Oral Answers to Questions

Gareth Thomas Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Willetts]

The Higher Education Funding Council for England has always kept an eye on the financial position of universities. As a result of the new revenues that universities will get from graduate contributions, we estimate that it is very possible that at the end of this Parliament universities could well have a higher combined cash income in total from the Exchequer than they do at the moment; that is a sign of our commitment to the strength of British universities.

[Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Like the Minister for Universities and Science, the Secretary of State says that universities charging the full £9,000 in tuition fees will be the exception. No one independent thinks that that is credible. The Secretary of State also says that university leaders support his plans, yet not one university vice-chancellor supports the 80% cut in university teaching grants. He cannot even organise a scholarship fund without creating perverse incentives for universities to turn away students from the very poorest backgrounds, so just to get back to being Mr Bean the Secretary of State has quite a long journey ahead of him. Is it not clearer now that the trebling of tuition fees was not fair or necessary, and still has not been properly thought through?

[Mr Willetts]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely wrong. It was made clear when the House debated the issue last month that more than half of all vice-chancellors support our proposals, because, given the tough decisions that we have had to take on public expenditure, we have provided them with an alternative source of income, coming not through a quango but through the choices of students, who can be confident that they will have to pay for their higher education only after they have graduated and are earning more than £21,000 a year.