Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Performance)

David Lammy Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

I will move on now, and take interventions later.

Let me deal with the general complaint that the Department has made wrong choices by considering some of the decisions that we have had to make since coming to office. I will start with the universities. The Minister for Universities and Science will say a little more about fees policy later. It is an issue that we have debated several times.

I vividly recall, within days of beginning my job, having to sign off several key appointments to the Student Loans Company, and then having to make a very quick trip to Glasgow to visit an organisation which had been in a state of collapse and which we had inherited. I remind the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen—who, I believe, played a part in establishing that organisation; the Public Accounts Committee is currently reviewing the episode—that during a period at the beginning of the last academic year for which the last Government were responsible, when students were desperately telephoning the company about their finances, 87% of calls were unanswered. Moreover, only 46% of claims were processed. As a result of the decision to firm up the organisation, the percentage rose to 69% in the current academic year. That is still too low, but an organisation that was wholly dysfunctional under the last Government is beginning to be turned round.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State prays in aid the example of the Student Loans Company. He will be aware that an independent review by Sir Deian Hopkin found the board and the chair culpable, which is why they are no longer in the organisation.

[Vince Cable]

I seem to remember that an independent report established very firmly that responsibility lay with Ministers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vince Cable]

The hon. Gentleman is exactly right that that is what we are doing, and that is what the trade White Paper will emphasise when we talk about the future tasking of UKTI.

[Mr Lammy]

Will the Secretary of State give way on that point?

[Vince Cable]

I have taken a lot of interventions, and I propose to conclude now.

There are many areas in which we have improved, and are improving, policy, but our overriding concern, over which the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen and his colleagues seem to have a serious amnesia problem, is sorting out the underlying problem of the public finances. That process will continue for several years. It is worth quoting from an OECD peer group of government that has been looking at our progress. Last week the OECD’s secretary-general said:

“dealing with the deficit is the best way to prepare the ground for growth in the future. In fact, if you don’t deal with the deficit you can be assured that there will not be growth because confidence will not recover.”

That has been the central preoccupation of Government policy. It is painful and difficult but we are going to persist with it, and for that reason we will succeed in restoring stable and balanced growth to the British economy.