University Tuition Fees

Matt Western Excerpts

Monday 25th October 2021 Westminster Hall

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

Welcome to the Chair, Ms McVey, and congratulations on your elevation.

I thank all Members who contributed to the debate, and the hon. Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) for presenting it. I listened to him with interest. He is right when he talks about the very interrupted last 18 months that students have endured and the great challenges they have faced. Many Members across the Chamber highlighted the deep frustration among students in this country, which is quite understandable, and perhaps their rising anger about what they have been through. As my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) said when voicing concern about graduate employment, this is a really difficult time for many young people as they emerge from what should have been an amazingly formative part of their lives, only to find their prospects so reduced, despite the difficulty they have faced and the financial commitment they have made. That is the difficulty that some of us were in 30-odd or 40 years ago, emerging from university in the early ’80s when things were so difficult.

My hon. Friends the Members for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) and for York Central (Rachael Maskell) also spoke about the issues facing students in the past 18 months. My hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse specifically spoke about disadvantaged students and cited the survey about Muslim students and the difficulty they face in financing their higher education. My hon. Friend the Member for York Central talked about how we should fund this in the future and about progressive taxation. Back in my day, that is how a university education was funded. I do not think any of us back in those days saw education as transactional; it was not individualised in the way that it is today. We have to disconnect the current view of education—that it is all about the individual—and make it about what the individual can gain from it, how they can realise their potential and how that potential can benefit not only them but those around them: society, their communities and others. That is what higher education should do.

I accept that higher education should not be for all, but it should be an aspiration and an opportunity for those who have the ability to benefit from it, with society benefiting in turn. My hon. Friend the Member for York Central and the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) mentioned how higher education is viewed in Germany, which has a population 60% larger than the UK’s and where a great many go on to higher education, with nominal admission fees, because there education is seen as being for the greater good.

We also have to bear in mind that higher education is part of our global reputation. We should celebrate and build upon it, rather than seek to reduce it. I say that not only for the institutions themselves. With such a great resource on our doorstep, why would we not use it? We do not want only international students to come to the UK; we want all those in the UK who have the ability to benefit from it.

Almost 600,000 students across the country signing the petition is significant. I have to say to those students who did not sign the petition, why not? They should think about it next time. It is a really important demonstration of the frustration and of the demand for change. The last 18 months have instilled a culture of precarity, uncertainty and instability among students. They have been some of the toughest months that any student in any generation has faced.

I remember what was going on in my community during the Government’s mismanagement of the return to campus in September 2020, when we did not have testing facilities available in towns and cities across the country. The great migration was not anticipated. The uncertainty created by poor guidance affected not just students, but teachers and lecturers. Sadly, this led to regrettable scenes of students being locked up in student accommodation. Demands from the student body were woefully neglected in the road map out of the January lockdown, and we saw unjustified intervention by Ministers in what I regard as campus matters. Among student cohorts and the sector, there is an indelible impression that the Government have failed to support them.

Given that education is devolved and we have heard from the hon. Member for Glasgow North West, we do not have to look far to see how supportive and hands-on the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish Governments have been. No wonder the tenor of students has risen; it is more than understandable why such a large proportion of the student body want fees to be cut to the level that was introduced in 2006.

Although I empathise with these calls, I want us go further. As the hon. Member for Glasgow North West said, higher education should be about people’s ability to learn, not their ability to pay. In my opinion, reducing the maximum rate of student fees merely tinkers with the fees’ structure without offering root-and-branch reform. The trebling of student fees by successive Conservative Governments, including when in coalition with the Liberal Democrats, established a funding model that has contributed to the marketisation of the higher education sector, whilst at the same time increasing the casualisation of the workforce and risking the student experience. The fee system in its current guise is holding young people back—we have heard about a great many of them in Slough—and at the same time failing to provide the stable funding that our universities need. It is not even delivering what was promised for the taxpayer.

