Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lord Willetts and Gareth Thomas(11 years, 8 months ago)
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The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)
Our higher education reforms are increasing cash for teaching at our universities and delivering more choice for students. Higher applications this year are up by 3% and the proportion of 18-year-old applicants from the most disadvantaged backgrounds has increased to the highest level ever. Every English region has seen applications increase.
Mr Willetts
The variation in applications between universities is what happens when there is competition and when the money goes with the student. That is a key feature of our reforms. This year we are seeing applications up. Given the hon. Gentleman’s genuine concern about this issue, I should have thought that he would welcome the fact that the application rate for disadvantaged young people from England is at its highest ever level—19.5%.
Higher and Further Education
Debate between Lord Willetts and Gareth Thomas(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Willetts
Let me continue to make progress.
The final item, and the biggest on the shadow Secretary of State’s list, is in some ways the most curious. Some £500 million is to come from the top 10% of graduates. I quote the shadow Secretary of State, who wishes to ask
“graduates earning over £65,000 in each year of their working life—to pay more through a combination of a higher interest rate…and to continue to pay for an additional two years.”
That is £65,000 in each year of their working life. The shadow Secretary of State is possibly the only person in the Chamber who could have imagined earning £60,000 a year in each year of his working life. The idea that a levy on people earning £60,000 in each year of their working life could raise £500 million is absolutely incomprehensible. Does the Labour party perhaps mean that when someone’s earnings eventually reach £65,000, they will be charged a higher rate or be charged retrospectively? Again, however, there is no way in which such a measure could raise anything like £500 million, not least because in a free and voluntary system in which we have—quite correctly—protected the right of people to make early repayments of their loan, people whose earnings are heading that way will simply repay their loans. The idea that they will find themselves trapped in penal repayment terms when they are earning over £65,000 a year is complete fantasy. There is no £500 million.
I am, incidentally, offering the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood a free briefing on her policy, and I hope she appreciates how helpful it is. I am trying to explain it to her. In addition, if she were to move to anything like the commercial terms envisaged by the Opposition, consumer credit legislation would come into force and she would find a whole host of new regulatory requirements placed on her scheme that it would not be able to meet because of the design of the scheme that we inherited from the previous Government. It would simply become unworkable. There is no £500 million to finance the Opposition’s proposal, and they have no way of financing fees of £6,000.
Mr Thomas
Perhaps I can bring the Minister back to the Government’s own policy—or lack of it. Perhaps he will explain why it is fair for a student and their family to be able to probe the offer from a mainstream university using freedom of information legislation, but not that of a commercial, for-profit university.
Mr Willetts
It has come to a pretty pass when a loyal Opposition Back Bencher has to help those on the Front Bench by diverting attention from his party’s own policies, but that is what it has come to. The fact is that there is a black hole in the Opposition’s accounts, and we need to know whether they will cut £2 billion from resources that are now going to our universities. How are they are going to provide an extra £2 billion that is financed properly and honestly, and not by the slick accounting tricks used in the only attempt that they have so far made to explain their policy?
Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) is spot-on about the effect of such high tuition fees on those wanting to apply for postgraduate courses. Like him, I want to focus on one particular issue, which is clearly linked to the Government’s plans for higher education and their policy of £9,000 tuition fees, but which has not been given such a high profile in the debate so far.
As others have mentioned, Ministers wanted students to consider degrees costing less than £9,000, to reduce the Treasury’s exposure to student debt. What has not been highlighted in the debate is Ministers’ plan significantly to increase the role of commercial, for-profit universities owned by private shareholders to help to achieve that objective. They have significantly increased the number of courses run by such institutions for which students can secure a student loan.
I should say that there are already a large number of students studying and doing well at private universities in the UK. However, it is far from clear that Ministers have grasped the scale of risk involved in allowing an even bigger expansion of access to student loans for commercial universities without proper safeguards. In the US, the for-profit higher education world has been rocked by a series of scandals involving very high drop-out rates, very low degree completion rates and aggressive recruitment practices. Indeed, according to a recent American Senate investigation, in the three previous years almost 2 million students had withdrawn from for-profit institutions without completing a degree but with significant personal debt. One such institution had a drop-out rate of 84%.
I accept that Ministers have said that some safeguards are needed as the commercial, for-profit part of the universities sector grows. It would be helpful if the Under-Secretary of State for Skills, the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock), whom I congratulate on his appointment, set out in his response a little more detail about the Department’s plans.
For-profit commercial universities are still much less well regulated than mainstream universities. Surely Government Members would want the marketplace, as they describe it, for university education at least to be on a fair basis. Surely all for-profit companies offering a university education that want to recruit students who can access publicly backed loans should be subject to the same information and publication requirements as public universities. Those requirements should include student data and financial information and, as I made clear in my intervention on the Minister—uncharacteristically, he resorted to blather and ducked the question—be subject to freedom of information legislation.
When he replies to the debate, I encourage the Minister not to follow the example of his right hon. Friend the Minister for Universities and Science but to answer the question: when will Ministers bring forward plans to require commercial, for-profit universities to be subject to freedom of information legislation? When will they be required to provide the same level of data and information as mainstream universities so that they can be held to account in the same way?
Mr Willetts
Briefly, we are using the designation power—the power to designate courses and institutions—much more actively than the previous Government. That will ensure both the financial strength and the quality of provision in courses at alternative providers. There are still differences in the regulatory regime and it cuts both ways—FOI legislation cuts one way, equalities cuts the other, but that is the power we are using.
