Higher and Further Education

Graham Stuart Excerpts

Tuesday 11th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes with concern that September 2012 marks the first term where students will face the trebling of student fees to £9,000 a year; further notes that barriers are also being put up for vocational routes, with direct Government support for learners cut for level 3 courses and above, which includes apprenticeships and access courses to university, and with Higher Education-style loans being introduced, costing learners up to £4,000 a year; and calls on the Government to change course and, as a first step, reduce tuition fees to £6,000, funded by reversing the corporation tax cut for banks and requiring graduates earning over £65,000 a year to pay higher interest rates on their student loans.

In just over a week, university freshers weeks will kick off in earnest ahead of the new academic year. New students will soon start arriving at their institutions excited, nervous and full of anticipation and hope for their futures as they look forward to three, maybe four, of the best years of their life. They do so against a backdrop of confidence in the quality of our world-class higher education sector, which collectively will do all it can to give them the best possible higher education experience.

But this year is also markedly different, for this year we will see the first cohort of students who as a result of the Government’s action will be paying tuition fees of up to £9,000 a year and leaving university with significant debts which for some will exceed £50,000. Until the Government changed the rules of the game, higher education had been paid for by a partnership between the student and taxpayer since 1998, but this Government’s trebling of tuition fees in conjunction with their 80% cut in the teaching grant for universities represents a betrayal of future generations of students.

The partnership model for funding has been torn up, and students have been told to go it alone. They must bear the burden of the cost entirely on their own. We all know that this is not what the Liberal Democrats said they would do before the general election.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is speaking fluently from the Dispatch Box, but she is doing our young people a disservice. She is scaremongering and sending them the message that they cannot afford university when the monthly payments are lower than they were before, the threshold before they start paying is higher than it ever was before and anyone who suffers illness, who is pregnant and stops working or has—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman wants to catch my eye and make a speech later rather than waste time now.