Further and Higher Education (Access) Bill

Philip Davies Excerpts

Friday 4th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

The Minister makes an absolutely brilliant point. The prestige of universities ought to be great. In fact, it should be very difficult to get into the best universities because they provide such opportunities and a career path for the ablest in our society.

Let me move on to more modern times and come to the great lady—perhaps the greatest peacetime leader of this country in the past 100 years or more—Margaret Thatcher. She was not the daughter of a butcher—unlike Cardinal Wolsey, the son of a butcher—but the daughter of a shopkeeper who was born and who lived over a shop. She got a scholarship to Oxford and transformed this country. It was not only in the 15th and 18th centuries that university admissions policies allowed great people to get to university, to be enormously successful and to transform their nation’s success as a result. That is a thoroughly good and worthwhile thing, and it was all done without the Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I have agreed with everything that my hon. Friend has said thus far, but does he not agree that all that happened without the Bill because the Governments at those times did not try to stop universities from recruiting people on merit?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

It is very depressing when we get to a state at which there is a bit of legislation that we do not like, about which we have doubts and that we think ought to be changed, and yet instead of arguing to get rid of that legislation we say that the clever thing to do is to have yet more legislation. We go on and on legislating so that the British people are weighed down with a mass of rules, regulations and complications that mean that they do not know where they stand. If the intention of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch is that we should scrap the controls in place, he should argue for that and his Bill should be a repeal Bill, which might then be supported by other hon. Members.

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[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I stand corrected, but I am not quite sure that I can go along with that monstrous slur on our coalition partners.

We must have Bills that do what they say, not ones that set off in one direction, hare off in another in Committee, and then say something that was never intended or given a Second Reading by the House.

Let us consider the question of merit. My right hon. Friend for a Yorkshire constituency—I forget precisely which—talked about how clauses 1 and 3 operate.

[Philip Davies]

It was my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight).

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I thank my hon. Friend. Yorkshire is a big county. It is almost as good a county as Somerset, but Somerset is particularly favoured by God.

If we are considering the basis of merit alone, how do we define merit? The Bill defines it as

“academic ability, potential and aptitude”,

but that is desperately woolly. Ability can be measured, but do we think that all exams correctly measure a student’s further success? I knew, as I completed my physics O-level, that I knew no more physics than that and that that was the limit of my ability in physics. I actually got an A grade in my physics O-level, of which I am rather proud, but if I had gone on to do physics at A-level, I would have sunk like a stone. I am sure that that is true of people doing other examinations. They might apply to university, but the university has to determine whether he or she has taken the subject to the limit of their ability and whether they would therefore find that they could go no further.

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[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

It is always a delight to listen to my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), who is, without doubt, one of the finest orators in the House. I find myself in the familiar position of being equally persuaded by him and by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope). It is a familiar position because they are usually on the same side of the argument, and it is therefore easy to be equally persuaded by them both. Today, I am in the unfamiliar position of being equally persuaded by them when they appear to be on different sides of the argument. That can be explained by the fact that they both seek the same or, at least, a very similar outcome, but appear to differ on how best to achieve that.

Notwithstanding the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset, I support the thrust of what my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch is trying to achieve, which is extremely important. It is quite depressing that the dead hand of political correctness has become so entrenched in society that we must argue, in effect, about whether or not people should be given places at university based on merit.

I apologise for arriving slightly late for the debate, which is partly explained by the fact that I could not see how anybody could argue with the principle that people should be given jobs or allocated places at university on merit. I had assumed that that was so self-evident that everybody would readily agree and there could be no controversy about it. It is depressing that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch has to work so hard to make the case for something that most people in the country would consider blindingly obvious—that such things should be determined on merit.

[Mr Hayes]

After the Reformation, hard work became more fashionable, as my hon. Friend may know. No one has to work hard to persuade the Government of the case for allocation on merit; it is already the Government’s view.

