Higher Education (England) Regulations

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Wednesday 13th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

Our approach means that students make a time-limited contribution, and that the students who are earning the most pay the most. That is how the system works. The bottom line is that if the Labour party is saying that we should have no fees and that this system does not work, and people getting degrees should not have to pay for them, the only way to avoid this outcome is, presumably, although I would welcome any clarification from the Opposition, to place a huge burden on everyone else—on the majority of people who never went to university.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has referred to the policy of no fees quite a few times now. Can she confirm that in 2005 she stood on a manifesto commitment—and campaigned and won her seat—on precisely that policy of no fees?

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Lady just needs to travel down the M4 to Wales to see her own party having two policies simultaneously on the same issue. I will take absolutely no lectures from the Labour party.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

In a few short weeks’ time, students up and down the country, including at the University of West London in my seat, will be going back for a new term. This is supposed to be an exciting time, but it is also an anxious one, because the fee regime they have been subjected to is continually changing by stealth. I am not just talking about the trebling since 2010; even since I have been an MP in the last two years we have seen many shady changes. This week, people have been discussing Henry VIII powers—the things done by shady Committees upstairs, rather than on the Floor of the House—but we have seen that in what has happened to student fees since 2015 as well, with the convenient cover of the teaching excellence framework, which seems to be another way to inflate fees. The worsening terms people are on means their repayments have gone up since they took out these loans; that is moving the goalposts after the game has started, which is very odd.

This £250 increase might look small, but, as has been pointed out, that is for three years, so we times that by three. There is also the monstrous interest rate of 6.1%. So if we add that up, we are looking at increases of thousands and thousands over a lifetime. Even if there is no upfront payment, our fees in this country are higher than those of any of our near neighbours. In France, across the channel, the fee is only a couple of hundred euros, while those in Norway, Denmark and Austria pay nothing at all.

We are seeing £9,000 turn into £9,250; when is it going to be £10,000? It seems that with this Government the sky is the limit. It is no wonder that the Institute for Fiscal Studies puts the average student debt at £50,000—we have heard a figure of up to £58,000, and 75% of it is never going to be paid back.

Proponents of fees often say that this is something for the future and is not paid back until the person is earning £21,000, and that there is a 30-year period so that it can be written off and never paid back, but this is affecting students now. There has been a fivefold increase in 10 years in students presenting with mental health problems, and a record number of suicides. The reasons people give are exorbitant housing costs and debt.

When we reduce everything to a cost-benefit analysis, we take out those kind of human stories and the greater good that education can do. People always say that graduates will earn more over their lifetime, but matters beyond the cost-benefit analysis are frozen out of the figures. When we just look at bald admission figures, we neglect to look at the number of dropouts, which is rocketing, and we neglect to look at the number of non-traditional students, which is going down. There are 61% fewer part-time students since 2010, and 39% fewer mature students. If we want to democratise our education, we are going in the wrong direction.

How this has been done is all wrong as well. If the Student Loans Company was a normal lender, it could be referred to the Financial Conduct Authority for mis-selling because these retrospective changes to terms and conditions would not be allowed for any normal lender—we know that the SLC is not a normal lender. Again, we heard all the arguments on Monday about Henry VIII powers and shady processes by statutory instrument, but that is precisely how these things were done in 2015; I remember that my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) and I were present.

It has been said that overview and scrutiny have been sacrificed. As it is now, the sector is reeling from Brexit, with the effect on the number of EU students and staffers and access to the grants regime, and all the funding is going. The same process by which that was rammed through this House earlier this week has been followed here. It was smuggled in, too, in the 2015 autumn statement. All students should have been told properly—[Interruption.]—in the small print, exactly, like the WASPI women; this reminds me of those valiant 1950s women who were never informed and things kept changing. I have just seen that I have only 47 seconds left—no way.

The Democratic Unionist party used to have an anti-fees policy, and even the current Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), has said that he worries about this. In 2010, he joined us on this side—I was not here then. He said that he was worried about what this would do to student mobility. I urge all right-minded people on the Conservative Benches to join us in the Lobby. The election has changed everything, and the Government need to think again.