Higher Education Funding

Debate between Mark Hendrick and Lord Willetts

Wednesday 3rd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Willetts]

I hope that the careers advice and guidance function will be very important in this respect, because those are indeed very satisfying careers to which many young people aspire. I hope that my hon. Friend agrees that, with the new threshold of £21,000, people in the circumstances he describes will face lower monthly repayments than they do under the current system.

[Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)]

Prior to the general election, the Government parties rubbished Labour’s proposals to get more than 50% of young people into higher education. Now they are talking about widening access. What effect does the Minister think that the abolition of the education maintenance allowance will have on wider access, and what effect will the £6,000 to £9,000 cap have? Is it not a huge disincentive?

[Mr Willetts]

We believe in broadening access, but we do not believe in artificial targets for the number of people going to university. The 50% target was a suspiciously round number—it did not sound like a carefully thought through proposal. We believe that the number of people going to university should emerge as a consequence of the choices of those who have the aptitude to do so.