Graham Stringer
Main Page: Graham Stringer (Labour - Blackley and Middleton South)(13 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberI am pleased to learn that the hon. Gentleman will be going into the correct Lobby this evening. However, he has only dealt with half the equation. Can he explain to the people in his constituency—the people of Manchester—why he voted for an £80 million cut in the Manchester university fee as part of the £3 billion cut in university grants?
That is not relevant to the debate, or to the point that I am trying to make. The proposals mean that the least well-off quarter of graduates will be better off than they are under the scheme introduced by the last Labour Government. However, the flaw that I see in the proposal of my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary is that no one goes to university believing that they will be among the bottom 25% of graduates. Their assumption will always be that they will have to pay off the whole of their student debt, although for a large proportion of them, that will never be the case. I believe that a number will be put off choosing to go to university in the first place.