Draft Higher Education (Fee Limits and Fee Limit Condition) (England) Regulations 2018

Emma Reynolds Excerpts

Monday 16th July 2018 General Committees

[Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell.

Although the official Opposition are not planning to vote against the regulations—I would not want higher education institutions to set whatever fees they like, so I understand that there has to be a cap, which is what today’s regulations are about—I remind the Committee that Labour Members opposed the increase of the cap from £3,000 to £9,000 and I regret, as my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South has outlined, that the regulations do not decrease the fees. I think the fees should come down. There is an argument that students should make a contribution, but I do not think that it should be as high as £46,000 or £50,000.

I have said in the Chamber that I oppose the Government’s removal of maintenance grants. I was able to benefit from such a grant at university, and I urge the Minister to ensure that universities such as the one that he and I attended, the University of Oxford, redouble their efforts so that people from under-represented groups—black and ethnic minority communities, but also working-class communities—attend them. My right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) recently made a freedom of information request. There were some appalling answers from the University of Oxford and other elite universities that are taking in very few people from under-represented groups. The universities and the Government need to do a lot more.

[Mr Gyimah]

I thank hon. Members for a wide-ranging debate and for some very pertinent questions, which I will try to answer.

The first question pertained to the independent reviewer for the teaching excellence and outcomes framework. I want to put it on the record that the process of appointing the reviewer is under way and an announcement will be made in due course, once the appointment has been made.

A number of issues were raised about the current fees system. Interestingly, the Opposition did not mention the effect of raising the threshold, which is an important policy. It cost billions of pounds and will save the average student about £10,000 over the duration of the loan. It is not an insignificant policy in ensuring that we alleviate the burden of debt for students.

Since I was appointed to this job, I have travelled around the country speaking directly to students. I have spoken to about 1,500 students since I was appointed in January. When I say that what we are doing is a response to listening to students, that is meant very seriously. Students have a range of concerns. The issue that is most likely to get them to riot on campus is actually not tuition fees, but the rent going up. That has come up repeatedly.

In that context, maintenance grants were mentioned. It is worth putting it on the record that maintenance grants offered significantly less money than a student can get through a loan. It was actually more difficult for students to pay their way through university, because they received maintenance grants of about £3,000, whereas now they can get a loan, with almost no questions asked, of £10,000. Furthermore, if someone earns less than £25,000 and cannot pay back the loan, they do not have to and after 30 years it is written off. That is helpful for disadvantaged people, because there is no barrier to their accessing higher education. It is therefore unsurprising that the proportion of disadvantaged 18-year-olds applying for full-time undergraduate courses was, in January this year, a record high of 22.6%.

[Emma Reynolds]

I welcome the threshold that the Minister outlined in his opening speech and has just emphasised, but there is a difference between a grant and a loan. Even if someone will never pay the loan back, they do not know that for sure because they are not entirely sure how much they will earn over their lifetime. Does he not accept that, although maintenance grants were only £3,000, that was money in people’s pockets up front that they never had to pay back? That is different from a loan.

[Mr Gyimah]

There are two points to make about that. If someone got a £3,000 grant in the previous system and then had to go to a bank to borrow, that would cost them a lot more than it does to borrow under the current loans system. The truth about the current system, which is obviously under review, is that it is a hybrid between a loans system and a contribution system. Opposition Members do students a disservice by pretending that it is similar to a loan from Lloyds bank. It does not go on their credit score if a student is not able to pay the money back, they will not have a bailiff knocking on their door, and there is the issue of their having a job in which they earn more than £25,000. That is very different from a commercial loan, and we do students a disservice by not explaining the system to them and pretending that it is something it is not.