[Philip Davies]

As the Minister knows, I am his greatest admirer, which probably has not done a great deal for his career prospects. However, it has been widely reported in the media, whether or not there is any substance to the reports, that leading universities will be encouraged or forced, one way or another, to take quotas of students from state schools in exchange for the power to charge tuition fees of £9,000. That seems to fly in the face of the assertion that the Government have a policy based on merit, and merit alone. It appears to be the exact opposite.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch made clear, the problem arises from the fact that our state education system is failing far too many people. Rather than addressing the root cause and dealing with the problems of the state education system, perhaps because the Government think that will take too long now that those problems are so entrenched—in other words, instead of going for the real issue, which might be more difficult but is the most important one—they have filed the problems of the state education system under “Too difficult” and gone for the easy solution.

The true way to get more people from state schools and more people from poorer backgrounds to go to the best universities is to raise the standard in state education so that they can get there on merit. But the Government know that that is very difficult and that the problems in the state system are deeply entrenched, so they go for the easy solution, which is to circumvent all that and force universities to take people from those backgrounds, whether or not they have earned their place on merit. Then the Government can say, “Look, isn’t the world marvellous? There is now X proportion of people from state schools or X proportion of people from deprived backgrounds going to university,” hoping that everyone will turn a blind eye to the fact that those people have not got there on merit. That is the depressing situation in which the country finds itself.

All the typical arguments are trotted out as to why we should not give people places on merit. We are told that one of the reasons why getting rid of grammar schools was such a good idea is that certain people do not peak at the age of 11, so it is unfair on those who mature a little later to judge their performance at the age of 11. It seems that the argument has moved on. Now we are told that it is unfair to judge people’s academic performance at GCSE level because they may not have peaked at the age of 16: it is unfair to test them at 16, so we should not look at their GCSE results.

To be honest, it is now utterly pointless to look at people’s GCSE results because one has to work pretty hard to fail at GCSE level. The idea that everybody passes means that nobody passes, so GCSEs have become a worthless qualification. We are getting to the stage where we are told that we cannot judge people’s performance at A-level at the age 18, because there are those who have not yet peaked at the age of 18. These are arguments for scrapping exams altogether. We have to make some kind of judgment at some point and although there are imperfections in all these things, somebody’s performance at A-level is one of the best guides to whether they have a chance of succeeding at university. If we completely ignore people’s A-level results, the whole A-level system becomes utterly pointless. My problem with the idea that people’s exam results do not really matter because they will be given university places irrespective of how well they perform is that it demeans people’s hard work and their achievements.

Why would we want to send the message to people in state schools and from deprived backgrounds that they should not worry about how hard they work for their GCSEs and A-levels or about spending every hour they can becoming an expert in a particular subject, and that if they do not get the best possible grades they can the state will ride to their rescue anyway, saying that it is not their fault they went to a state school or came from a deprived background, and that we will rig the rules to get them into a particular university? That seems the most appalling message that this House can send. Surely the only message that we should send to young people is that it does not matter what their background is, what school they go to, what race they are or what orientation or gender; if they work hard and get the best possible results, they will be first in line for a place at the university they want to go to. It seems obvious to me that places should be given on merit.

As a country, we are trying to impose some kind of social engineering on university education, the same social engineering as was introduced in the state education system when grammar schools were abolished. Let us be absolutely clear: grammar schools were not abolished and replaced with comprehensive schools in order to increase attainment in state education; it was simply a form of social engineering, and it has proved a disaster. I am appalled that the Government seem to be following the previous Government in wanting to introduce that same kind of social engineering into our university system, where it will prove just as disastrous.

[Mr Hayes]

I have already put on the record on one occasion my personal views about grammar schools, but let me make a broader point. While my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron) is Prime Minister, while my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) is Secretary of State for Education, and while I live and breathe, grammar schools in this country will be under no threat whatever from this Government.

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[Philip Davies]

I do not particularly want to get sidetracked—I am sure that you will not allow it, Mr Deputy Speaker—but the Government’s position on grammar schools, which is pertinent to my point about merit, is frankly a nonsense. Basically, they are saying, “If you’re lucky enough to have grammar schools in your area, that’s fine and you can keep them, but if you poor swine in Bradford want a grammar school system, you aren’t allowed it.” The Minister’s support for grammar schools extends only so far as those areas that already have them, and those of us who would like them cannot have them. That is lukewarm support—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I think that the hon. Gentleman has been sidetracked. I am sure the Minister did not want that because I know that he is very interested in higher education in this debate, rather than grammar schools. I am sure that the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), as he suggested, will want to come back to the topic of the debate.