Mr Thomas
I say gently to the Minister that it is interesting that he and his colleagues in the Treasury are examining whether commercial, for-profit universities should be exempt from VAT in order to create a level playing field, but other sensible regulations, such as the requirement to be answerable to FOI legislation, as mainstream universities are, do not apply. Our collective experience of banking regulation and its failings, about which hon. Members across the House have uncomfortable memories, ought to encourage Ministers to be wary of market failure. As I have said, surely commercial universities that want exemptions should be properly held to account.
In her excellent opening speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) set out clearly how this policy of higher tuition fees exemplifies the Government’s failures in a series of other areas. Our motion outlines a clear, sensible alternative, and on that basis, I commend it to the House.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lord Willetts and Gareth Thomas(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Willetts
I absolutely support the objective in that statement of winning a greater market share for our higher education sector, and we can be very proud of the international demand from students wanting to study at our higher education institutions. There is no cap on the number who come here, and we will do everything possible to correct any misunderstandings around the world that may be inhibiting people from applying.
Mr Thomas
At a time when many mainstream universities are extremely worried about where sufficient funding for research, which is vital to Britain’s long-term economic growth, will come from, why does the Minister think that a multi-million pound VAT cut for commercial universities is a good use of public funds?
Opportunities for the Next Generation
Debate between Lord Willetts and Gareth Thomas(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Thomas
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen pointed out in his opening remarks, youth unemployment was actually falling for the vast majority of our period in office. Of course, there was a global recession, and youth unemployment rose during that time, but thanks to Labour’s jobs fund youth unemployment was actually coming down when we left office.
Perhaps we need also to dwell on the quality of the higher education that will be available to young people. Before the summer recess, the Minister for Universities and Science presented a White Paper that could have meant a dynamic future for universities and their students, that could have been the centre of our country’s plans to rebalance the economy and that could have helped to drive the growth of new jobs in the new industries; instead, we had little more than a Coulson-esque smoke and mirrors exercise to try to disguise the coming auction of places to the lowest bidder in order to help close the funding hole that trebling tuition fees has created in the Government’s higher education budget.
Mr Willetts
The shadow Minister attacks our higher education policies, but are the Labour Opposition committed to reversing our increase in tuition fees?
Mr Thomas
My right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen set out in his opening remarks what Labour would have done had we been in office. The Minister will recognise that we have in place a detailed policy review, but there was absolutely no reason why his party needed to cut university funding by as much as it did or needed to see—as a result—university fees rise so much.
Instead, the right hon. Gentleman is taking places from universities with international reputations and seeking to auction them off to the lowest bidder. He makes much of student choice, but it will not be students who decide which universities get extra places in that auction.
The Minister, under pressure back in April, praised London Metropolitan university for keeping its fees below £9,000, but just days after his praise London Met announced that 400 courses were being closed; and in July, Carl Lygo, the chief executive of BPP, one of the new providers that the right hon. Gentleman wants to see do more, said that his institution would be forced to increase staff-student ratios as it expanded. With higher tuition fees on the one hand, and cuts in courses and worse staff-student ratios on the other, this is a Government who clearly think that such measures are a price worth paying.
“And the…financial cost”
—these are not my words, but those of the independent Higher Education Policy Institute—
“to students and taxpayers—is likely to be considerable.”
As the Minister said in his opening remarks, the Secretary of State—in his more saintly past—railed against the levels of personal debt. Now he aspires to huge increases in the levels of debt that students face on graduation. If that were not bad enough, the Higher Education Policy Institute also found in its analysis that
“social mobility is likely to be”
a
“…victim of the Government’s plans, and the new methods of allocating resources and controlling numbers look likely to reinforce…disadvantage rather than remove it.”
The Conservative party is damaging social mobility and entrenching disadvantage. Why, who on earth could have predicted that? Almost 2,000 university nursing places and 4,000 university teacher training places have gone this coming academic year; 10,000 extra student places were axed last year by the former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws); and 10,000 extra places are being axed next year. Each one is an opportunity gone for the brightest and best of the next generation to fulfil their hopes and their ambitions.
The apprenticeships guarantee scheme has been axed, EMA has been ended, there is rising homelessness and we have a Government in need of a plan B. They are leaving young people with a more uncertain future than at any time in the recent past.
The Government need a serious strategy for growth; they need a plan B; the motion offers them one, and I commend it to the House.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lord Willetts and Gareth Thomas
Mr Speaker
May I just remind the House that the question is specifically about the Open university? I know that that is what the hon. Gentleman on the Opposition Front Bench will be asking his question about.
Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
I am always grateful for your helpful advice, Mr Speaker.
As the Minister reflects on his important meeting with the vice-chancellor of the Open university this week and as he worries, too, about the number of would-be students set to be turned away from university this summer on his watch, can he tell the House which of the following he is most proud of? Is it the decisions that have already been taken by the Government to axe 24,000 student places? Is it his plan to axe another 20,000 places at quality universities in order to fund an auction to the lowest bidder? Or is it his claim that universities charging the full £9,000 would be the exception?
Mr Willetts
The hon. Gentleman is in danger of becoming the mad axeman. There are no 24,000 places being axed—he has invented that figure. What we have been able to do, even in tough times and even when we are reducing spending across the board, is broadly maintain the number of student places.
Higher Education White Paper
Debate between Lord Willetts and Gareth Thomas
The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I should like to make a statement on the higher education White Paper, which sets out how our reforms will build on the changes to student support announced last year. We will put higher education back on to a sustainable financial footing. We will put students at the heart of the system and improve the academic experience, with universities and colleges being more accountable to their students than ever before. We will also take steps to improve social mobility without compromising academic excellence or institutional autonomy.