To those who say that reducing the maximum student loan rate is preferable to not reducing it, I reply that I am not prepared to advocate for a partially effective solution. On the basis of independent analysis by bodies such as the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a policy of reducing fees to £3,000 would have disproportionate impacts on different sections of society. For example, the IFS’s student finance calculator reveals that if a cap of £3,000 is put in place, the top 10% of earners would see their repayments fall by around 40%, while lower earning graduates would see little or no change. Looking at this policy from a gender perspective, we see that for men repayments would reduce by an average of 30%, compared to a reduction of just 20% for women. I am sure you are also outraged by that, Ms McVey. We also heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse that this disproportionately impacts Muslim students. Although the maximum cap on tuition fees is not an inherently sexist or classist policy, in reality it affects many and it has the potential to exacerbate existing inequalities in our society. That is not something that I am prepared to put up with.

I am also not prepared to put up with a fee structure that aggravates precarious student living, does nothing to alleviate the mental health concerns of thousands of students, and alienates working-class young people from advancing to higher education. Faced with fees of £9,250 a year, how could anyone expect a working-class student on free school meals to be instilled with the confidence to go to university? The figures bear this out: last week, the Department for Education’s own figures demonstrated that the gap in progression rates between pupils who receive free school meals and those who do not has increased to 19.1%, up 0.3% since last year and the largest gap since 2005-2006. Again, although the policy of student fees is not necessarily a causal factor in this damning record, it certainly is a correlative factor. I repeat that the gap is the largest since the introduction of tuition fees in 2006.

The effects of the current fees system have also decimated the part-time study model so often relied on by working parents and mature students. Since 2008 the number of part-time entrants has plummeted by 50%.

[Tom Hunt]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree with the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) that the key thing for those low-income young people should be educational outcomes, and not necessarily whether or not more of them are going to university?

[Matt Western]

The current vogue term is outcomes. I often ask, “What was the key outcome of Keith Richards going to art school?” I do not think he actually finished the course, so it was not a terrific outcome. Outcomes can be measured in all sorts of ways, but my fear is that the Government—I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman supports them—are looking to monetise that and equate it with some sort of financial value for what is being produced. However, as we have heard, we cannot equate that with a monetary figure. I know of many people who were on super-low incomes in their first couple of years post-university but who turned out to be fine entrepreneurs and set up their own businesses. How would we measure that?

[Carol Monaghan]

I like the word outcomes; I think it is a good way of describing the position we get to. However, I do not distinguish between those from a disadvantaged background and those from a more privileged or affluent background. We will have parity of esteem when the same number of youngsters from different backgrounds are going to the same types of places—so, whatever percentage going to university from that lot, and whatever percentage going to college from this lot. The problem is that those from a more affluent background are more likely to go to university, even though it might not be the most appropriate place for them.

[Matt Western]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. Going to university is seen as a rite of passage for quite a few people. It is seen as the obvious next stage of their education. That is fine, to an extent, but what we as a society should be doing is giving encouragement and opportunity to the many who do not aspire to or imagine that they could go to university. I felt that myself back in the day, wondering what was and was not possible for me. I never imagined that that was something I could consider. I am sure that a lot of young people must feel that too, and we have to change that. Other societies do, as we have heard.

We should be much more ambitious about the sort of education system we want. I look at nations such as South Korea, that have a higher proportion going into higher education than the UK. I believe that we can achieve that by changing how we approach our schooling and how we give that opportunity to students, both through civic universities and through programmes such as Uni Connect, which sadly has had its budget cut by a third, but which was doing a terrific job in reaching those hard-to-reach young people who did not think that university was necessarily for them. Those sorts of programmes, along with foundation courses and foundation years, could do so much to help students coming through further education and realising that, maybe, the next step should be higher education. We need to invest more in those sorts of things.

While I understand the many concerns of the thousands of students up and down the country, and sympathise with their calls for a higher education system that is suitably funded while delivering on students’ expectations, I believe that the answer lies in a multi-step approach. First, as I have alluded to, I am committed to abolishing the fee regime in its current guise. That means that debates regarding repayment rates, characterised by Martin Lewis as regressive and a “breach of natural justice”, would be consigned to history. Graduates would no longer be burdened with as much as £57,000 in graduate debt and would start their working lives free from the stress and financial pressures of repayment.