[Philip Davies]

I am grateful, Mr Deputy Speaker; I was indeed tempted by the Minister to go down a route that neither you nor I want us to go down.

I will keep my remarks brief because I am intrigued to hear what the Minister has to say. I want to hear some kind of confirmation, not only that while he lives and breathes he will support grammar schools, but that while he is the Minister and while our right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron) is the Prime Minister, he will ensure that universities recruit people on merit alone and that people are not allocated places simple because of their background, the school they went to, the socio-economic environment in which they live or the wealth or otherwise of their parents. If we started going down that route, it would be a disaster for this country. The idea of positive discrimination, which lies behind such proposals, is a disaster. Positive discrimination is discrimination, and we should not advocate it, because it demeans people. Many parents make terrific sacrifices to send their kids to private schools. People who cannot ordinarily afford to do so make the most amazing sacrifices, because they understandably want their children to have the best start and opportunities in life.

My parents made terrific sacrifices to enable me to go to a boarding school that they really could not afford to send me to, and I am immensely grateful to them. I do not see why this Government, in particular, or anybody for that matter, would want to say to such parents, “Well done. You’ve made these sacrifices to help your children get the best possible start in life. What we’re going to do now is rig the rules to make sure that all your sacrifices have been in vain, because we’re going to stop your daughter or son having the opportunity to go to the university they deserve to go to, based on the hard work that they put in, as you don’t meet the criteria, you’re not from the right socio-economic background or they didn’t go to the school we would have preferred them to go to.” What an appalling message.

[Mr Chope]

My hon. Friend makes a very powerful point. Does he share my concern that the Government, in their desire to bring about social engineering, are going to penalise people who pay off their loans early— perhaps with the help of their parents making the sort of sacrifice to which he refers? Does he condemn that as a gross interference?

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As it happens, I voted against the Government on tuition fees for the simple reason that I did not want people from poorer backgrounds to be denied the opportunity to go to the best possible universities. Tuition fees are being increased to pay for more and more people to go to university, and the argument is that if we want more people to go to university, students are going to have to pay a higher price. That is a perfectly logical argument, but I do not want more people going to university. Too many go to university; I want fewer to go. I want universities to be the bastion of high standards again.

In an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset, my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) inadvertently touched on that point when he asked, “Shouldn’t people who want to go to university have the opportunity to do so?” My answer to that is no. It should be a question not of whether someone wants to go to university, but whether they have the aptitude and have reached a high enough mark to do so on merit. That should be what determines whether they go.

Otherwise, it is like asking athletes whether they would like to compete in the Olympics—I am sure they all would, but surely nobody is advocating that any athlete who happens to fancy a crack at the 100-metre sprint should be allowed to compete at the Olympics. Most people accept that athletes have to reach a certain level before they are even considered for the Olympics, and the same should apply in education: people should not go just because they want to; they should go because they have reached the level in their education that allows them to go. That is the whole point of merit and, as I see it, of this Bill.

All the other factors that people are trying to introduce into the system can only devalue our education system—dumb down the standards. Then the Government will say, “Isn’t it marvellous? Haven’t we been good for education, because now X% of people have a degree?” Well, no it would not be marvellous—not if the result had been achieved only by dumbing down standards.

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

My hon. Friend notes that fees have gone up to £9,000, and I, like he, opposed that measure. He says that they are going up to allow more people to go to university, but are they not going up, at least in part, to pay for students from the European Union to go to university? EU students go to university for free in Scotland, while students from England have to pay. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) supports loans, but 46% of EU students who take out such loans are not paying them back when they should be. What does my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) have to say about that?

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As he knows, I share his robust opinion on the merits of being in the European Union—that is, that there are no merits of being in the European Union. One problem with allowing more and more people to go to university and increasing tuition fees is that the people who go there on merit end up paying over the odds to subsidise those who do not go there on merit and who will not end up paying back their loan. That is, in effect, the system that the Government have introduced. I think that that puts a penalty on merit. I do not see why people who go to university on merit should subsidise those who are not going on merit.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

rose—

[Philip Davies]

I sense that my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset is cranking into action.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I thank my hon. Friend. I do not accept his description of the Government’s loan programme, because one would not be able to get the interest rate that will be paid by students in the market for an unsecured loan. Therefore, there is no penalty for those who get to university on merit.

