Zero-hours Contracts

Debate between Simon Hughes and Vince Cable

Wednesday 16th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

To help us move on from this point, let me say that I am the first Business Secretary out of the last seven or eight—I cannot remember exactly when the issue first came to the surface—who is actually taking action on the issue. Action will emerge from the consultation. We recognise that there is a problem and we recognise that there are some abusive situations, but we also recognise some positive things about zero-hours contracts, which I shall come to in a moment. We have determined to take action, and I am the first Secretary of State to have done so for a long time, after a whole series of Labour predecessors who, for whatever reason, decided not to.

[Simon Hughes]

I applaud my right hon. Friend for that. It is evident to people outside that there has been no action for many years and that now there will be. Before he completes his speech, will my right hon. Friend not only set out the timetable beyond the consultation plan, as far as he can envisage it, but say whether we can find a way of linking the discussion and review of the minimum wage with the zero-hours contracts issue? It is obvious from how the labour market works that these issues are interconnected, so it would be worth trying to bring those considerations together.

[Vince Cable]

Yes, and I hope that happens. I have made it clear to the Low Pay Commission that we want to look at the minimum wage in a somewhat more holistic way than has been the case in the past. Of course I cannot guarantee what the commission will conclude; that is not my job.

Before considering the advantages and disadvantages of zero-hours contracts, let me make a basic point that will probably explain why my Labour predecessors did not deal with the problem: it is intrinsically tricky. There is an issue about what zero-hours contracts actually are; they are not clearly defined. As the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) said a few moments ago, we do not have a definition of exploitation, and we do not even have a definition of what a zero-hours contract is. There are a whole lot of contractual arrangements, which have two basic conditions attached to them. One is that there is no guarantee of work and no requirement under British employment law for an employer to provide a minimum number of hours. Equally, however, an individual is not required to accept an offer of work. Those are the two defining characteristics of a zero-hours contract.

A wide spectrum of practices has come out of that. At one end of the scale, we have casualisation of different forms—we have heard about the history of the docks and other similar traditions, many of which were highly undesirable. Equally, at the other end of the scale, however, there are large numbers of traditional systems of freelance-type employment—in the creative industries and education, for example. When I started thinking about this subject, I realised that my late wife spent much of her working career on a zero-hours contract working for a further education college. She taught music to sixth formers, depending on how many turned up for their classes. It was effectively a zero-hours contract. Many people in FE and adult education worked on the same basis, and this is established practice in many other industries. In these cases, it has not been viewed as a problem before.

I make that point to stress that the definition of a zero-hours contract is not precise. Hundreds of thousands of people—and if we believe the shadow Secretary of State, millions—are on these contracts, which vary enormously. Some people carry the rights attached to being a worker—[Interruption.] Well, Unite think it is 5 million people. Some people in these contracts have basic employee statutory rights attached to them as well. They are enormously varied.

Royal Mail

Debate between Simon Hughes and Vince Cable

Wednesday 10th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

Of course there is no magic wand, but with a combination of modernisation and support, and maintaining community-based post offices, which we are committed to do, many of the warnings that the Opposition have given us will be superfluous.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

Will the Secretary of State confirm that what he has announced is consistent with the Liberal Democrats’ 2010 manifesto and the coalition agreement, in that only a minority of shares will be put out to the private sector for purchase and the majority interest will be retained by the Government and the employees? That is what I support. I do not support a majority sale.

[Vince Cable]

I made it very clear that the Government plan to become a minority shareholder in the company and that the majority will be a combination of shares sold in the market and shares held by employees. We are not predicting at this stage how far the sale will go, as that will depend on the market.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Simon Hughes and Vince Cable

Thursday 20th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

There is certainly no complacency. We recognise that there is a very serious problem that ultimately resulted from the collapse of the banks in 2008-09, which has had devastating long-term consequences, and we are seeking to address that with a variety of interventions. There are positive things, including the emergence of challenger banks. When the advisory group meets early in the new year we will set out a detailed plan of action, including dates and objectives. I am happy to brief Labour Members when we have concrete detail.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