We inherited an enormous deficit, which has required difficult decisions. We could have reduced student numbers or spending per student, or we could have provided less help with living costs, but those options would have been unfair to students, to universities and to the country. Instead, we are introducing a pay-as-you-earn system that provides more support for students, that does not require reductions in student numbers and that increases the cash flowing into higher education. We estimate that there could be a cash increase in funding for higher education of around 10% by 2014-15.
Our reforms ensure that no first-time undergraduate will have to pay fees up front and that they will be asked to contribute to the cost of their education only when they are earning more than £21,000. That increase in the repayment threshold—up from £15,000 under the current system—means that graduates will benefit from smaller monthly repayments than under the current system. For example, someone earning £20,000, which is the median starting salary for graduates, repays £38 a month under the system we inherited from the previous Government; in future they would pay nothing. At the moment, a graduate earning £36,000, which is the median salary for all graduates, pays £158 a month; under our scheme that would fall to £113 a month.
Our reforms also recognise that for many people higher education does not mean a full-time, residential degree. Some students want to work or take care of their family while studying. To support them, many part-time students and distance learners will become entitled to loans to cover their full tuition costs for the first time. Also, I can announce today that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and I have agreed that for undergraduate medical and dentistry students starting their course in autumn 2012, the NHS bursary will be increased in years 5 and 6 to cover the full costs of tuition. For graduate entrants starting in autumn 2012, access to student loans will be made available so that there are no additional up-front tuition costs. We will consider arrangements for subsequent years; more information is being placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
These changes to higher education funding enable us to put financial power in the hands of learners, but to make that effective we need to liberalise the system of quotas we inherited from the previous Government so that more students can go to universities that offer a good-quality, good-value student experience. The White Paper therefore proposes unconstrained recruitment of the roughly 65,000 high-achieving students, scoring the equivalent of AAB grades or above at A-level. Quotas for those students will be abolished and funding will go to whichever university offers them a place they accept. In addition, we will create a flexible margin of about 20,000 places to reward universities and colleges that combine good quality with value for money and with average tuition charges, after waivers, at or below £7,500 per year. That adds up to around 85,000 student places—roughly one in four places for new entrants contestable between institutions in 2012-13. We aim to expand this further year after year.
We will also extend the scope for employers and charities to offer sponsorship of extra places, provided that they do not create a cost liability for the Government, and provided, of course, that there is fair access for all applicants, regardless of ability to pay, and no sacrifice of academic standards.
The reforms put students in the driving seat, but if they are to use that power to best effect, more than a liberalising of the quotas regime will be needed. Prospective students also need to know far more about the academic experience on offer. We will therefore transform the information available to them about individual courses at individual institutions. Each institution will make available key items of information, such as contact hours and job prospects. Information will also be available to outside bodies, such as Which?, so that they can produce their own comparisons. That will lead universities to match their excellence in research with a high-quality academic experience.
We also want our universities to work with business to improve the job prospects of their graduates by providing the knowledge and skills employers value. The sandwich course, giving students practical experience of work, declined under the Labour Government; we want to reverse that. We have therefore asked Professor Sir Tim Wilson, who made the university of Hertfordshire one of our most business-friendly universities, to review how we can make England the best place in the world for university-industry collaboration. We want our universities to work with business across their teaching and research activities to promote better teaching, employer sponsorship, innovation and enterprise.
Student choice will be more real if we liberalise quotas and transform information, and if there is a greater diversity of institutions to choose from. We will therefore remove the barriers to more provision from the Open university, further education colleges and private providers. We will simplify the regime for obtaining degree-awarding powers. We will also review the artificial barriers to smaller higher education institutions taking the title “university”.
We want students from a wide range of backgrounds to benefit from the reforms. We are increasing maintenance grants and loans for nearly all students, introducing a national scholarship scheme, and strengthening the Office for Fair Access to make sure that institutions fulfil their outreach and retention obligations to people from disadvantaged groups. That will not be at the expense of institutional autonomy; the director of fair access will continue to have a duty to protect academic freedom, including institutions’ right to decide whom to admit, and on what terms.
So that universities and academics can focus on educating their students, we will strip back the burden of excessive regulation and form-filling. We will explore whether it is possible to reduce costs associated with corporation tax returns. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has today announced a consultation on the possibility of introducing a relief to remove some of the VAT barriers that currently deter institutions from sharing costs. We will reduce burdens that result from information collection. We will give students power to trigger quality reviews where there are grounds for concern, but will cut back the burden of automatic review for high-performing institutions. The Higher Education Funding Council for England will be the lead regulator, taking on a new role as consumer champion for students and promoter of a competitive system.
We are now inviting people to comment on our proposals as part of a broad consultation. Subject to the availability of parliamentary time, that will be followed by a higher education Bill next year, to make the necessary legislative changes to deliver the reforms.
The White Paper offers universities the prospect of more funding, provided that they attract students. At the same time, it saves the Exchequer money by asking graduates to pay back more as their earnings increase. Our universities already transform people’s life chances; we expect them to do even more. We will protect their autonomy and reduce their regulatory burdens. Above all, our proposals benefit students by driving universities to focus on the student experience. They will have real choice, better information, and a wider range of institutions to choose from. I commend the White Paper to the House.
Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
I am grateful to the Minister for advance sight of his statement. Is it not true that as higher education teaching has been cut by 80%, far more universities are charging £9,000 than the Government planned, causing huge political embarrassment for the Government and creating a funding crisis with the Treasury? Is not the real substance of the White Paper a desperate drive to cut fees, no matter what the effect on quality?
