Higher Education and Student Finance

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Tuesday 12th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

I know that the hon. Lady is highly economically literate, going back over her history, but I think that on this particular issue, she has not read the report or perhaps not followed it closely enough.

The proposal for real interest rates applies only above the £21,000 threshold. Some numbers were published on the front page of The Guardian this morning that probably gave rise to the conclusion that the hon. Lady has drawn. Those figures are wrong, and the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which was quoted, has disowned them. It is clear from the analysis that the structure is progressive, but not in the way that she described.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

For many mature students, the most cost-effective way to pursue a university degree is to do so as close as possible to their own home. Will my right hon. Friend encourage universities to collaborate much more closely with the further education sector to use FE campuses to help them deliver higher education degrees?

[Vince Cable]

That is a helpful intervention, and I completely agree. We certainly wish to see the university sector evolve in that direction more flexibly, providing more genuine choice, including two-year degrees, and portable qualifications between universities. The model that the hon. Gentleman described is very much the model of the future. I used to teach in a Scottish university where that was the norm, and that is a form of good practice that we could adopt here.