Tuition Fees
Debate between Paul Blomfield and Greg Mulholland
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
Having enjoyed the irony of being lectured about dishonesty by the Business Secretary at the outset of the debate, I congratulate the Minister for Universities and Science on his honesty in setting out the context for consideration of this issue in his response to questions following his statement to the House on 3 November. He made it clear that the Government’s response to the Browne review was only partly driven by the need to deliver the cuts demanded by the Chancellor. He said that it was about
“delivering reform as well as saving public money.”—[Official Report, 3 November 2010; Vol. 517, c. 944.]
However, as with the decisions being made on the economy, it does not have to be like this. There are choices, and the Government are making the wrong choices. The choice is not just about funding; it is a fundamental remodelling of our university system, which follows a worrying ideological trajectory that was perhaps best described by the hon. Member for Reading East (Mr Wilson), who is no longer in the Chamber. It will transfer the cost of teaching from the state to students themselves. It will make our universities some of the most expensive in the world. It will withdraw all public funding from the majority of courses in the majority of our universities and will send a statement to all those who are teaching or studying the arts, humanities and social sciences that their courses are not worthy of support. It will introduce a market that encourages the best universities to charge up to 50% more for their courses.
What will be the impact of that new model? We know from research and from experience in the States that debts of up to £50,000 for fees and maintenance will deter those who cannot easily contemplate huge debts, those from families without experience of higher education, those from the poorest families and those from families on average incomes. The impact will be felt strongly in areas where we already need to do more to widen participation.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Paul Farrelly) highlighted the case of medicine. The BMA’s modelling suggests that medical students will graduate with debts of about £70,000 and that the proposals will hugely damage efforts to encourage those from lower socio-economic groups to study medicine.
Greg Mulholland
I thank the hon. Gentleman. I opposed the introduction of fees under the previous Labour Government. I would be interested to know if he did, too. He represents many students, as I do. Away from party politics, does he agree that whatever the merits of the different cases that have been argued here, the Government have not convinced people that their arguments are the right ones, and that it is important that there should be a delay in the process so that whatever is eventually proposed, students, academics, universities and all of us can support it?
Paul Blomfield
I certainly agree that there should be a delay in the process. We are on the verge of the most fundamental reform of our higher education system in more than 50 years, and it is an outrage that we are putting the cart before the horse by being asked to make a decision on the financial framework for our universities before we have had a debate on the higher education White Paper to conclude what sort of university system we want.
Like the hon. Gentleman, I signed the pledge to vote against any increase in tuition fees. Unlike my neighbour, the Deputy Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg), I do not regret it. I did not make the decision lightly, but I made it with the intention of keeping it. On 12 October the Business Secretary casually dismissed the pledge with some obscure reference to “skid marks”, but let me remind Lib Dem Members that their pledge was no manifesto small print.
In university seats such as mine, the Liberal Democrats fought the election on the issue. As the president of Sheffield Hallam university students union said,
“Before the election, we couldn’t get the Deputy Prime Minister out of our Union . . . now we can’t get him in.”
The outcome of individual elections was determined by that pledge. Just days before the election, what was it that the Deputy Prime Minister said?
“The Liberal Democrats are different. Not only will we oppose any raising of the cap, we will scrap tuition fees for good . . . Use your vote,”
he said to students,
“to block unfair tuition fees and get them scrapped once and for all.”
Now we know that while the Deputy Prime Minister was making that heartfelt appeal, he was planning to ditch the commitment.
I accept that most Lib Dem Members who were kept out of the loop by the Orange Book faction that now leads their party signed that pledge with honest intention, and I urge them to keep to that honest intention. If they vote in favour of the proposals, not only will they be dashing the hopes of thousands of young people, but they will be destroying the confidence of those young people in democratic politics. This was the election in which the Liberal Democrats tried to seize the moral high ground, talking about honesty, trust, integrity—