Is not the truth that this is another example of the Government’s failure to think things through, their disregard for the consequences, and the wrong choices being made for the country’s future? Is it not true that the Minister has slipped out on his Department’s website today a report on the impact on exports to this country of the proposal on tuition fees and of visa changes, suggesting that the total impact is some £8 billion of revenue lost to the UK?
It is
“difficult to recall a worse example of public policy making…wishful thinking has followed the apparent failure to do any serious modelling…the whole thing is a mess, and getting messier”—
not my words, but those of Sir Peter Scott, one of Britain’s leading experts on higher education and the former vice-chancellor of the Secretary of State’s local university. Is not the real truth that any expansion in university places is set to come on the cheap, with the Government cutting student places at the majority of universities—so much for student choice now—in order to fund the race to the bottom; an auction of places—who can charge the lowest?
The Prime Minister promised that universities charging the maximum would be the exception, yet is not the truth that two thirds of universities will charge the full £9,000? Is not that a devastating example of the neglect and incompetence that the Prime Minister routinely shows to the hopes and dreams of the next generation? The Secretary of State threatened to cut student places even more or university funding even further. Guaranteed places have been floated for those who want to buy their way in, and last-minute cut-price degrees. Almost 24,000 student places are already axed or are going. The Minister is in secret talks with the banks to help him out.
Forests, the national health service, prison sentences, universities today—it is “Carry on up the Khyber” in Whitehall, the Minister the latest to do the Hattie Jacques role. I am all for vigorous competition, but on for-profit higher education corporations, has he not been warned by both the Higher Education Funding Council and the Higher Education Policy Institute? Too many examples of the worst quality higher education, not for every student, but shocking drop-out rates, appalling degree completion rates, and aggressive recruitment practices that make pensions selling seem a walk in the park, are too often their norm.
The market has not protected against poor quality there. We need to be able to spot and stop students and their families being taken for a ride. Should not new providers have to prove themselves more rigorously, more regularly? How will making it easier to get university title and degree-awarding powers improve quality or the reputation and value of particular degrees, or boost the employability of those studying for such degrees? Nobody could be against the principle of an increase in places at high quality universities, but does it sit with the Secretary of State’s promises on social mobility when 50% of those getting AAB grades are from selective or independent schools? Will contextual data be truly embedded in university admissions or has he caved in to the Tory right?
How will the Secretary of State prevent, as the Institute of Physics has warned, students being deterred from studying the sciences or maths? Student charters and better information will be little compensation for trebling fees. I accept that there have to be safeguards, but will students be able to move courses with their loan intact if they realise that their course is not suitable or if their complaints are not taken seriously? Who will be the consumer champion—the representative of students and their families—at the new providers? Why should not students paying vastly increased fees know if their university has financial problems that might affect the quality of their teaching?
I welcome the end to at least one area of uncertainty today—the NHS bursary increasing for 2012-13—but what about future years? Why no certainty on that now? On research quality, why no mention that the rest of the world is increasing its science spending, yet here in the UK British researchers are having to cope with cuts of 40% or more in the funding to invest in world-class research facilities at our universities? Because of the bungled visa changes, universities face even more intense challenges to recruit the brightest and best research students and their lecturers to work with our brightest and best. No mention of cuts in funding for postgraduate courses or the impact on postgraduate recruitment of graduates leaving university with £40,000 worth of debt. Will we see as a result of his complacency a new divide opening up between those who have a postgraduate qualification and those who do not?
On the day it was revealed that 80 graduates are chasing every graduate job, which is double the figure for last year, all we got on university and business collaboration is a review. Where is the financial plan to incentivise universities to do more to stimulate new jobs in the industries of the future? Regional development agency funding has gone, HEFCE funding has been reduced and Technology Strategy Board funding has been squeezed, so this is yet another example of opportunities for economic growth being spurned, and of Ministers fiddling while Rome burns.
It could have been so different. Why were university cuts not in line with other public service cuts? Tuition fees would have been far lower, with no black hole, and chaos and confusion would have been avoided. Universities would have concentrated on getting their research and skills into businesses to drive jobs and new growth and there would have been a rigorous drive to ensure that every student gained employable skills. The Government did not need to leave the next generation of engineers, police officers and nurses having to pay so much more for so much longer. The Minister did not need—
Mr Willetts
I have to tell the shadow Minister that I am informed that Hattie Jacques was not even in “Carry on up the Khyber”, and many of his other statements were no more reliable. There were no questions, only a set of random scares that bear little relation to what we are proposing in the White Paper. Let me make it absolutely clear that there are no number controls on overseas students. We continue to welcome to this country overseas students who have the ability to benefit from studying at our universities.
The hon. Gentleman seems typically confused. One moment he complained about fees of £9,000, and the next he complained about our measures for providing a clear incentive to charge £7,500 or less. Our proposal for 20,000 places to be awarded on that basis is intended to ensure that students face a range of fees as they choose a university, which we think is the right thing to do.
I should also make it clear to the hon. Gentleman that we are reducing the burdens on universities, supporting them and liberating them from some of the impositions placed on them by the previous Government. It was his Government who introduced quotas and fines of £4,500 per student for universities that infringed their quotas. We are liberating 85,000 places from such a quota regime.
I make no apology for the measures that we are taking on access. It was under Labour, despite their claims to care about social mobility and opportunity, that—to quote Sir Martin Harris’ report—the
“most advantaged 20 per cent of young people were six times more likely than the most disadvantaged 40 per cent to enter these institutions in the mid-1990s. This ratio has risen to seven times more likely by the mid-2000s”.