6. What steps his Department is taking to ensure that further education colleges provide a modern learning environment.

Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

Debate between Simon Hughes and Vince Cable

Monday 11th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

I do not think a specific procurement code is required for this institution, though of course Government procurement raises wider questions. If the hon. Lady looks at the first tranche of commitments—the £200 million—she will find that that is for a fund dealing with a substantial number of waste projects, which have small-scale enterprises as part of their supply chain. That is the way that SMEs will benefit.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

Will the Secretary of State confirm that not only are the Government committed to the green investment bank, which is a very good thing and has long been called for, but that there is a wider strategy in his Department, the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Department for Communities and Local Government to make sure that we develop the green economy, producing a significant number of extra manufacturing jobs and apprenticeships and growth, and that that is a very significant part of the Government’s policy as a whole? It is not just about a bank and £3 billion being lent over a certain number of years.

[Vince Cable]

My right hon. Friend is right. We have the Green Economy Council, which is an over-arching body representing the key Departments in the Government to make sure that our work in this area is integrated and properly joined up.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vince Cable]

That is an issue on which we have frequently exchanged views across the House, and we do indeed want to see employee consultation, but we are not mandating employee representatives on boards, which I know some people have called for, and we have made that very clear in the past.

[Simon Hughes]

This is one of those issues that the Government inherited. It is the scandal, left by the previous Government, of absolutely obscene pay for top executives—uncontrolled by shareholders. I therefore welcome the proposals, but will my right hon. Friend clarify that the Prime Minister and Government still take the view that in the public sector the ratio should be a maximum of 20:1, and that in the private sector, where it is not a matter for Government to determine, all shareholders will have adequate notice of any proposals, so that there is both private and public participation in the debate as well as a binding vote on the remuneration package for the executives at the top of private sector companies?

[Vince Cable]

There are separate developments taking place that do not require primary legislation, and they will improve the quality of information available to shareholders. The Financial Reporting Council has responsibility for that, and I do not have the powers to direct it, even if I wanted to, but the quality of information is intended to improve, and we certainly want to see a range of information made available, including the aggregates that my right hon. Friend describes, as well as simpler and clearer information. That process is taking place in parallel with this Bill.

The Bill will improve the way in which competition is promoted and policed. The UK’s support for a free and open trading system remains fundamental to our economic strategy, and the steady pressure from competitive markets ensures that businesses boost productivity and consumers benefit. Our competition regime has been well regarded, but it can be too slow, and recently there have been some worrying criticisms about how it has managed cartel offences.

The reforms that I propose are designed to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of competition enforcement, operating through a new competition and markets authority, backed by streamlined and strengthened powers. The current division of responsibility for the two phases of the markets and mergers regimes, between the Competition Commission and the Office of Fair Trading, can lead to a duplication of activity and the inefficient use of resources. Further, the time it currently takes to complete mergers, markets and anti-trust cases is often far too long, and that in turn imposes additional costs on business, including on those that pose no threat to competition.

Our reforms to the competition regime are designed to create a single, strong voice for competition and a one-stop shop for business; to create greater certainty for business, thanks to faster, clearer and, indeed, statutory time frames; to provide for more effective action to tackle anti-competitive mergers, including the discretion to suspend them; and to provide for robust action to tackle cartels, which can damage business and consumers alike, by removing, for example, the need to prove dishonesty. In addition, it will be easier for businesses to ask the new competition and markets authority to halt uncompetitive practices while investigations are ongoing. These measures go hand in hand with proposals, on which we are currently consulting, to allow businesses to take private actions to stop anti-competitive practices and to achieve redress.

Another aspect of our reforms relates to intellectual property rights, an issue that the Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), raised a few moments ago. The modernisation of copyright is critical to investment in the UK’s creative industries, one of our most successful export sectors. Research by Imperial college and the Intellectual Property Office shows that annual copyright investment in artistic originals in film, TV and radio, books, music and art was about $5 billion, twice the original estimate. Spending on UK design amounts to almost £33.5 billion, and there are about 350,000 people in core design occupations of all kinds.

