Higher Education Funding

John Bercow Excerpts

Wednesday 11th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Joseph Johnson]

I agree with my hon. Friend, and I find it alarming that the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Gordon Marsden) is chuntering away saying, “It’s not true.” It is true. The proportion of people from disadvantage backgrounds now going to university has increased. It is undeniably true. It is in the statistics from the Higher Education Statistics Agency and the Office for Fair Access. The number is 43% higher than it was in 2009-10. A young person is 52% more likely to go to a highly selective university than they were in 2009-10. It is extraordinary that the hon. Gentleman wants to deny it.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I was happy to indulge the Minister and to listen to his mellifluous tones, but as he will quickly discover as part of his apprenticeship in this place, the Minister is not responsible for the observations on “Question Time” or elsewhere of the shadow Secretary of State on this or any other matter.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

The Minister talks about the expansion in student numbers. How often does he have conversations with the local government and housing Ministers about the impact on housing pressures in cities such as Bristol and on council finances, given that students do not pay council tax and developers do not pay the community infrastructure levy? Although those students are welcome, it does come at a cost.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)]

I sympathise with the Labour Front-Bench team’s position on this matter. Basing higher education funding on billions of pounds of student debt that might never be repaid is neither morally right nor operationally pragmatic, so I urge the Minister to commit to a wide-ranging review of higher education funding that encompasses not only tuition fees but maintenance grants and the sustainability of funding for higher education students.

If I may be so bold, Mr Speaker, I also urge the Labour Front-Bench team to enter into a discussion on this matter with their colleagues in Wales. The only Administration now committed to raising tuition fees is the Labour Welsh Government—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am inordinately grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but it is procedurally improper for him to veer off the centre of the fairway, which he previously inhabited. Questions must be to the Government about the policy of the Government, not general exhortations to other Opposition parties, but I am sure if he wants to have a cup of tea in the Tea Room with the Labour Front-Bench spokesperson, there might be such an opportunity.

[Joseph Johnson]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point. It is true, of course, that the Labour Government in Wales have recently increased fees beyond the fee cap in England.

Bill Presented

Nuclear Safeguards Bill

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Secretary Greg Clark, supported by the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Secretary David Gauke, Secretary Boris Johnson, Secretary Liam Fox and Secretary David Davis, presented a Bill to make provision about nuclear safeguards; and for connected purposes.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed (Bill 109) with explanatory notes (Bill 109-EN).