That refers to Russell group universities. Those figures are scandalous. Under Labour’s watch, the ratio got worse. We are committed to equality of opportunity, which is why we have set out in the White Paper proposals for strengthening the Office for Fair Access.
Not only were there no sensible questions from the hon. Gentleman, but there was no indication whatsoever about what Labour would do. Are they advocates of a graduate tax, as the leader of the Labour party is, or do they accept the need to increase fees, as Lord Mandelson did? We are none the wiser after the hon. Gentleman’s random rant.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lord Willetts and Gareth Thomas(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Willetts
The Office for Fair Access has the power to refuse to permit fees higher than £6,000 if it believes that a university is not doing everything possible to broaden access and if it is not satisfied with its access agreement.
Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
Fees for part-time students are set to rise significantly, and there is growing concern that the quality of higher education in our universities will suffer as Government cuts begin to bite. The Public Accounts Committee has confirmed this week that the Government’s sums no longer add up, and a considerable number of would-be students are likely to be turned away from university this summer because of Government cuts in student places. The Government are chaotic, incoherent and incompetent. Are we not now watching “Fawlty Towers” in Whitehall, with the Minister and his boss the Basil and Manuel of the Government?
Mr Willetts
Let us be clear: the previous Government were planning cuts in higher education support. Under our plans, there will be extra cash going into universities by the end of the public spending period, compared with the amount going in now, and it will be going into the universities based on the choices of students and the courses that they wish to study. That is the right way for money to reach the universities. The hon. Gentleman should recognise the importance of a vision of universities that provides extra cash and respects student choice and the autonomy of the universities.
Higher Education Policy
Debate between Lord Willetts and Gareth Thomas(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Willetts
We have a set of proposals that ensures that increasing resources will go to our universities, so, absolutely, I see no reason why quality should suffer. Indeed, I believe that as we liberalise the system in the way that the Secretary of State and I wish to, we will see improvements in the quality of the student experience. I do not see any need for a reduction in student numbers; on the figures that we have in front of us, I do not believe that that will be necessary.
I want to deal with another point made by Labour Members. There is so much confusion and misapprehension on their part that there is a large amount to sweep away.
Mr Willetts
I wanted to move on to the improvements that we have made to the Browne plan, but of course I give way to the shadow Minister.
Mr Willetts
We will obviously have to keep a very close eye on the situation. When one looks behind the headline figure of the £9,000 fee, there are so many waivers and special arrangements that the average fee will be significantly lower than that. Given the evidence that has so far come through, we do not recognise the so-called figures for fiscal black holes that are being perpetrated by Labour Members. I suggest that they calm down and wait until the autumn of 2012 when we see what students are actually paying in fees when they arrive at their universities.
Mr Thomas
The right hon. Gentleman was asked a very straight question—does he, or does he not, agree with his Secretary of State, who clearly threatened universities at the HEFCE conference with either further cuts in teaching grant or further cuts in student numbers? Does he agree with him—yes or no?
Mr Willetts
I am always in agreement with the Secretary of State. The position that he was describing related to options that would be necessary if the financial position was very different from the one that we estimated last autumn. On the basis of the evidence that we have, we do not believe that that will be the case.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lord Willetts and Gareth Thomas(13 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Willetts
We have committed to repeat the initiative this year with 10,000 extra places at university. Current indications are that applications are running perhaps about 5% higher than at a similar point last year, but we will have to see what the eventual figure is. As the right hon. Gentleman used to say when he was in government, application to university has always been a competitive process. No individual place can be guaranteed but we are committed to broadening access to university.
Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
In the last month, the Secretary of State’s Department has confirmed that another 10,000 student places are set to be axed. We now know that his national scholarship programme will help under 2% of students. The logic of his rhetoric on access would have us all believe that Oxford and Cambridge are to be the last universities in England allowed to charge the full £9,000, which nobody thinks is credible. In his mind, the Secretary of State may well still be “St Vince”, but with Corporal Jones from Havant and Private Pike from Southwark and Bermondsey by his side is he not really just Captain Mainwaring, bumbling along out of his depth with all his best moments long since past?
Mr Willetts
We’re not panicking; we’re not panicking. In fact, it is Labour Members who left us with a situation whereby access to our leading, most research-intensive universities for people from the poorest backgrounds was declining. That is the challenge that we are tackling. I do not recognise the hon. Gentleman’s figure of 10,000 fewer places, as there are extra places. That is perhaps why the National Union of Students, in a leaked e-mail this morning, apparently described our reforms as “relatively progressive”.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lord Willetts and Gareth Thomas(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Willetts
The Higher Education Funding Council for England has always kept an eye on the financial position of universities. As a result of the new revenues that universities will get from graduate contributions, we estimate that it is very possible that at the end of this Parliament universities could well have a higher combined cash income in total from the Exchequer than they do at the moment; that is a sign of our commitment to the strength of British universities.
Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
Like the Minister for Universities and Science, the Secretary of State says that universities charging the full £9,000 in tuition fees will be the exception. No one independent thinks that that is credible. The Secretary of State also says that university leaders support his plans, yet not one university vice-chancellor supports the 80% cut in university teaching grants. He cannot even organise a scholarship fund without creating perverse incentives for universities to turn away students from the very poorest backgrounds, so just to get back to being Mr Bean the Secretary of State has quite a long journey ahead of him. Is it not clearer now that the trebling of tuition fees was not fair or necessary, and still has not been properly thought through?