We have only to look at what is happening on campuses across the country and the immense mental health pressures faced by so many young people, due not only to the pandemic, but to the issue of graduate employment opportunity and having that debt hanging over them. Those of us who have ever been in serious debt at any stage of our lives know that it is an awful place to be. Those of us who have ever been in serious debt at any stage of our lives know that it is an awful place to be. The hon. Member for Ipswich described the prospect of having the debt hanging over him and the difficulty it posed when getting a mortgage or other loans. It can make life incredibly difficult, so it is far easier not to consider it. The Government need to rethink their approach to the availability of maintenance grants. That might finally tilt the balance in favour of the thousands of working-class men and women on free school meals, who have been denied the belief that they can progress to higher education due to a burdensome funding model.

I want a culture change to complement a fee system change, such as adequate student mental health provision and funding, and tackling those rogue student landlords in private student accommodation who give the sector a bad name. There is much to address to improve the lives of our students. I want more teachers and lecturers on full-time secure employment contracts, to reverse the drift towards casualisation that we have witnessed in the past decade.

Following the events of the past 18 months, it is critical that the Government work collaboratively with the sector to address the many issues it faces. Through the co-operation of the National Union of Students, individual student unions, the University and College Union and the institutions themselves, so much positive work has been done on our campuses to get through the worst difficulties of the pandemic. We have seen some interesting initiatives, such as the Welsh Government’s support for institutions to improve ventilation in lecture theatres. Those sorts of ways that the Government can help have the effect of shoring up the entire student experience.

I believe the petition is a great call for change. While replacing the student funding model will naturally bring about an improvement in the student experience, it can be fully revolutionised only through a plethora of other initiatives that directly seek to ease the burdens on students. If any generation deserved to have their call for change heard, it is this generation. No wonder almost 600,000 students signed the petition. I add my congratulations to the petitioners on achieving this debate, and I thank the House authorities for allowing it to proceed. I look forward to working with the sector, the students and all stakeholders in the coming months, to address some of the cries for change. I very much see this debate as the first step in that process.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michelle Donelan]

We are considering the remaining recommendations made by the independent panel chaired by Philip Augar, including on fees, funding and student finance, and we plan to set out our full conclusion on that shortly. I urge colleagues not to refer constantly to media speculation, because we have not yet made an announcement, but it will be coming shortly.

Following on from that, as part of our consideration of the recommendations made by Augar, I and my ministerial colleagues are still in the process of building a post-18 education system that massively improves the value and quality of learning and equips learners with the skills they need to get those high-wage, high-skills job opportunities. The way we drive up quality in our higher education system is not by diverting money from universities to high earners, but by investing in a system that focuses on high-value skills. That is the way to promote genuine social mobility. We have already delivered on several of the recommendations made by Augar in our first response to that, including investment in the further education estate, increasing funding to 16 to 19-year-olds, a commitment to introduce a lifelong earning entitlement and the Prime Minister’s lifetime skills guarantee.

[Matt Western]

This is not a difficult question, but I want to pick up on the point made by the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan). When the response to the Augar review is made—I think it is now two years, or two and a half years; I have lost track—will the Minister commit today to making that in the Chamber to us and not through the media?

[Michelle Donelan]

I look forward to when we announce our response to Augar shortly, and I am confident that there will be several opportunities for hon. Members to question either me or the Secretary of State for Education in the Chamber. I will pledge to ensure that that happens.

Moving on to the next element of the petition, I am very pleased to see the issue of student representation raised here today and I agree with the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) on just how important that and listening to students really is. I know that Members present here today are no doubt excellent campaigners. I am sure we would all agree that no one holds us and higher education providers to account on these issues better than students. The view that has driven our work —from the National Union of Students, the Office for Students, Universities UK and the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education—is to ensure that students know their rights with regard to higher education and can feel confident in exercising them.

For those less familiar with this, I recommend the excellent work done by the Office for Students’ student panel, which I have met several times since I have been in post. I am meeting it again next week. Over the past two years, the panel has made some really important points, pushing me and other Ministers, and it has certainly been a positive influence in the Office for Students. I am passionate about giving students more of a voice and more direct influence over student life than ever before, so seeing the panel directly inform the policies and decision making of the Office for Students is really inspiring. I know that the panel has played a fundamental role in informing the early development of the Office for Students’ next strategy—on which it will be shortly consulting—in shaping its statement of expectation on harassment and sexual misconduct, and in informing how student hardship funds can best be utilised.

