Tuition Fees

Wes Streeting Excerpts

Wednesday 19th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

The hon. and learned Lady will know that when we introduced tuition fees and dealt with that issue, we invested considerably and increased the amount of maintenance grants and support on offer to poorer students. Recently, even Lord Adonis, the architect of those tuition fees, called fees a

“Frankenstein’s monster of £50,000-plus debts for graduates on modest salaries who can’t remotely afford to pay back these sums while starting families”.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

I was in Parliament at the time when that Bill went through, protesting against it. Not only has our noble Friend Lord Adonis had a change of heart; so has the entire Conservative party, because it railed against the introduction of top-up fees. George Osborne called it a “tax on learning”. Who would have thought that only a few years later, it would be the Conservative party that plunged students into the highest levels of debt in the western world?

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[Joseph Johnson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Labour’s policies would do the opposite of what it says they would do; they would represent a huge step backwards for social mobility in this country, they would be bad for taxpayers, who would be left shouldering the entire cost of the higher education system, and they would leave the finances of our university system in tatters.

As Professor Steve Smith, vice-chancellor of Exeter University, has said:

“The Teaching Excellence Framework presents us with an opportunity to invest in our students’ futures and the long-term economic success of our country, and to be recognised for outstanding teaching at the same time…The Government rightly wants ‘something for something’, for the economy and for students.”

[Wes Streeting]

I am shocked that vice-chancellors want tuition fees to rise—this comes as a complete surprise to everyone!

Vice-chancellors want fees to rise every year. Surely the Minister will be able to confirm today that tomorrow he is very likely to use powers to once again increase tuition fees to a higher level, and that once we get to 2019-20, under the Higher Education and Research Act 2017, passed just before the general election, we are going to have to have votes in Parliament in order to allow and facilitate fees rises. If we are going to be doing that in the future, why not do it now?

[Joseph Johnson]

As I have already made clear on a number of occasions, these regulations have been in force for the last six months; they are already law—they are already applying across the sector.

Widening participation is an important policy objective for this Government. Alongside incentivising improvements in teaching, the Government’s policies on student fees have also allowed us to lift the student number cap. This is allowing more people than ever before to benefit from a university education. As I said, disadvantaged 18-year-olds are now 43% more likely to go to university than in 2009, and 52% more likely to go to a high-tariff institution. For the last application cycle, the entry rate for 18-year-olds from disadvantaged backgrounds is at a record high: 19.5% in 2016, compared with 13.6% in 2009. The application rate and actual number of English 18-year-old applicants is at record level in this entry cycle.

This Government have made it clear that finance should not be a barrier to going to university, which is why we have made more funding available to students. By replacing maintenance grants with loans, we have been able to increase the funding for living costs that some of the most disadvantaged students receive. It is an increase of over 10% in the current academic year, with a further 2.8% increase for 2017-18. We have worked with the Office for Fair Access to encourage universities to do more to help disadvantaged students. In 2017-18, institutions are expected to spend over £800 million on measures to improve the access and success of disadvantaged students. This is more than double the amount spent in 2009-10.

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[Marion Fellows]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and welcome him to his place. Yes, there are many differences, and trying to compare apples and pears just does not work.

[Wes Streeting]

There are international comparators. The fact is that the SNP Government’s record on education in Scotland is a national disgrace: there are 4,000 fewer teachers, class sizes are up and, of the increased number of students going to university, 10 times more are coming from the wealthiest backgrounds than the poorest backgrounds. The gap is widening, and that is under an SNP Government.

[Marion Fellows]

If the hon. Gentleman listens to the end of my speech, he will find that I completely refute what he is saying. The facts tell a different story. Larry Flanagan, the general secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland, has said that Scottish education is not in the parlous state that is ascribed to it by other parties. I believe that he is one of the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues.

Scottish-domiciled full-time first-degree university entrants rose 12% in 2006-07. The figure now stands at 28,777, 58% of whom are women. As I have said, the SNP firmly believes that access to university should be based on the ability to learn. To support that, the SNP Government have invested record levels of funding in our universities—£5 billion since 2012-13, with a further £1 billion planned in 2017-18.

The latest UCAS statistics have shown a drop in Scottish-domiciled students applying to higher education institutions, but that is not necessarily a negative. Indeed, it is further evidence that the approach taken in Scotland to ensuring that young people have equal choices and chances to succeed in life is working. For example, the youth unemployment rate has fallen from 14% since 2007 and now stands at 8.4%, and Scotland continues to have among the lowest rates of all the EU countries.

A record proportion of young people from Scotland’s most deprived communities are continuing their education, entering training or getting a job after they leave school, with 88.7% of school leavers from these communities going on to a positive initial destination—the highest ever proportion, and up since 2011-12. A record 93.3% of young people are continuing their education, going into training or getting a job—that includes modern apprenticeships—after leaving school. This is a good news story. They do not all want to go to university; many of them want to earn and learn.

