Tuition Fees

Hugh Bayley Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

I will take one intervention.

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

I do not need to remind the right hon. Gentleman about the pledge to scrap tuition fees, but perhaps I do need to remind him that the Liberal Democrats’ manifesto said that policy

“is affordable even in these difficult economic times, and without cutting university expenditure”.

The right hon. Gentleman is widely regarded as an expert on economic affairs and the downturn. Did the Lib Dem manifesto get its economics so very badly wrong, or would a lesser policy of maintaining the status quo be affordable?

[Vince Cable]

The hon. Gentleman may have forgotten, but I think he was a Member of the House when his party committed itself to not increasing tuition fees, under conditions where there was no financial pressure at all. We face severe financial constraints. That is the reality.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

Spending money on universities is not wasteful or unnecessary public expenditure. We need universities because they drive economic growth through the skills they impart to students and the new knowledge they unlock through research. The UK has some of the best universities in the world. One of the reasons the UK experienced stronger economic growth over the past decade than other countries in the European Union is that we have better universities and so a better knowledge base for our businesses.

York has two exceptionally good universities, and they have helped to drive economic growth in the local economy. Between 1997 and 2009, the number of jobs in York grew from 44,000 to 60,600—a 38% growth, far outstripping the national or regional average. Many of those jobs are high-tech, high-skill jobs, but they bring lower-skill jobs in their wake. The importance of universities is not lost on our economic competitors. State investment in universities grows apace in India, China and many other countries. Indeed, other OECD countries, which, like the UK, are having to cut their public expenditure, are also, almost without exception, increasing spending on higher education because they know that it will aid recovery.

Only the UK and Romania are cheese-paring their universities. I have first-hand experience of cheese-paring, because I was an academic at the university of York in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the last Conservative Government cut funding. Two years ago, Chris Patten, a former chairman of the Conservative party, made a speech in which he said:

“In just over a decade we doubled the number of students and halved the investment in each”,

which led to

“poorer pay, degraded facilities, less money to support the teaching of each student”.

I did not sign the National Union of Students pledge before the last election, even though I am a former vice-president of the NUS, because I knew that universities badly need extra money. I thought that a modest increase in what students pay after graduation would have been fair had there also been an increase in Government funding, but I cannot support the Government in increasing fees by some £5,000—almost £6,000—and cutting the tuition grant to universities by 80%.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

Does the hon. Gentleman welcome the announcement made by the Welsh Government that fees will not be at full or near-full cost for Welsh-domiciled students, which achieves one of the key pledges of the One Wales agreement between his party and mine?

[Hugh Bayley]

I have not seen that statement, but I will look at it closely.

I cannot support the Government’s plans because they are reducing state funding for universities. That is a betrayal of the country’s future and a betrayal of the future of this country’s young people, especially young women. The Liberal Democrat manifesto pledged:

“We will…Tackle the gender gap at all levels of scientific study and research”.

The Library’s research paper on higher education funding, published on 23 November, reveals that women make up more than 80% of the bottom half of graduates by lifetime income and just over 1% of the top 30%. Yet the same paper says that average repayments as a proportion of lifetime income are more than twice as much for the bottom 50% as for the top 10%. That reveals how regressive and unfair the Government’s proposals are to women.

Under Labour, higher education funding increased by 25% and undergraduate numbers increased by 20%. The number of young people from York going to university for the first time increased from just over 2,000 in 1997 to more than 3,000 in 2008. York’s two universities received more than £150 million in capital from the Government between 2000 and 2010, rising from £500,000 a year at the start of the period to £28 million at the end. Now that legacy is being swept away by Lib Dem and Conservative spending review policies. It is no surprise that there is anger on the streets of this country—the big society seems to be finding its voice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pete Wishart]

It will not surprise you to learn, Mr Deputy Speaker, that I am disappointed by the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. I expected a little contrition on Labour’s part, even if it consisted only of the words “We are sorry for introducing tuition fees”. If you were a student in Scotland and you had a choice, who on earth would you support? Would you support the Labour party, which introduced tuition fees, wanted to increase them exponentially and initiated the Browne report, or would you consider the SNP, which had nothing to do with tuition fees and even went as far as abolishing Labour’s graduate endowment? That was our commitment to free education in Scotland, and I make no apologies for it.

[Hugh Bayley]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Pete Wishart]

I am sorry. I do not have enough time.

How do we differ from the London parties? We believe that education should be based on the right to learn, not on the right to pay. We do not share their view that funding higher education should be a matter for the student. We believe that higher education makes a valuable contribution to our communities which enhances our societies, and we therefore believe that higher education funding should come from the state.

I see that some Members are beginning to twitch. They are all thinking, “If Scotland is not going to introduce these pernicious fees, what is Wishart going on about?” They are thinking, “Surely the SNP only votes on Scottish issues, and is leaving this legislation alone.” That is true, but these pernicious fees will have a significant impact on Scottish higher education. They could have disastrous consequences for our universities. It is the job of every Scottish Member of Parliament in the House of Commons to defend and protect the Scottish interest, and I make no apologies for doing just that job.

I see that some Liberal Democrats are present. Do they realise—do they understand and appreciate—the impact that tuition fees will have on their higher education? In case they do not know what will happen, I will tell them. Because English universities will be awash with tuition fees—appropriations from their students—we will be at a competitive disadvantage. The fact that we will not have the same development and resources to provide research facilities to attract international students could have disastrous consequences. Moreover, because tuition fees come from the students themselves, they will not be subject to the departmental Barnett consequentials. As the budget for English education rises, our share, determined through the Barnett consequentials, will fall. Of course English students will see Scotland as an attractive prospect.

[Hugh Bayley]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Pete Wishart]

I will.

[Hugh Bayley]

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has read the note from the Library, but it tells us that in the five years since top-up fees were introduced in England, the number of applications to English universities has increased by 16%, whereas in Scotland it has increased by only 8%. Why does the hon. Gentleman think more students are choosing English universities?

[Pete Wishart]

I was going to give a figure myself. I would be interested to hear the hon. Gentleman’s view on it, although I am not able to give way to him again. Because the SNP Scottish Government have rejected the idea of tuition fees, fee refugees from England are going to Scotland to take places at Scottish universities, thus denying university places to Scottish students, and that will increase. That is because students who might otherwise be facing a lifetime of Clegg debt will, of course, look at Scotland as an attractive option.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Willetts]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to intrude on this Scottish argument. Do we not have here a very clear comparison of the two systems? Does he accept that we have fees and loans in England and a very different system in Scotland? Contrary to what we heard, will he confirm that it is therefore very significant that we have 4,900 English domiciled students going to Scottish universities but 11,500 Scottish students coming to English universities? What does that tell us about the two systems?

[Hugh Bayley]

That is under Labour’s system.

[Anas Sarwar]

Indeed. The Minister does not recognise that the decisions taken by his coalition Government will have a massive impact in Scotland. We cannot have this dithering from the Scottish Government; we cannot allow a situation in which students go to university in Scotland without knowing how they will pay for that education when they leave. Even the most hardened right-wing Government Members have to admit that far from being fair and progressive, these plans are some of the most unthought-through, unfair and aggressive that the coalition Government have announced so far.