice? Universities are at their best when they are not dependent on Government for too much of their funding. Without some sort of market, there is no pressure for universities to improve their teaching quality or their student support to attract more students.
Mr Wilson
No, I will not because I have only one minute and 45 seconds left.
I say to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that the reforms must not be half-hearted. If we are continually to drive up quality throughout the sector, there must be no student numbers cap for individual institutions. We must not be in a position under the new system where the state steers students into university courses that they do not really want to do and forces them to settle for second best. In the past, that has been done for the best, if misguided, intentions, but it is wrong to keep underperforming universities in their current form at the expense of the quality of the higher education that the student receives.
Facing up to the reality of higher education finance involves very hard choices, which the Opposition do not seem to want to take. It also provides a great opportunity to reform our university system for the benefit of all students and society in general. Faced with higher contributions after graduation, students should demand more from their university. Prospective students will rightly think much more carefully about their choices and demand more information about their university, such as its teaching quality, student support and the employment destinations of other graduates. That will force universities to ensure that their courses really offer value for money and provide evidence of that fact. Once some universities start to account for their performance, if others fail to follow suit students and parents will ask what they have to hide. That will be an incentive for universities to become more innovative, for example by offering shorter degree courses.
Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
Does the Minister know what Antony Gormley, Mary Quant, Damien Hirst, Bridget Riley and Sam Taylor-Wood have in common? They are all past students of Goldsmiths college in my constituency—[Interruption.] I am sorry; it was not a joke. All have become leaders and innovators in their chosen field and brought honour to the arts in the UK. It is what Goldsmiths college, which has been part of the university of London for 100 years, is good at.
Today Goldsmiths college has more than 5,500 undergraduates, more than 3,000 postgraduates and close to 1,000 members of staff, and it is one of the top five employers in Lewisham. But for how long? Goldsmiths’ focus is on the arts, humanities and social sciences, and because of that, it can expect to lose most, if not all, its teaching funding—a staggering £16.5 million. Even as I say it, I can scarcely believe it. I say that as a science graduate who has always championed the cause of greater science funding.
It cannot be a question of either/or. Institutions such as Goldsmiths and the Trinity Laban conservatoire of music and dance, of which I am a director, have no options. Even now, they are unable to calculate the precise implications of the Government’s draconian spending cuts on their future funding or the fees they will need to charge.
Joan Ruddock
I accept what my right hon. Friend says—he is correct, and of course it is a disgrace.
The Higher Education Funding Council cannot give these institutions the answers to those questions, and no doubt the Minister cannot tell them either—although I invite him to prove me wrong when he responds. These colleges’ fees structures will need to be decided by March next year, which is a mere four months away. [Interruption.] The Minister can clearly change the timetable, because it is his timetable that means that they have to decide in four months. How does an institution cope with the requirement to make up the loss of possibly all its teaching funding? What significant changes will it have to make to what it offers and how it offers it? It will have to rethink its whole modus operandi.
Yesterday, I spoke to constituents of mine who attend a variety of colleges making up the University of the Arts London. They told me of their own experiences. Some had been able to go to sixth form colleges and do A-levels in arts subjects only because they received the education maintenance allowance that the Government now intend to abolish.
Eric Ollerenshaw
May I finish this point?
It seems to me that what has been left out of the debate is the Government’s commitment to finding £150 million for a national scholarship scheme, and I congratulate Ministers on that. The coalition has been trying to do what the Labour Government talked about but never achieved—joined-up government, through our proposals for the pupil premium and for the national scholarship scheme. We are going even further, by demanding that universities that want to charge the highest rate should do much more—not just through scholarships, but through the work being done by charities and voluntary groups, such as the Social Mobility Foundation—to encourage pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds at least to try to aim a bit higher.
Eric Ollerenshaw
No, I want to finish this point and I have very little time.
The coalition is trying to deal with disadvantage not just in higher education, but in secondary and primary education. In these difficult times, we are attempting to make links between them and provide a world in which we have top-class education. Our top universities will still be competing with the best universities in the world, but with the increased involvement of children from disadvantaged backgrounds. That includes part-timers. Unlike the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock), I do not believe the scare stories about kicking down the ladders. We are trying to put up ladders in very difficult times.