University Tuition Fees

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Lee Rowley]

I accept in principle that there should be a societal contribution and an individual contribution, which I think the hon. Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) was querying. My argument—the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) was absolutely correct about this—is that when an individual gains the most, they should be expected to contribute the most. We can have a party political debate about where to draw those lines, and I would probably take a different view from the Labour Members in the Chamber and from the Leader of the Opposition. In principle, somebody pays, and the question is whether that comes from general taxation or, at least, a contribution from the individual. My view is that it should be a contribution from the individual, and I understand, accept and support the direction of travel on tuition fees in recent years.

The motion that we are debating is about reducing fees to £3,000. In preparing for the debate, I looked at some economic bases on which the current system works. In my understanding, if we reduced fees to that amount, it would blow a significant multi-billion-pound hole in the national finances. I would not support that, but if it happened, the proponents of the measure would need to explain where the additional money would come from. It would be likely to reopen the debate about whether we should cap student numbers, which raises a question about supporting aspiration. It would probably also reopen the debate about the amount of money spent on supporting students through waivers, outreach programmes, measures to increase retention, combination discounts and hardship funds, with which nearly £0.4 billion is associated for the coming year. I would be interested to hear from those proponents where the alternatives would come from or what would be stopped if the proposed tuition fee reduction went through.

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

I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman. Does he not accept that there can be workforce issues with particular professions, such as nursing and midwifery, which we have at the University of West London in my constituency? Professor Peter John, the vice-chancellor, has contacted me, saying that he is worried about the 20% decrease in applications since the nurse bursary was cut. It feels as if student fees are adding insult to injury. The hon. Gentleman has pointed out that £3,000 is a bit of an anachronism because no one has suggested going back to that, but that profession has particularly suffered, with applications down 60% on the normal cycle for the February intake. Given that there has been a steep fall in EU nurses, frozen pay and NHS cuts, it feels like that profession is being battered by this measure as well as everything else.

[Lee Rowley]

I thank the hon. Lady for that point, but I am not au fait with the specific subject and area that she outlined. However, if we accept the principle, which started in the late ’90s and was extended in subsequent periods, of trying to engender choice in this area and accept some element of market-based principles—I know that is controversial with some in the Chamber—then when there are demand, challenge or supply problems, the market mechanisms should have the opportunity to work.

I do not want to be totally critical of today’s debate, because I recognise that there is a genuine issue and that the petitioner began the petition because of genuine concern about where we had ended up as a country. I accept that the system as a whole has some issues, which is why I welcome the Government’s full review of tuition fees and the education system in general. I recognise that there has been inflation in the system in recent years and discussions about vice-chancellor pay in the past few months. I accept that initially, when the larger fee came in, not all institutions were expected to go to the top amount, so the review is timely and important. The argument is not about whether the system works perfectly now, because it does not—no system ever works perfectly, but this one obviously has challenges—and it is not about whether areas can be improved. Specific, obvious issues with the system have been highlighted in recent months, and I accept all that.

Ultimately, we come back to the principle that somebody pays: the taxpayer or the individual, or the individual makes a contribution. I think it is entirely legitimate that the individual makes a contribution. I support the system as it stands, pending the fuller review of the detail. For me, this is ultimately a question of a quasi-hypothecation or no hypothecation. Somehow the money will be spent and it will be paid back. The question is: who pays it back? Is the money associated with the people who get the greatest benefit? In my view, the people who benefit the greatest should contribute the most.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair today, Sir David. Thank you for calling me earlier than I had anticipated. You have explained why and, fortunately, colleagues will not have to wait too long for their turn, as I will not detain them for long.

I am grateful to the Petitions Committee and my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mike Hill) for the opportunity to participate briefly in the debate. I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley), who made a thoughtful contribution, outlining the pressures on the further and higher education system and the pros and cons of different elements. It was a fair presentation and I look forward to hearing the Minister respond to his comments, and to everybody else’s, including those of the Scottish National party spokesperson, the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan), and of my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Gordon Marsden). I suspect that my hon. Friend and I were the only two people in the Chamber today who were in the Commons when tuition fees were introduced in 1998, so I look forward to his wisdom prevailing in the debate from the Labour Front Bench.

I confess that I only realised the debate was taking place when the communications hub alerted me that my constituents had contributed the 10th-highest number of signatures to the petition—12,089. I tried to work out why that might be the case, but I have not arrived at a conclusion. I have not seen email traffic from my constituents to support the level of concern that the numbers suggest, but the petition has obviously attracted them and I am pleased to make a contribution.

I am grateful to the House of Commons Library for its background paper. Reading it brought back memories of our debates in 1998 on introducing tuition fees at £1,000 and then, in 2004, on raising them to £3,000. Our discussions were along the lines that the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire indicated—about the cap on student numbers and releasing it to allow more young people to go into further and higher education, which would require some assistance and contribution through tuition fees. That argument clearly won the day.

In 1998, I was ambivalent about the £1,000 level, mainly because the conditions attached meant that most young people and families in my constituency would not be expected to pay since the majority of my young constituents came from below the household income threshold at which it would be required. Tuition fees would not have added to the pressures that they experienced simply because of the size of household incomes in Poplar and Canning Town, as it was in those days. I assume that I supported the proposal—I have no recollection of not doing so.

However, the sister policy of abolishing maintenance grants, which the hon. Gentleman also mentioned and which the Library briefing paper focused on, concerned me. Whereas fees and their introduction would have had minimal effect, the proposed abolition of maintenance grants would have had—and did have—a profound impact. I voted against it, and that was my first—and probably only—vote against a three-line Whip in our 11 years in government. I knew that many families locally would not have been able to support their children into further or higher education without the grants. The briefing paper makes just that point by quoting the National Union of Students president, who said in her evidence to the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee that simply abolishing fees would not help students, and that

“just scrapping tuition fees will not solve the problem. It is about maintenance support. Scotland is a prime example. It has no tuition fees, and students are still struggling. It is important to reinstate maintenance grants.”

Sir David, I am sorry I did not include you in our little gang of survivors from 1998, because you are non-political when in the Chair, but you were there, and you will remember, as will my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South, that, interestingly, the Labour Government restored maintenance grants four years later, recognising that they were an important policy. That was welcome.

[Dr Huq]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech on his rebel past and what fees were like before they turned into the monster that they have become. In those days, did he foresee cases like that of Siobhan Hallett of Acton? She makes £27,000 and her repayments are £58 a month, but if she works any overtime, her repayments rise to £115. She says:

“I feel like I am being robbed every time I try to better myself in society.”

She wants to get on the housing ladder, but she is being penalised by rising loan repayments. The Student Loans Company is taking what she earns.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about repayments—when they start, how much is repaid and at what interest rate. To be fair, the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire raised those points as well. I am sure that the Government are trying to weigh up all the different elements, because they all affect each other and the system is clearly unfair. I am sure that when my hon. Friend gets a chance to make her own contribution, she will focus on that; I might intervene to support her points, because they are emphatic and critical to young people’s quality of life during their time at university.