According to the Scottish Funding Council, nearly 85% of further education students who achieve a qualification go on to a positive destination such as further study, training or employment. In 2015-16, almost 12,000 more students than in 2008-09 in both further and higher education at college successfully completed full-time courses leading to a recognised qualification. I know about that because I taught in a further education college. People in the most deprived areas of Livingston and West Lothian, where I taught, started in further education colleges at 16, and in some cases at 15. They progressed through college. They did further education for perhaps one or two years—in the same place—and continued on to higher education courses at higher national certificate and higher national diploma level. They were then able to articulate into the second or third year of Scottish university courses. That is how it is done in Scotland.

I was privileged to be part of the educational journey made by these people, some of whom were from the worst areas. I can think of one woman student who got pregnant at 15, had to leave school and came back to university. I interviewed her and saw her potential; she had no formal qualifications, yet she ended up with a degree—and no debt. I think that answers the question of the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) about social mobility.

Thanks to free tuition, Scotland is making progress towards achieving the target of 20% of students who enter university coming from the 20% of Scottish communities that are most deprived. There is no doubt about the SNP Government’s investment in additional places for access students; my husband was an access student. He decided to go to university aged 65 and joined the local college, which at that time was called Motherwell College. He took an access programme, did a year at college and gained a place at Glasgow University. He was unable to continue his educational journey for various reasons, but I know many others who have followed the same route. These students go to not only former technical colleges or institutes of technology that have since become universities, but our ancient universities. That is to be cherished and encouraged—and they have no fees.

That is why the Scottish Government continue to invest £51 million a year in supporting approximately 7,000 places. Scotland’s universities continue to attract students from around the world, and the number of non-EU international applicants has increased by 6% since last year; that is higher than the 2% increase in the UK as a whole. This is good news for Scotland, and we are keen to welcome those who wish to come to Scotland to live, learn and work.

The Scottish Government are determined to support our valuable higher education sector and are committed to working with our universities to continue to attract the very best students from around the world.The UK Government’s failure to provide an offer that goes far enough for EU nationals after Brexit has had a worrying knock-on effect on applications to HEIs in Scotland.

Down here, the Tories are all for front-door fees; back in Scotland, the Tories are all about back-door fees. If Ruth Davidson’s Tories had had their way in the 2016 election in Scotland, they would have introduced a £6,000 graduate tax, which would have had to be paid back when graduates earned £20,000. The UK Tories want to stop international students studying in the UK by abolishing the vital post-study work visa, but the Scottish Tories want to deter EU students by threatening them with additional taxes. By contrast, the SNP Scottish Government have pledged to reform student loan repayments: graduates will not pay loan debt until they earn £22,000; the repayment period is reduced to 30 years. If even a wee country like Scotland can do that, so can any other.

Over the past 10 years, the SNP Scottish Government have worked hard to make Scotland the best country it can be. It is no wonder that other parties are now taking their lead from the SNP on tuition fees. Labour and the Tories opposed progressive SNP policies tooth and nail for a decade; now they have changed their minds. The SNP has opposed tuition fees since they were first introduced by Labour in 1997, and scrapped them in 2008. Now Labour has said it will follow our lead in England—imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery.

Average student loan debt in Scotland continues to be the lowest in the UK: £10,500 per student in 2015-16, compared with £24,640—up 2% since 2014-15. By contrast with the UK Government, who abolished maintenance grants entirely for new students in England from the 2016-17 academic year, we raised the income threshold for the maximum bursary from £17,000 to £19,000. That will benefit an additional 2,500 young students and 400 independent students.

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[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge). I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) on her moving, personal and powerful maiden speech, and wish her well for what I hope will be her long and distinguished service to the House.

The late, great Ron Dearing set out in his compact a clear route map for how higher education should be funded. Ultimately, it was to be funded by the beneficiaries. Graduates should make a contribution as beneficiaries; business should make a contribution, because it benefits from well-educated graduates; and society, as taxpayers, should make a contribution, because collectively we benefit from the contribution our universities make, both through learning and teaching, and through their wider impact on our country.

Under the Conservatives in government, first with the Liberal Democrats, then alone and now with the Democratic Unionist party, the Dearing compact has been broken. People in this country graduate with the highest levels of debt anywhere in the world. Most terribly of all, it is students from the poorest backgrounds who graduate with the greatest debt.

Having followed these debates for some time, dating back to my tenure as president of the National Union of Students, I think that one of the most egregious things about Conservative policy on higher education is that every single concession that was fought for and won has been gradually eroded. Maintenance grants, which were reintroduced to help people from the poorest backgrounds, have been abolished by the Conservatives. Interest rates are now well above inflation, which is not what was promised. The repayment threshold has been frozen, which means that the poorest graduates will pay back a disproportionate amount. The NHS bursary has been abolished, which unsurprisingly has led to a free-fall in nursing applications. The part-time and mature access rate would make any decent Government blush.