The sale of unauthorised replicas of classic designs, such as a lamp or a piece of furniture, means that firms that depend on design can lose out, so the Bill ensures that those designs that are also artistic works and, therefore, qualify for copyright protection will be protected for 70 years from the creator’s death, instead of for the current 25 years.

The Bill also creates an order-making power that will allow the Government to make any future changes related to copyright exceptions or exceptions to rights in performances. The practical consequence of that will be to maintain the level of criminal penalties, in which as I said earlier I have a personal interest, given that my private Member’s Bill introduced the current maximum penalty level of 10 years’ imprisonment

In addition, the Government have made a number of proposals in response to the Hargreaves review of intellectual property and growth and subsequent consultation. They are needed to ensure that the copyright system is fit for purpose in the digital age. It has been decades since the intellectual property regime was overhauled, during which time the world has changed beyond recognition. It would be negligent to leave unchanged a system suited to the cassette recorder in an era of iPads and cloud-based music services.

Primary legislation will be required for three of those reforms: the introduction of a scheme to allow extended collective licensing; one to allow the use of orphan works; and, finally, a back-stop power to allow the Government to require a collecting society to implement a statutory code of conduct, should it fail to introduce or adhere to a suitable voluntary code.

The Government’s proposals on extended collective licensing and on the use of orphan works are designed to make it simpler for users to use copyright works legitimately, while protecting the interests of rights holders. At the same time, introducing codes of conduct for collecting societies will provide valuable reassurance to the thousands of small businesses and other organisations, including creators, that deal with them.

The Government are finalising their response to the consultation on those three proposals, and if we decide to proceed we will want to move swiftly. The Bill presents an opportunity to do so, and I shall announce a decision on the matter as soon as possible.

Office for Fair Access

Debate between Simon Hughes and Vince Cable

Monday 20th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

I am among the people who paid tribute to that report, and I acknowledge that there is a lot of good material in it. One of the things that it emphasised was the importance of helping with aspirations in schools, changing the expectation that many people have that they have no prospect of going to university, and working at the level of individual schools. I think we will continue to see OFFA concentrating on that, and not on penalties of various kinds, about which some hon. Members appear to be concerned.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

Given that both coalition parties are committed to improving social mobility and that the Office for Fair Access is increasingly important as an agent for doing that, is it not right that the director should be qualified, determined and tough? Professor Ebdon, like Sir Martin Harris, amply fulfils that requirement, and will be an excellent leader to change what universities so far have sometimes failed sufficiently to do.

[Vince Cable]

Yes, that is a very good summary of the conclusions that the Minister for Universities and Science and I reached after interviewing Professor Ebdon and the other candidates.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Simon Hughes and Vince Cable

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

8. What steps he plans to take to address executive pay and reduce rewards for failure.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

Last week I announced a comprehensive package of measures to tackle the disconnect between executive pay and company performance. These proposals will increase simplicity and clarity, give shareholders more effective power through binding votes, increase the diversity of boards and remuneration committees, and encourage employees to be more engaged.

[Simon Hughes]

In the last few weeks the chief executive of Lloyds TSB, then the chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland, and then its chief executive appear to have got the message that huge bonuses are not acceptable in this time of austerity. Given that this month we expect both banks to announce significant losses amounting to millions of pounds, how can Government, Parliament and constituents such as mine in Southwark convey the message to the rest of the directors and investment bankers in the publicly owned banks that they too should not have huge bonuses in times of austerity?

[Vince Cable]

Those two individuals are symbolically very important, but what is much more important is that we have a proper system governing executive pay over the long term, and that is what my proposals were designed to achieve. Bonuses in the banking sector as a whole are now running at roughly a third of the level at which they operated at the peak of the boom when Labour was in power. As for the state-owned banks, my right hon. Friend will know that a set of disciplines is being introduced through United Kingdom Financial Investments Ltd.

