Tuition Fees

Michael Tomlinson Excerpts

Wednesday 19th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge]

I am afraid and suspect that that is true. I think that it is also the case that the higher interest rate enabled the Government to increase the low threshold under Labour to the higher threshold of £21,000 under us.

On the subject of the cap—this goes back to my intervention on my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow—if we are able to raise the threshold at which people pay, that is a fairer deal for the student because it ensures greater quality. They repay when their earnings reach a point where we think it is fair for them to start doing so. I think we should look at that, but it is not cheap. My understanding is that if we raise the threshold to £25,000, it will cost almost £2 billion a year in lost income to the Revenue. That is not a minor detail.

We really have to make a decision, as a country and a Parliament, about our priority. What is the most important thing that we want from higher education? Why do people go to university? In my view the most important thing is to have the highest-quality education possible—the best quality degrees. That is what matters. We need to think about the upside, which is that someone who goes to university could earn £250,000 more in their lifetime—the figure is often far more than that—than someone who does not. In fact, to access highly paid professional jobs people need a degree.

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

Was my hon. Friend as interested as I was to discover that the uplift is £250,000 for females and only £170,000 for males? Both are significant figures, but is it not interesting that the larger figure is the uplift for females who go to university?

[James Cartlidge]

I am always interested in female uplift. The striking thing is that, regardless of whether they are a man or a woman, university is an incredible opportunity for individuals to improve their standing and their circumstances and to get a career, so that they can afford a home and to raise a family. That is the upside.

To me, the most important thing is the quality of the degrees. I worry that if we go back to a free system, the quality of degrees will not improve but fall, partly because the funding will fall. We will go back to rationing the funding and the places. If we are honest, will the students who go to university when it is “free” take their education as seriously as those who go when it is not? Of course, it is not free. That is the great delusion. As my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Julian Knight) said, it is not free; it is just that somebody else pays, rather than the beneficiary. The whole of society pays.

The money has to come from somewhere. The Labour party will supposedly pay for it by raising corporation tax. Never mind the fact that all the evidence shows that by cutting corporation tax, we are raising the revenue to the Exchequer. This will not happen without a cost. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane) chunters about the Laffer curve—he’s having a laugh about the Laffer curve! If Labour Members studied this, they would realise the reality. The OECD figures show that the predicted tax take from corporation tax when it goes to 17% will be the same percentage of GDP as in 2010 when it was at 26%.

The point is that there is a downside of going back to free education. We have to pay for it in some way. What we need is the upside, and the upside is having a competitive graduate system so that our graduates have the best quality qualifications.

I want to conclude with the big picture. The big picture is that people who go to university now are heading into a much more competitive labour market—a globalised, international labour market. Whatever the effects of Brexit are, that will not change. When our children go to university, they will be up against it. They will be up against graduates from India and all over the world. We need to give them the best weapons in their hands—the best tools with which to navigate their way through the challenges of life—and that means getting the best possible qualifications. I therefore urge my hon. Friends to consider the importance of quality.

Finally, I will remark on a very welcome measure that my hon. Friend the Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation has brought in. As I understand it, universities will be able to raise fees to the maximum level only if they can demonstrate that their teaching is of the highest quality. We are moving towards a quality-based scheme. I very much welcome that and we should all support it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Tomlinson]

On poorer students, does the hon. Gentleman not welcome the fact that more students from disadvantaged backgrounds are going to university than ever before—an increase of 43% from 2009 to 2016, and an increase of 73% from 2006 to today?

[Wes Streeting]

As someone who has always campaigned for wider access to higher education and who believes strongly that we should have more, rather than fewer, better educated people in our country, I welcome the fact that more students are in higher education than ever before. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman raises that point, because it brings me to the issue of Government complacency. It is not really a surprise that more young people are going to university than ever before: there are more young people than ever before. In addition to the shocking record on part-time and mature access—students in those cohorts tend to be from non-traditional and under-represented backgrounds in higher education—the Government are hugely complacent about the extent to which working-class young people are being deterred from accessing higher education by fear of tuition fees and debt.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

It is a real pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bury North (James Frith). He paid a fitting and generous tribute to his predecessor and my friend, David Nuttall. He spoke with eloquence and with confidence. He said that his passions are politics and music; I would stick to politics and cricket. He said that we should not be trading insults, so I look forward not to trading insults with him in future but to disagreeing well. I am sure there is much on which we will disagree, but I look forward to his future contributions in this place.

In a very short speech, I shall make just a few points. The history of tuition fees has already been mentioned, providing a helpful reminder of what happened. The fees were introduced by the Labour party in 1998. In 2001, the Labour party manifesto pledged:

“We will not introduce top-up fees.”

Then Labour proceeded to do just that in 2004. The final piece of the jigsaw that has not yet been mentioned is the Liberal Democrats’ pledge in 2010 that they would scrap university tuition fees, and, in coalition, they voted to put them up.

This debate is not just a timely reminder of those facts, but an opportunity for us to consider the issue of social justice. It is an issue that my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), the new Chairman of the Education Committee, picked up. I love his vision and his picture of the ladder. What we mean by social justice should be opportunities for the next generation, particularly for those who are less advantaged. Others can make the economic argument. My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) did so eloquently and well. I fear that the Leader of the Opposition has dug himself into a bit of a hole if we listen to what he said in the run-up to the election campaign—the promise that he made on the stump to students—and what was said at the Dispatch Box this afternoon.

It may seem counter-intuitive, but more people from disadvantaged backgrounds are now going to university than ever before—not just more people, but a higher proportion of people. The Minister set it out quite rightly at 43%. It has gone up from 13.5% in 2009-10 to 19.5% in 2016. The proportion has gone up 73% since 2006. This is not an accident, but a result of this Government’s policy. The quid pro quo is that we give universities more money, but, as part of the deal, they must ensure that there is social justice and that more people from less well-off backgrounds get to university. We heard some of that from the Minister this afternoon. I look forward to more about it in the future. The hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) said that we should not be complacent. He is absolutely right—we should not, and this Minister and this Government should ensure that these statistics persist and that we continue to see more people from poorer backgrounds going to university, improving their life chances. It is happening now under a Conservative Government.

What would happen if Labour got into power and introduced its policy? We would see a reduction in funding, reduced access, crumbling institutions and fewer students—and, importantly, on the question of social justice, we would see fewer students from disadvantaged backgrounds going to university. How do we know that is true? How do we know that is right? We look at Scotland; we look at what has happened when student tuition fees have been taken away. My hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) made this point in an intervention earlier and he is absolutely right. These are not my words but those of the Sutton Trust—they tried it in Scotland and there were

“particularly negative consequences for less advantaged students.”

If people are concerned about social justice and about the ladder mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow, they should follow this Government’s policy on tuition fees.