[Michael Tomlinson]

On poorer students, does the hon. Gentleman not welcome the fact that more students from disadvantaged backgrounds are going to university than ever before—an increase of 43% from 2009 to 2016, and an increase of 73% from 2006 to today?

[Wes Streeting]

As someone who has always campaigned for wider access to higher education and who believes strongly that we should have more, rather than fewer, better educated people in our country, I welcome the fact that more students are in higher education than ever before. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman raises that point, because it brings me to the issue of Government complacency. It is not really a surprise that more young people are going to university than ever before: there are more young people than ever before. In addition to the shocking record on part-time and mature access—students in those cohorts tend to be from non-traditional and under-represented backgrounds in higher education—the Government are hugely complacent about the extent to which working-class young people are being deterred from accessing higher education by fear of tuition fees and debt.

[Joseph Johnson]

The hon. Gentleman has made a specious point. It is the rate for people from disadvantaged backgrounds that is 42% higher than it was in 2009-10. That has nothing to do with the number, although that is also higher.

[Wes Streeting]

The Minister is right that there has been progress—I do not doubt that—but once again he underlines my point about complacency. Research published by the distinguished academic Professor Claire Callender of University College London warned:

“When we compared working and upper-class students with similar GCSE results, taking account of differences in gender, ethnicity and type of school attended…a lower percentage of working-class students had applied to university…compared with those from an upper-class background…because of these fears.

Our study is an important reminder that academic achievement at school cannot adequately explain the lower proportion of students from poorer backgrounds. High fees and fear of debt play a crucial role.”

I caution the Government against complacency on this issue. They have been consistently complacent about it since they decided to treble fees. If they were not complacent, they would never have abolished the maintenance grants, which was one of the most terrible policies of the last Parliament.

It is not surprising that so many people—not just young people, but parents and grandparents—are angry about the extent to which students and graduates have been plunged into record levels of debt. It is not surprising that the issue has hit the top of the political agenda. It is not only Ministers who are to blame; university vice-chancellors should take some responsibility, too. There is scant evidence that trebling university tuition fees has led to a better quality of experience for undergraduate students. In fact, the student experience survey suggests the opposite. Students believe they get less value for money than they did before. Frankly, looking at retention rates and graduate destination data for certain courses at certain universities, those vice-chancellors who continue to award themselves inflation-busting pay increases should be ashamed.

The truth is that if people from a disadvantaged background take the plunge, go to university, take on the risk of the debt and, for whatever reason, are unable to complete the course, the cost to them is far higher than if they had never been to university—not just in terms of the debt that they still have to repay, but because on their CVs they will forever be branded failures by employers. Having been awash with cash, thanks to higher fees, in a way that the rest of the public sector has not, universities have not demonstrated the duty of care or responsibility to students that I would expect for the fees that they charge and the level of debt that results. We have to be much firmer with universities.

My final point is a broader one about where social mobility in this country is headed and the state of political debate about that. I am horrified by the number of housing cases that I deal with involving children, and the impact on their education. As I said in Communities and Local Government questions this week, I did a school visit last week, and at the end of the Q and A with a group of year 6 students, I was pulled aside by an 11-year-old boy who told me that he, his mother and his two brothers have been living in one room in a hostel, in so-called temporary accommodation, for more than a year.

I will never forget the conversation that I had in my surgery with a mum and her teenage daughter. Again, they were living in one room, in a bed and breakfast. The daughter has to do her homework under the covers at night, with a torch. She does not want to disturb her mother’s sleep, because her mother works all hours to try to make ends meet—evidently not very successfully, which is why they are stuck in poverty in a single room in a hostel.

I will certainly never forget another mother who came to me, a victim of domestic violence living in Ilford with three children, two of primary-school age and one teenager. Her daughter had admitted that she had considered taking her own life because her circumstances were so appalling. That family do not live in Ilford any more; they were moved to Harrow in west London, and then to Wolverhampton.

This is what really upsets me, as someone who grew up on a council estate and did not enjoy the experience: however bad I thought my childhood was—growing up in poverty and relying on the benefits system; living in a council flat that was not nice and to which I did not want to invite friends round to play, because it was not the sort of environment in which they would feel welcome—I realise how lucky I was now. The policies of successive Conservative Governments have led us to a point at which we are disrupting children’s education by moving them from pillar to post in temporary bed-and breakfast accommodation, with huge consequences for their education today and their life chances tomorrow.

If the Government were serious about social mobility, it would be an overriding priority running through every single Department. However, their policies and their pet projects—grammar schools, free schools and everything else—are so far removed from the reality of most people in the country, and from policies that would genuinely make a transformational difference, that they really ought to be ashamed. Theirs may be the largest party, but there is a reason for their failure to win a majority at the general election, and that is their deep detachment from the everyday lives of most people in this country.