[Philip Davies]

I take my hon. Friend’s point, but my point is that people who go to university on merit would not be expected to pay £6,000 or £9,000 if it were not for the fact that the Government want to get more people to go to university. They are being penalised in that sense. If the Government restricted the proportion of people going to university to 30% or 40%, there would be no move to increase tuition fees. It is in that sense that people are paying over the odds, or more than they would if the Government were not pursuing this strategy.

[Mr Hayes]

I wonder whether, in developing his argument with his usual penetrating insight, my hon. Friend might reflect a little on the need to balance the magic of exclusivity, which he seems to be attracted to, with the absolute need to ensure that people from humble backgrounds get their chance for glittering prizes. He seems to be making the case that exclusivity is more important than that social mission. That is not the case for me, because I am a Conservative.

[Philip Davies]

This is rare, but I do not follow my hon. Friend’s logic. I am as committed as anybody to ensuring that people from the poorest backgrounds have the opportunity to go as far as they can within the education system. My view is that the education system should allow them to do that on merit, not that the Government should rig the selection criteria so that they can go to university whether or not they have achieved that objective on merit. The challenge for this Government is to undo all the damage that has been done to the education system in this country over the past 40 years or so by both Conservative and Labour Governments—neither side has a great track record on the state education system. The Government should concentrate on that and not be seduced down the easy route of trying to achieve the same outcomes by more dodgy means.

[Mr Hayes]

I understand that point, but my hon. Friend made a second case. I have freely accepted his first case about merit. The second case he was making was about exclusivity. As I understood it, he was arguing that too many people were going to university and that fewer people should have the opportunity to do so. That is the case that I was beginning to explore with him. I wonder if he would expand on it, because in practice it would mean limiting opportunity for some of the people who have the merit that he celebrates.

[Philip Davies]

I do not accept that, because we have ended up with a system whereby people go to university because they have been put on a conveyor belt to university by the state, which has encouraged people to go down that route. Many people go to university who are not best served by doing so, and who would be far better served by vocational education. We seem to be obsessed with education in this country. One of the places where one can learn an awful lot is at work. I learned more in my years at Asda than I ever did at university or school. Rather than spending three years at university, many people would be better served by getting three years’ work under their belt and learning the skills that are learned in the workplace.

I object to the idea that everybody should be on the conveyor belt of university, because I do not believe everybody is best served by it. That is demonstrated by the fact that I believe 20% to 25%—I am sure the Minister will know the figures better—drop out of their university courses. They have clearly gone to university and discovered the hard way that it was not the best thing for them. How many more stay on their degree course while probably realising in their heart of hearts that it is not right for them? They are stuck on a conveyor belt, when better alternatives for them exist.

It is a mistake to think that going to university is a panacea for everybody. For some people it is absolutely the right thing to do, and we should allow those people to go to university irrespective of their background and where they have been educated. We should say to others, who are not best suited to university, that that is no disgrace at all. We should raise the value of vocational qualifications and careers and allow people to pursue what they are good at. Everybody is good at something, and we need to find out what people are good at and allow them to develop in it. That does not always mean that they have to go to university to develop their expertise.

[Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that even if people choose to go into business to pursue their ambitions, there is now a suggestion that we should select directors based on their sex rather than merit? Does he agree that we should put an end to such creeping social engineering?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We are not going to go down that line. We are going to stick to the subject in hand. As tempted as Mr Davies will be, I know he will restrain himself.

[Philip Davies]

I will follow your guidance as always, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is fair to say that you know my opinion just as much as my hon. Friend does. We can leave it there. I must say in passing that my hon. Friend is probably the best person in the House to speak about job opportunities, because of his marvellous work in his constituency helping with jobs fairs and trying to get people into work. He will have seen at first hand in his constituency the skills that people need to get jobs, and he will know that a university education is not always essential for a person to get the right job. He should be commended for what he has done, and we should listen to his advice, because he knows more about the matter than most.