Executive Pay

Debate between Simon Hughes and Vince Cable

Monday 23rd January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

There is no logic to suggest an automatic carry-over from worker shares to representatives on boards. Those are separate issues. I simply urge the hon. Gentleman to look back on my comment about the use of information and consultation arrangements. There is a regulation that came from the European Union— one of its better ones—back in 2005, which employees in many companies could use to engage directly in conversations with their management about their pay. Far too few people have taken advantage of that. I hope that he and others will encourage them to do so.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

I congratulate the Secretary of State, who, after 13 years of a Labour Government who did nothing about this issue, has persuaded our Conservative colleagues that this is the right policy for the new century. I urge him to continue to be robust and to suggest that each individual company should have a policy that reflects the differential between the highest and the lowest-paid, according to the make-up of its own work force.

[Vince Cable]

Again, I do not want to be too negative. One of my Labour predecessors, Patricia Hewitt, advanced the issue by introducing advisory votes. That was a step forward but it was not enough, and we have to go further. However, that step was usefully taken. My right hon. Friend asked specifically about pay ratios. I have said that those are useful metrics, and that we should encourage their use. However, companies have very different structures, and pay ratios mean different things. Therefore, mandating them is a different matter.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Simon Hughes and Vince Cable

Thursday 9th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Gordon Birtwistle (Burnley) (LD)]

8. What steps he plans to take to encourage young people to take up careers in engineering and manufacturing.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

We are funding STEMNET, a programme that encourages young people to look at the possibilities offered by science, technology, engineering and mathematics—STEM—study and employment; we are providing a £180 million package that will see 50,000 new higher apprenticeships in sectors including STEM-related industries; and, of course, the main incentive is good manufacturing jobs, which is why I welcome the announcements yesterday and today from Nissan and BMW of large new investments in British manufacturing industry.

[Simon Hughes]

I obviously welcome my right hon. Friend’s interest in both areas and the interest of organisations such as Engineering UK, which has a fantastic route map on its website, showing exactly what one has to do to get from school into engineering. May I encourage Ministers, however, to work with the Department for Education to ensure that, as part of the engagement between employers and schools, we also have one-to-one and face-to-face careers advice for school leavers, so that they receive personalised support in the choices that they make?

[Vince Cable]

Yes, my colleague is absolutely right. Indeed, I was at the Royal Academy of Engineering during the week, talking about how we strengthen that interface between education and the engineering industry, and as regards the careers service my colleague the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning has already written to schools, reminding them of their statutory responsibilities under the new careers service as it develops.

Green Investment Bank

Debate between Simon Hughes and Vince Cable

Tuesday 24th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

As I say, we have not come to a decision on the ideal location, and we are certainly open to good, new suggestions. The hon. Gentleman and his colleagues in Nottingham will have to think about whether, for example, they have a sufficient concentration of project finance specialists; I am sure that they have.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

I would hope that throughout the UK there will be real enthusiasm for the announcement that by 2015 there will be £18 billion of investment in green industries. Can the Secretary of State add to that enthusiasm by sharing his vision of what sector of the economy green industries may represent and the number of jobs that that will bring to Britain? In addition, our tidal and wind can be linked with projects such as the European renewable energy project and solar power from the south of Europe, thus transforming the whole of our energy economy.

[Vince Cable]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to sketch out the scale of what green industries are and can become. We estimate that some 800,000 people, perhaps more, are already employed directly in green economy-related activities, and I understand that that will expand substantially. I hope later this week, in a more wide-ranging comment, to add some more information for his purposes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Simon Hughes and Vince Cable

Thursday 31st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

As the hon. Lady knows, and as we have discussed many times in this Chamber, the introduction of graduate contributions at the level we have will ensure that universities are indeed properly funded and maintain funding at world-class levels.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

Is my right hon. Friend still reminding universities that it is unreasonable of them to charge fees significantly above the cost of providing the course and asking them to make sure that when they set their final fees in the coming weeks, they honour the cost that they said they would charge some months ago?

