Higher Education Fees

Debate between Paul Farrelly and John Leech

Thursday 9th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr John Leech (Manchester, Withington) (LD)]

I welcome the opportunity to speak in the debate, although, like my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland), I wish that the Government had been persuaded not to press ahead with the plans, and that they had not been necessary.

I do not intend to speak for long, because I think I made it clear last week, during the Opposition day debate, where I stand on the issue of increasing tuition fees. I will vote against the proposed increase, and I was one of the signatories to the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West.

I take no pleasure in voting against the plans presented by my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary. In fact, in many ways I welcome some of the proposals that have followed the Browne review. Increasing the level at which graduates must pay back any money to £21,000 is certainly an improvement on the current £15,000 threshold. Treating part-time students in the same way as full-time students by not charging them any up-front tuition fees will be of benefit, and providing additional support for students from poorer backgrounds is also a step in the right direction. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has rightly confirmed that the proposals are more progressive than the current regressive tuition fees system. However, I will vote against an increase in tuition fees, simply because I think that a higher cap will discourage some young people from going to university in the future.

[Paul Farrelly]

I, too, signed the cross-party amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland). I am sorry that it was not selected.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the Browne review. Coalition Front Benchers have made some play of rejecting the upper figure of £12,000, but does the hon. Gentleman agree that by also rejecting the clawback and the disincentive mechanism in the review, the coalition Government have made it more, not less, likely that the top fee of £9,000 will be charged?

[Mr Leech]

I rather suspect that most universities will want to reach that £9,000 limit even if they choose not to do so initially. When tuition fees were first introduced, it was clear that universities wanted ultimately to charge as much as they possibly could.