Oral Answers to Questions

Duncan Hames Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

We are absolutely committed to that, and the national citizen service will be an extremely important opportunity to connect young people with their own power to make a difference in their communities. I know that the hon. Lady took a strong interest in that through her work on the Select Committee on Children, Schools and Families. If she had had the opportunity to talk to some of the young people who had taken part in this year’s pilot, she would have been as impressed as I was by the transformative effect that it had on them and on how they view their community and their own power to make a difference. We are very excited about it.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

Voluntary organisations in my constituency rely on the great efforts of many people who are retired, and they are crying out for younger volunteers. Those volunteers need not just be teenagers, however. What plans do the Government have to facilitate opportunities for volunteering by people of working age?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman raises a very important case. Anyone who has lost a relative who has died overseas knows the enormous worry about how to deal with these issues and how to get things sorted out. On behalf of the whole Government and the House, I send my condolences to Mr and Mrs Dunne. I know that they have dealt with this case with great dignity and courage. I hope that the fact that they have now been able to bury their son in the UK will help them to start to come to terms with their terrible loss. I am very happy to meet them and try to work out what we can do to deal with sad situations such as this. There is a problem when different countries have different rules, particularly where the death has occurred some time before, but we should try to work it through and I am happy to meet them.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

Does the Prime Minister agree that, if graduates are to be asked to make a greater contribution to the cost of their education, in order to be fair those with the greatest ability to pay should make the greatest contribution?

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, I completely agree. In the end, I think that almost everyone in this House wants the same thing: we want well-funded universities; we want universities that are able to exercise some independence; we want a growing higher education sector; we want people from low-income backgrounds to be able to go to the best universities in the country; and we want a proper element of progressivity. That is what Lord Browne proposes, and we are going to amend that to make it even more progressive. In particular, I think that moving the salary before you start to pay back from £15,000, which we had for many years, to £21,000 is a really big step forward. I hope that we can get all-party agreement for what would be a good and proper reform of higher education for the long term in our country.