Oral Answers to Questions

Gareth Thomas Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2011 Commons Chamber

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

We have had the damaging row over student visas—still not sorted—and a Treasury growth paper that largely ignored the central role that universities have to offer for our economic future. However, the most serious problem is the considerable hole the Government are now staring at in their higher education budget—all because they ignored the many independent experts who warned, even before the tuition fees vote, that universities would charge close to the maximum fee level. Given the huge uncertainties facing university finances, all of them Government-created, does the Secretary of State not recognise that this House is entitled to know how that funding gap will be plugged?

[Vince Cable]

First, the hon. Gentleman is terribly behind the times. He may not have listened to the Home Secretary’s statement on student visas, but she made it absolutely clear that there is no cap on student visas and that the study to work route is still available for overseas students. The universities have acknowledged that. There is no hole in the finances. If he had followed the public announcements that universities have made, he would have seen that of the 36 that we are aware of, 13 propose to charge up to the maximum. That is well below the 80% quoted by the Leader of the Opposition yesterday. Of those universities, many will have substantial fee remission on the Oxford model.