Mr Willetts
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely wrong. It was made clear when the House debated the issue last month that more than half of all vice-chancellors support our proposals, because, given the tough decisions that we have had to take on public expenditure, we have provided them with an alternative source of income, coming not through a quango but through the choices of students, who can be confident that they will have to pay for their higher education only after they have graduated and are earning more than £21,000 a year.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lord Willetts and Gareth Thomas(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Willetts
While university places remain publicly funded, there has to be some sort of control. However, because of the proposals that we implemented in England this year, there were more places for British students in England. I hope that I am not being too chauvinistic when I say that, in the absence of similar policies in Scotland and Wales, the number of student places fell in both countries.
Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
As the Minister knows full well, there is mounting concern about the damage that will be done by the Government’s unprecedented 80% cut in funds for our universities. The Institute For Fiscal Studies, which Ministers used as a crutch, is busy revising its assessment of the Government’s plans; there is increasing evidence that poorer students will be deterred from going to university; and the Higher Education Policy Institute says that fees of £9,000 a year will be the norm rather than, as the Minister has claimed, the exception.
Is it not now clear that, rather than arranging a quick vote to end the Deputy Prime Minister’s embarrassment on the issue, the Government should publish their plans in full—including their plans for student numbers—so that they can be properly scrutinised in the House and the full facts can be considered by all Members before the House votes on increasing fees?
Mr Willetts
We are, of course committed to publishing a White Paper on our proposals, but I can tell the hon. Gentleman that they will ensure that power in our higher education system resides with the student, which is where it should reside. Universities will have to respond to the choices and preferences of students, and we believe that about a quarter of graduates will contribute less under our proposals than they do under the system left to us by the last Government.
Higher Education Funding
Debate between Lord Willetts and Gareth Thomas(13 years, 12 months ago)
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The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on higher education funding and student finance. This follows the statement made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills on 12 October.
Our higher education system has many strengths, but also faces challenges: the need for more focus on the student experience, the need to widen access and the need for sustained funding. These challenges led the previous Government, on a cross-party basis, to set up Lord Browne’s review. We are grateful to Lord Browne for his excellent work. I think he has made us all re-examine our positions.
On 12 October, my right hon. Friend said that the coalition endorsed the thrust of Lord Browne’s report, but was open to suggestions, before making specific recommendations, which would be radical and progressive. We have listened very carefully and with open minds, so I can now give the details of our proposals.
First, we will introduce a progressive system of graduate contributions to the cost of their university education, with nobody having to pay up-front fees. Lord Browne suggested that there should be no cap on the graduate contribution; we believe that a limit is desirable and are therefore proposing a basic threshold of £6,000 a year, and in exceptional circumstances there would be an absolute limit of £9,000. No publicly funded university will be able to charge more than that for its undergraduate courses. Because there will be a cap, we see no need for institutions to pay back a proportion of the graduate contribution as a levy to the Exchequer, as proposed by Lord Browne.
We are also proposing a more progressive repayment structure. At present, graduates start repaying when their annual incomes reach £15,000. We will increase the repayment threshold to £21,000, and will thereafter increase it periodically to reflect earnings. The repayment will be 9% of income above £21,000, and all outstanding repayments will be written off after 30 years. Raising the threshold will reduce the monthly repayments for every single graduate.
We will introduce a real interest rate on a progressive taper. For graduates earning less than £21,000, the real interest rate will remain at zero. For graduates earning between £21,000 and about £41,000, a real rate of interest will be tapered in to reach a maximum of inflation plus 3%. When graduates are earning more than £41,000, they will be making a full contribution to the costs of the system, but still incurring interest well below normal commercial rates. Under our proposals, a quarter of graduates—those on the lowest incomes—will pay less overall than they do at present.
The Government are committed to the progressive nature of the repayment system. It is therefore important for those on the highest incomes post-graduation not to be able to buy themselves out of the progressive system unfairly by paying off their loans early. We will consult on potential early repayment mechanisms similar to those paid by people who prepay their mortgages. Those mechanisms would need to ensure that graduates on modest incomes who strive to pay off their loans early through regular payments are not penalised. For example, a 5% levy might be charged on additional repayments each year over a specified amount such as £1,000 or £3,000. Alternatively, those on higher incomes—for example, over £60,000—who made an additional repayment could be required to pay a 5% levy on that sum.
Although participation in higher education has improved in recent years, there has not been enough progress in securing fair access to some of our best-known universities. We can make progress by improving the school attainment of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds. That is why the Government are investing in a new premium for two-year-olds, and in the pupil premium. However, we want that focus on improving the life chances of those from disadvantaged backgrounds to continue to university. For that reason, as the Deputy Prime Minister has already announced, we will also establish a new £150 million national scholarships programme, which will be targeted on bright potential students from poor backgrounds to encourage them to apply to university and meet their aspirations.
All universities that want to charge a higher graduate contribution than the £6,000 threshold will be obliged to participate in the national scholarships programme. We will consult students and university organisations on the details. We will seek to increase the leverage of Government funding by securing matched funding from universities. Our current preference is for universities to offer scholarships to targeted students, including the principal beneficiaries of the pupil premium. That would mean that at least their first year at university was free. Other attractive ideas include expanding the model of a foundation year for young people with high potential but lower qualifications.