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, because he has raised an important matter, notwithstanding what I would describe as the technical opposition to the Bill offered by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset. Whether or not we agree with the Bill, I think we all agree that the Government should not feel it necessary to stick their nose into university recruitment. They should allow universities to do what they have always done, which is to recruit people on merit, and merit alone, irrespective of their background, gender, race or any other factor. Those things should be irrelevant, and people’s ability alone should be decisive.

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[Ian Lucas]

The Government told us initially that the White Paper would be published in March this year, but made the decision not to abide by their timetable—the timetable was theirs, not that of Her Majesty’s Opposition.

The Bill states that admissions to universities should be on the basis of merit, but frankly, that is a truism with which no hon. Member would disagree. The difficulty is that there is so little agreement on what constitutes merit in a student. That lack of agreement exists not only among hon. Members, but among universities, which use very different admissions criteria.

The hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) interestingly focused on A-level grades, which are an important reflection of the academic ability of those who are seeking to go to university. In very many cases, universities look at those to determine whether someone will be a successful applicant for a course, but they are not the only criterion that universities currently use. The advantage of the A-level is that it is transparent. The student is aware when he applies and is given an offer of what he needs to achieve to gain admission to a university course. However, the grades that are now expected of applicants are extremely high. For example, I am personally aware that the leading universities in the country offer mathematics applicants two A* grades and an A grade, or two A grades and a B grade or three A grades.

That is a transparent process, but some universities have a standard offer—an offer made to all applicants, no matter what school or further education college they come from or their background. The standard offers are also high. One university makes an offer of two A* grades and an A grade for the subject in which it has a very high reputation.

The sixth term examination paper exam, which is additional to A-levels, is increasingly being relied on by universities when they consider whether to admit candidates. I do not know whether hon. Members are aware of that, but the Minister should take note of it. STEP exams require a particular type of teaching, and commendably, some universities have recognised that and are providing support for students who come from institutions that do not provide such teaching, to give a fair chance to individuals who have the academic ability to achieve the results they need. Many schools, particularly those from the fee-paying sector, provide preparation for STEP exams that is not provided in many state schools, and that prejudice is, I am afraid, working against the chances of talented individuals—including today’s Cardinal Wolseys—achieving admission to universities on the basis of their A-level and STEP-level results.

The system as it stands disadvantages applicants from schools and institutions that do not have good provision for the teaching of STEP exams. STEP exams are a very recent innovation—I happen to know something of them because I have children at the age when these applications are made. I would like to hear whether any consideration has been given to introducing STEP exams into offers made to individuals, and whether the Minister has looked at the provision in place in institutions and schools for teaching in that area. It is an area of great concern to me.

[Philip Davies]

What puzzles me is that the hon. Gentleman seems to feel that after 13 years of a Labour Government pumping so much money into the state education system, people in the state system still cannot compete equally with people who go to private schools, and therefore an adjustment is needed. If what the previous Government did to the state education system was so marvellous and raised standards so high, why cannot we just have fair and free competition between the state and private sectors?

[Ian Lucas]

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman is bringing party politics into the debate, because I am trying to approach it in a measured way. I am talking about offers made by universities to talented students, including in his constituency, who happen not to have the provision in their own institution, whether in the private sector or public sector, to support their applications to university. I think that the Government should be looking at support for that.

This is relevant now, as opposed to when the Labour Government were in power, because back then the requirement for STEP exams when university offers were made had not been implemented. This year, there is a particular issue relating to university applications: an enormous number are being made to universities owing to the prospect of fee levels next year. There has been a huge rush of applications, but fewer offers are being made by universities. Furthermore, higher offers are being made this year than I think will be given next year, because so many more people are applying.

I also want to touch on issues of transparency and merit. I raised this point in interventions earlier. Transparency is a great quality, particularly when one is looking at the very complex process of applying to universities. There are lots of different universities and lots of different courses, and it is a big job for any individual student, or parent advising a student, to deal with the complexities of the university admissions system. It is particularly difficult when the admissions system is not transparent. The hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) at times suggested that the current system was transparent. In my view, it is not transparent when not based on admission by academic performance, and it is not based on academic performance when it is based not on A-level or STEP results, or any other exam results, but on an interview. The disadvantage of an interview process is that, if a student achieves the required grades, passes the exam and is called for an interview, but is then rejected, they do not find out why they have been rejected.