[Vince Cable]

May I first thank my right hon. Friend for the extraordinarily useful work that he has been doing on social mobility? On his question, the Browne report estimated that universities would need to charge something in the order of £7,500 simply to replace their income, but no more, and that if they made the kind of efficiencies that other institutions are effecting, it could be as little as £6,000.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Simon Hughes and Vince Cable

Thursday 17th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

As it happens, under the growth review that Ministers are conducting, yesterday we reviewed the creative industry sector to which the hon. Gentleman refers. The sector has serious problems of access to finance, because of a lack of tangible security, and issues around copyright protection. We are pursuing both those issues, and if we can crack them it will help creative industries across the country.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

4. What recent progress he has made in his discussions with representatives of the banking industry on increasing levels of lending to small and medium-sized enterprises.

[Mr Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)]

16. What recent progress he has made in his discussions with representatives of the banking industry on increasing levels of lending to small and medium-sized enterprises.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

As announced last week in the House by the Chancellor, the UK’s five major banks have stated a capacity and willingness to lend £190 billion of new credit to business in 2011. That includes £76 billion of new lending to SMEs, which is a 15% increase on the amount lent in 2010. If demand exceeds that, the banks will lend more.

[Simon Hughes]

I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s work and the Government’s announcement. To have maximum transparency, will Ministers negotiate with the banks for the figures on lending to small and medium-sized businesses to be published by principal local authority area on a regular basis, so that we can see exactly what is happening throughout the country?

Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Performance)

Debate between Simon Hughes and Vince Cable

Wednesday 2nd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

There are indeed many wise words in that book, which is why it has been reprinted several times—it retains its relevance.

Let me move on from the general picture of de-industrialisation to the specifics. Let me also deal specifically with the Pfizer closure, which is a serious matter and an extremely disappointing development. The implication in the remarks of the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen was that the Government had somehow or other failed to head off a closure, which could have been avoided. Let me therefore talk him through the sequence of events, which is also important to many colleagues behind me, and explain what we are doing about the problem.

We were first notified about this at the beginning of last week—on 28 January. The chief executive came to London and briefed the Minister for Universities and Science, who rightly immediately asked what the British Government should do to avert the closure. The answer was that this was not a matter for British Government policy, and that the choice was not made on the basis of whether Britain was an attractive place to do business. Rather, the company was making global closures, including large closures in Dusseldorf in Germany and Massachusetts in the United States. The cycle of the company’s patents was relevant, and it was a purely commercial decision. What happened with Pfizer is offset by what is happening elsewhere in the pharmaceutical industry. Only a few weeks ago GlaxoSmithKline announced a £500 million investment, creating 1,000 new jobs directly—and much else happening in the industry is positive.

The right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen asked me what we were doing about the situation. First, I have established a taskforce comprising Kent county council, local interests and the Department for Work and Pensions working together to look at the local labour market and what we can do to help. My ministerial colleagues are involved in the process. The Minister for Universities and Science is working with the Secretary of State for Health to see how we can relocate scientists from those research facilities into the rest of the pharmaceutical industries. We may well establish a model based on the relative success so far of Allan Cook’s efforts in the defence industry to see how best to pursue the relocation policy. However, the decision was not based on the investment climate in the United Kingdom. It was a commercial decision, and we are acting promptly in doing whatever we can to help the people who are caught up in that difficulty.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

Many of us who have been in the House for a while know that this country often suffers as a result of decisions involving local businesses which are made elsewhere in Europe—or, as was the case when the Peek Frean factory in my constituency was closed, in Idaho. However, all my experience since May, both in my constituency and around the country, suggests that people are desperate to see manufacturing back on its feet, and desperate for the skills and apprenticeships that will allow it to perform. That is the great demand out there in relation to Government economic policy, and my right hon. Friend is going in absolutely the right direction by making it a priority.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Simon Hughes and Vince Cable

Thursday 13th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

The right hon. Gentleman has obviously been trying to polish that intervention for the past three weeks; it is getting a bit stale. The simple truth is that if he had read the latest small business survey, he would have seen that rapid growth is taking place and more jobs are being undertaken—300,000 in the past six months, almost all of which are in the small business sector. That is the sector that will drive the British economy forward and achieve the recovery that this Government have achieved.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

Next week I will meet a small business man in my constituency who runs a plumbing business employing 10 people, and whose current finance is under threat of being removed by a bank. If we do not succeed—as I hope we will—in negotiating continued finance, what remedies are there to allow small businesses to get support in their battle, given that the Government are very clear about this, and that we need the banks to deliver?

