Higher Education Fees

Debate between John Denham and Chris Ruane

Thursday 9th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Denham]

I will not take any further interventions. I have been speaking longer than I had intended, and I still have a couple of substantive points that I wish to make.

At the weekend we got a bit of a breakthrough. The Government finally admitted that high fees will put off low-income students. They announced the national scholarship scheme and fee waivers for students on free school meals. The Government like this idea: it saves them money, because they do not have to make loans. It costs universities money instead, because they have to match funds. It is also a limited plan covering 18,000 out of the 2 million students in higher education. In case Members do not know this, I will point out that free school meals are generally available only to those families where no one works. What about the millions of working families who earn just a little above benefit levels, however? I look forward to the next election when Tory and Lib Dem MPs will have to explain why John Smith, whose parents do not work, will get £18,000 knocked off their fees, while Susan Jones in the same street, whose parents have always worked and paid their taxes, gets no help at all. I am glad the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is present on the Front Bench, because he should have a word with his colleagues about how this supports the idea that work should pay.

This system will punish the very universities that have done the most to widen participation. The university of Bedfordshire, which took 120 students from free-school meal backgrounds in 2006-07, would have had to find £750,000 in match funding, whereas Cambridge, which took just 20, would have had to find only £120,000. Where is the sense in punishing success and rewarding failure? The IFS says that it

“provides a financial incentive for universities…to turn away students from poorer backgrounds.”

It does not make sense.

All the signs suggest a Government policy in disarray. There is no White Paper, and every day the Government try to respond to the latest criticism. Last week, we showed that two thirds of part timers would not benefit from their scheme, so they had to rush out a minor change yesterday. Last week, under pressure from me, the Business Secretary said he would write to the Office for Fair Access to give guidance about fair access and he has, but it was an empty document. Let me address one point: the House has been told that universities might charge £9,000 in “exceptional circumstances”, but nowhere in the guidance document that has been issued does the term “exceptional circumstances” appear. The Business Secretary does not tell the director of OFFA to limit the highest fees to exceptional circumstances or ask him to tell us what exceptional circumstances are. The truth is that he came to the House making a fine promise about the £9,000 and the exceptional circumstances but he has done nothing to bring that about in practice because he knows he will not be able to enforce it. That is not the right way to handle the House.

If I had more time, I would speak about the objections of the British Medical Association, the teaching organisations and the fact that the universities that train teachers have no idea how they will be funded. Let me end by saying a few words to those Ministers and Back Benchers who are struggling, even now, to reconcile party loyalty with a desire to do the right thing and support future students and our universities. [Laughter.]

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

They are not laughing in the Public Gallery.

[Mr Denham]

Millions of parents, students and future students will be watching the debate and they will wonder why it is such a laughing matter for right hon. and hon. Members.

Let me say a few words to those who are wrestling with this issue. It would be crass to compare the two issues, but I once resigned on a point of principle when I was a Minister. I say to Ministers and Back Benchers who are considering their positions today, “I know what you are going through. It is hard to stand aside from friends and colleagues with whom you’ve shared many a battle, but after you’ve done it, you realise it wasn’t half as bad as you thought it would be. The self respect you gain far outweighs any temporary loss of position, power or income.” The truth is that in any generous political party—mine is not the only generous political party in the House—there is usually a way back. This decision matters so much to so many people that I say to hon. Members, “If you don’t believe in it, vote against it.”