I remind hon. Members that there is a process in place for students who feel that they have not had the expected quality or quantity of lessons, and they can complain to their university. If they are still not satisfied, they can go to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator, which is helping students to reclaim thousands of pounds where the quality of learning has fallen below standards. In fact, the OIA has already made recommendations for financial compensation totalling £450,000—again, showing just how important it is that the student voice is not only heard, but listened to and acted on. I encourage any student with a particular issue or concern to speak up and engage with the process.

The petition also raises the important issue of accommodation costs for students, which was raised by hon. Members. Again, it is an important factor in our mission to achieve genuine social mobility in the wake of covid. Higher education providers and private accommodation providers are of course autonomous and responsible for setting their rent agreements, but that should not stop the Government being there to advocate for and, where necessary, directly support students, which is why I ensured that providers were able to use the additional £85 million of student hardship funding to support students who were struggling with accommodation costs last year. I have also worked hard to ensure that providers’ rental policies have students’ best interests at heart, and that providers are listening to those interests that are being advocated strongly. If students have concerns about any issues relating to university-provided accommodation, they can of course complain to their university and then go to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator.

[Matt Western]

On accommodation costs, the Minister will be aware that there are many campuses across the country where there is no accommodation owned by the university itself—it is all in private hands. Will she provide the data that show the rate of increase in cost and how that has tracked over the past five years, relative to inflation? My understanding is that it is exceeding inflation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Hunt]

I thank the Minister for her very detailed response to the debate, and I also thank the shadow Minister, the spokesperson for the Scottish National party and the other Back Benchers present. I feel confident that this issue has been debated thoroughly and that many different views have been shared. Clearly, this is a huge issue, and we await the Government’s response to the matter.

It seems to me that a key point here is that there are different views about the £9,250 level and whether it is too high or about right. The reality is that for many people who go to university, it is still a good investment, because students come out of university with a qualification that enables them to earn a good salary and have a very fulfilling career. Sadly, for some that is not case. Some people who go to university might have been pressured into it. I do not underestimate how transformative university can be in a positive way, but it is not for everyone. For many people, going to university might not have been the right decision.

[Matt Western]

The hon. Gentleman talks about an investment as a personal investment, which is the crux of the issue. It is not just the cost to the individual, because there is a cost to us as taxpayers. Should it be a socialised cost, which is a cost to all of society as an investment in our future generations who might pay our pensions, look after us or teach our children? Or should the cost be paid by the individual?

[Tom Hunt]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. In the first case, many taxpayers would want more of a view on the courses that people were studying at university. They would question some of the courses being studied and whether they offer value to the taxpayer. The system might look very different from what it does at the moment.

I agreed with a lot of what the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) said about technical education and parity of esteem. She is absolutely right. My right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), who chairs the Education Committee, has talked about the dinner party test. He says that people might talk about how good apprenticeships are, but when it comes to their own kids they advise them to go to university. If someone at a dinner says, “Charlie has gone to Oxford University”, and someone else says, “Bella got an apprenticeship with Jaguar Land Rover”, most of the excitement will be about Charlie, not Bella. Ultimately, we need to change that perception.

Higher education is important, but it is just part of the story and part of the debate when it comes to the future of our young people. The FE White Paper and the skills improvement boards are a real step forward. Giving local business more of a role in shaping the FE curriculum is important. It is about an ecosystem approach and linking together schools, FE colleges and universities, if there is one in the area, and local business. I see it as trying to link up young people with opportunities in the country and specifically in their area, because we do see opportunities in different sectors and young people without the skills to take advantage of those opportunities.

A lot of people still look down on technical education. They do not see it having the same inherent value as an academic pathway. It is not about saying to people from lower income backgrounds, “The academic pathway is not for you, so here is the technical route.” It is absolutely about a whole-society approach, as the hon. Member for Glasgow North West said, and taking away snobbishness about technical education. And it is not about downgrading or devaluing a university education; it is just admitting that we must have multiple pathways. That is crucial for the levelling-up agenda that the Prime Minister has made clear time and again. Thank you, Ms McVey, for chairing today’s debate; you have done so superbly.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered e-petition 550344, relating to university tuition fees.