[Vince Cable]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right; many companies are in that position. He will be aware that the banking taskforce recently produced a whole set of remedies for companies such as the one that he described, which have had bad experiences with banks and wish to pursue an appeal.

Higher Education Fees

Debate between Simon Hughes and Vince Cable

Thursday 9th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

I hope that not too many Opposition Members would regard additional funding from employers as somehow ideologically contaminated, because we will need more resources going into universities, not less, and that is what we are doing.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

Under the fees scheme introduced by the Labour party, all universities ended up charging at the highest rate. One of the worries out there is that all universities might end up being allowed to charge £9,000. What assurance—what rules, what guarantees—can my right hon. Friend give that “exceptional” will mean “exceptional”, and that £6,000 will be the limit for most universities in the country?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Simon Hughes and Vince Cable

Thursday 14th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

I am certainly happy to answer. I have not changed my views—I think Sir Philip Green should pay his taxes in the UK.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

12. What recent progress he has made on the creation of a green investment bank.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

We remain committed to creating a green investment bank that will support the growth, industrial transformation and greening of the UK economy. Over the summer, we made good progress on the role and form of the bank and its relationship with other Government policies. I will make a statement on the bank shortly after the spending review.

[Simon Hughes]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. May I encourage him, in the remaining days before the final settlement of Government spending is reached, to ensure that a green investment bank has sufficient funds to make it a real agent for change towards a sustainable economy as well as the ability to lever in the maximum additional investment, and to follow the best models in other countries and among those proposed to the Government? This is a real test of the Government’s green credentials, and I hope he fights that case to the wire.

Higher Education and Student Finance

Debate between Simon Hughes and Vince Cable

Tuesday 12th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

I am not going to announce a week ahead of the spending review the details of what it will entail, which is why I could not answer the specific questions the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham) asked about percentages. Of course, as a result of the very difficult cuts we are going to have to make, there will be a replacement of Government funding for teaching with graduate contributions. That is very clear, and it was at the heart of the Browne report as well as of Government policy, but the upshot will be that there will be adequate funding for universities as a whole so that they are in a position to maintain their current standards of excellence. As the hon. Gentleman implies, they are world class and we must keep them that way.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

As my right hon. Friend listens to the responses to the Browne report and develops the Government’s final proposals in the weeks ahead, can he tell me how he will ensure that our Government do not do anything to discourage young people from estates such as the Tabard Gardens or the Four Squares in my constituency, and millions of others, from going to university because of the risk of having significant debt at the beginning of their working lives?

[Vince Cable]

Yes, indeed. We certainly need to be very conscious of the position of people at the bottom end of the social scale, which is why I emphasise the importance of a social mix in universities, and of course of middle earners too; this is not simply a question of the most deprived communities. Two issues affect the people about whom my hon. Friend is concerned. The first is the poverty of their own families, which is why we need to have generous support, through grant and loan provision, for maintenance. The other is the psychological impact of people being deterred by extremely high fees, which potentially some universities would charge if they were allowed unlimited permission to do so. That is why we are hesitating before accepting that recommendation and are considering carefully the very strict conditionality that would have to be attached to any movement on that score.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Simon Hughes and Vince Cable

Thursday 3rd June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

Of course we cannot give numbers for that, for the simple reason that it is an offer for businesses to take up. Many of them will be in the public sector, and many of them will be in the private sector. I will keep in touch with the hon. Gentleman and give him the information that he requires as it emerges.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend and his colleagues not only to their jobs but to their commitment to apprenticeships. May I ask him, in particular, to ensure that those involved in large-scale construction projects and large-scale transport projects take their full responsibility for apprenticeships and that all chambers of commerce are engaged in the process of spreading the word?

[Vince Cable]

Yes, indeed; that is a very helpful point. I would merely stress that, by and large, very large companies do engage in substantial apprenticeship schemes for their own good reasons, and have the resources to do it. The particular expansion that we are engaged in is focused on small and medium-sized enterprises that lack the resources and the support to do that.