To ensure that the universities that charge tuition contributions above the £6,000 threshold take account of their particular responsibilities to widen participation and fair access, we will introduce a tougher regime of sanctions. Each institution will draw up a new access agreement with the Office for Fair Access. It would be expected to include activities such as outreach initiatives to attract more pupils to apply from disadvantaged backgrounds, and targeted scholarships and financial support for poorer students. OFFA will agree with universities a programme of defined progress each year towards their access benchmarks as calculated by the Higher Education Funding Council. If they are not making adequate progress towards those benchmarks, a mechanism will be established to allow OFFA to redirect a proportion of the income from contributions over £6,000 to specified access activities.
Our student support system is one of the most generous in the world. We will make it more progressive. Lower-income students, while studying, will get improved help with their living costs. Students from families with incomes of up to £25,000 are currently eligible for a maintenance grant, which is not repayable, of £2,900; we will increase that to £3,250. Those from families with incomes of up to £42,000 will be entitled to a partial grant. There will also be increases in maintenance loans for students from families with incomes from £42,000 to £60,000. We will also retain a higher maintenance loan for those studying in London.
All parties agree that the current system gives a raw deal to part-time students. They are particularly likely to be mature or disadvantaged students. Even the great higher education reports of the past, such as Dearing and Robbins, largely ignored them. Lord Browne has confronted the challenge head on. At last, under our proposals part-time students will be entitled to a loan for tuition on the same basis as full-timers, and this support will be available to those studying for at least a third of their time, unlike the current grants for tuition, which are only available to those studying for over half their time.
Overall therefore, this is a good deal for universities and for students. The bulk of universities’ money will not come through the block grant, but will instead follow the choices of students. It will be up to each university or college to decide what it charges, including the amounts for different courses. All universities and colleges, whatever contribution they decide to charge, will be expected to publish a standard set of information about their performance on the indicators that students and their parents value: contact hours, teaching patterns and employment outcomes. We also propose to open up higher education provision to new providers, including further education colleges. These proposals offer a thriving future for universities, with extra freedoms and less bureaucracy, and they ensure value for money and real choice for learners.
We need to act quickly so that prospective students know where they stand. We intend to implement these changes for the 2012-13 academic year. We will therefore bring to the House our proposals on changes to graduate contributions before Christmas. Both Houses will have the chance to debate the proposals before a vote is taken. I am today placing in the Libraries of both Houses additional material that explains the modelling that we have done. We will also take powers next year to set a real interest rate for graduate contributions. We will, as usual, publish the details of the university financial settlement for 2011-12 in our annual funding letter to HEFCE next month.
Later this winter, we will publish a higher education White Paper covering the wide range of long-term issues that arise from Lord Browne’s report. We will hope to bring forward legislation in due course. Given the time scales, we would not expect to be implementing those changes before the 2013-14 academic year.
Lord Browne’s report has rightly generated much debate. When the review was established exactly a year ago, it was on a cross-party basis. I hope the Opposition will feel able to maintain that spirit. From our side, the two parties in the coalition have accepted the report’s broad thrust and are today putting together a single, coherent and progressive policy. It will deliver a better deal for our students, for our graduates and for our universities. I commend it to the House.
Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving me an advance copy of his statement, but is not the truth that what he has announced today is a tragedy for a whole generation of young people? It makes it much more difficult to protect our world-class university system and, for the country, puts the very building blocks of our economic future at risk. Even though there has been movement since the Business Secretary’s statement, is it not the case that our students will now face some of the most expensive and worst-funded degrees of any public university system, with students paying fees that are higher than those of the average public university in the United States? Our universities will be plunged into turmoil, facing massive funding cuts just when we need them most, supporting economic growth. All this because of choices being made by the coalition. The first is the choice to make reckless cuts in public spending. The second is the choice to put a disproportionate share of those cuts on to higher education. The third is the choice to bring about the biggest and most ideological upheaval in higher education since the Robbins report in the 1960s. All this is set to be rushed through Parliament without proper consultation with the sector and without our even yet having a higher education White Paper to tell us how this brave new world is supposed to work.
Is the reason why fees will be so high not very simple? Despite the Prime Minister’s claim that he wants to see well-funded universities, is the truth not that what motivates today’s announcement is a massive cut in the funding of universities? We are talking not about a cut of 19%, 25% or even 40%, but about an almost 80% cut in the undergraduate teaching budget. Is the truth not that universities will lose millions of pounds, that the London School of Economics stands to lose all its teaching funding, that Oxford and Cambridge between them will lose almost £56 million a year in teaching funding, that Sheffield Hallam university will lose more than £63 million and that Kingston university will lose more than £44 million? The Government do not have to do this, but the Minister and his friends in the Conservative party want to do it. They believe that a crude competitive market, with the Government largely kept out of the way, is the best way forward for higher education.
Like Lord Dearing, Labour Members believe that higher education funding should be a partnership between taxpayers and graduates. It should involve the taxpayer because the whole country benefits from good higher education and graduates get a direct personal benefit. So how much extra income will our universities have as a result of the Minister’s proposals today? Our fees brought more than £1 billion extra into higher education. Most graduates will now be expected to pay for the whole cost of their degrees. Many courses vital to a growing economy, such as those in the creative arts and digital industries, will receive no public funding. Why is this country joining Romania as the only OECD country to be cutting investment in higher education and science?
Has not the right hon. Gentleman managed to produce the worst of all possible worlds? Not only will most graduates be paying off their debts for 30 years and most universities will need to charge fees of at least £7,500 just to avoid losing money, but with some universities charging £9,000 many students will feel forced to choose the cheapest course, not the one that is best for them. Why does the coalition reject any idea that universities, employers, students and the Higher Education Funding Council should work together to make sure that we have the quality higher education that we need? Everyone believes that student choice is important, but why do the Government rely entirely on the choices made by students, who have very different levels of knowledge, aspiration and confidence about what higher education can offer them?
