Oral Answers to Questions

Liam Byrne Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Willetts]

We have a fair and sustainable way of financing higher education. It is right to expect graduates to pay back the cost of their higher education if they are earning more than £21,000. That has enabled us to see more students going to university and increases in funding for teaching at universities, even while we have been tackling the budget deficit we inherited from the previous Government.

[Mr Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

As you know, Mr Speaker, while the Minister was batting for Britain in Kazakhstan last week, the National Audit Office was battering his handling of the student loans system. We look forward to the hearings at the Public Accounts Committee, but in the meantime would he mind telling the House how late he discovered that students at private higher education institutions were soaking up public subsidies at such a rate that there was an overspend of hundreds of millions of pounds? How did he lose control so spectacularly?

[Mr Willetts]

Let us be clear: these students are studying for HNCs and HNDs, which are all legitimate and valuable qualifications. Whereas under the right hon. Gentleman’s Government there was no control whatsoever of the designation of alternative providers, we have introduced controls. The number of students going to alternative providers has increased dramatically, and in order to maintain budgetary controls, we have introduced further limits on the numbers, but these are worthwhile courses that we should support.