Labour Members welcome moves to improve access for those from low-income backgrounds, but does the right hon. Gentleman recognise how unfair the system will seem to those on middle incomes, who have worked just as hard to help their sons and daughters get to university? The Business Secretary says that he is against a graduate tax. Is it not true that Lord Browne proposed a system where more than half of graduates will pay 9% of their relevant income every year for 30 years and never pay off their debts? How many more now will never pay off their debts as a result of the Minister’s proposals? Will he confirm that those who are wealthy enough to pay up-front fees will pay less than those on middle incomes, such as teachers, police officers and engineers, who have to take out a loan? He says that universities will be able to charge the most fees only if they are working to increase access for those from low-income backgrounds, but is the truth not that universities are already carrying out the very measures he says they will now have to carry out? So his comments today on access are just a meaningless fig leaf.
The right hon. Gentleman has proposed today that higher earners should pay higher interest rates. Will that raise extra money? If so, will the extra payments go back into higher education or back to the Treasury? This is the day we found out how much Liberal Democrat ministerial cars cost—£9,000 a year, for students. All those principles so boldly championed have been forgotten; all those solemn promises to students and their families up and down the country waved away. All so that the right hon. Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne) can carry on as the real Deputy Prime Minister. After weeks of being told that Liberal Democrat Back Benchers were in full rebellion, have tuition fees been reduced as a result? No, they are set to treble. What a huge success those Back Benchers have had and how they have made their leadership listen. This is not a sustainable system of university funding and it is not a fair system of student finance. We will not support it.
Mr Willetts
What we just heard from the hon. Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas) was a classic old Labour attack, when all it can do is complain about cuts and make its own uncosted and indiscriminate public spending pledges. Last week we heard from the shadow Business, Innovation and Skills team that they did not approve of what we are doing on regional development agencies. They want to spend more on RDAs. Today we hear that they want to spend more through HEFCE on universities. How would they pay for it? What is the costing of that? Are we supposed to cut the science budget, which we are protecting so that we can invest in our future? Are we supposed to cut apprenticeships, which we are increasing by 50,000, or is it just a general belief that public spending can rise, from the party that brought us the fiscal crisis that we are having to tackle?
Even with the fiscal crisis that we face, we are nevertheless able to produce proposals that are progressive and recognise that there is a continuing role for Government. It remains the case that of every £100 that Government loan to students, just as with the previous Government, we accept that we will not get back £28 because it is a necessary subsidy for poorer students and people who have intermittent earnings. We have improved the maintenance package. As part of our Government’s commitment to our universities, we have secured a ring-fence for science and research spending, much of which money will go to our universities.
The hon. Gentleman asked specifically about student choice. I thought his point about student choice got to the heart of the difference between us in the coalition and the Opposition. He says, “You can’t trust students to choose.” We say, “Of course, we trust students to choose, but we are committed to more information, better information, advice and guidance, and proper careers advice because we want to see students driving the system.” That is what we believe in, and students will know that the Opposition do not trust them.
The hon. Gentleman asked about interest rates. The higher interest rate of the retail prices index plus 3% will go into financing the system as a whole, but it is a more favourable interest rate than anyone would be able to secure on the open market for a loan of the sort that is being offered—an unsecured loan that does not have to be repaid if the borrower’s income falls below £21,000.
What was missing from the hon. Gentleman’s speech was any clear Labour alternative. He announced that he was against this policy, but he did not explain what his policy was. Surely we are at least entitled to know whether he agrees with his own leader. The Leader of the Opposition—I quote from only 14 October this year—said:
“I do favour a graduate tax. I said that during the campaign and that remains my view . . . I am someone who believes in the graduate tax.”
That is the policy of the Leader of the Opposition. As for the shadow Chancellor, he has a rather different view. Also in the past few weeks he said:
“I like the two lads”—
that is, the right hon. Members for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) and for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls)—
“dearly, but I can’t understand why they are pushing the Graduate Tax and even going further in suggesting the introduction of tuition fees was one of the things we got wrong. It wasn’t. . . It was one of the things we got right.”
If Labour cannot even resolve a fundamental disagreement between the shadow Chancellor and the leader of their party, why should we take what it says on this subject remotely seriously?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lord Willetts and Gareth Thomas(14 years ago)
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Mr Willetts
That is a very important point, and we certainly welcome business backing for research, alongside public funding. There is very important evidence that public funding for research can be complemented by business backing. If I recall correctly, one of the best pieces of evidence on the subject is a research paper where one of the authors is now an official in Her Majesty’s Treasury, so it is a document that we particularly value.
Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
In mid-September, apparently preparing the way for big cuts in the science and research budget, the Secretary of State managed to insult hundreds of hard-working British scientists by implying on the “Today” programme that
“something in the order of 45 per cent of…research grants…were going…to research that was not…excellent”.
As the US, France, Germany and China are increasing their investment in science and research to drive economic growth, is not this just one more reason why those who thought we had the Sage of Westminster and Two Brains running the ship are finding that we actually have Arthur Daley and the rest of the cast of “Minder” running the sails?
Mr Willetts
The countries that the hon. Gentleman cites—incidentally, I welcome him to his new position on the Front Bench—do not have the mess in the public finances that we inherited as a result of the performance of his Government. None of them is borrowing at the high level that we inherited, yet despite that, we remain strongly committed to science and excellent research in our universities.