Opportunities for the Next Generation
Debate between Lord Willetts and Geraint Davies(13 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Willetts
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I should have included Alison Wolf’s excellent report on my list of the things that we were doing to try to offer a fairer deal for young people.
Geraint Davies
Does the Secretary of State agree that sovereign debt in Ireland, Iceland, Spain, Italy, Portugal and so on is much worse than that of Britain, and the reason is that Labour left 2 million more people in jobs in Britain than we inherited in 1997? The future of keeping deficits down is jobs and growth—not stupid cuts, like those he is pushing forward with.
Mr Willetts
The crucial difference between our economy and those that the hon. Gentleman listed is that our economy has the benefit of a credible package for bringing down the public deficit, as a result of which the markets have retained confidence in us. It is because of this Government’s economic policies that we are not facing the same risks.
Mr Willetts
No, I shall try to make progress. We are delivering more apprenticeship places, which I very much hope will be of value to the people of Northern Ireland, as it is to the rest of the United Kingdom. The figures are dramatic: the provisional figures for the first three quarters of the academic year 2010-11 show 330,000 apprenticeship starts—an excellent record.
Let me turn to universities, briefly. Of course, we have debated this issue many times in the House, and will doubtless do so again. I begin by accepting something that the shadow Secretary of State said, and a point that he made when he was Secretary of State. It is painful when, in the summer, one is confronted with young people who have done their best in applying for university, and have not secured a place. It is painful for them, and we recognise the work that they have put in, but in recognising the difficulties that they face, I cannot do better than repeat the words spoken by the shadow Secretary of State when he was Secretary of State and was responsible for the matter:
“In terms of student numbers, going to university has always been a competitive process…we cannot afford to fully fund every single person who might like to go to university and we never have been able to.”
That is the correct position. We have been able to continue to provide record numbers of places at university, despite all the funding pressures that we face and the need to make reductions.
The previous Government, in their final days, had a plan for 20,000 extra places, as they called them, but there was no funding attached beyond the first year. There was no money to pay for years 2 or 3 of the studentship. Incidentally, contrary to the implication in the motion and to what the shadow Secretary of State said, that was explicitly described as a one-off funding stream for one year—“extra one-off funding” were the words of the then Chancellor in the 2010 Budget. What we have done instead is provide those 10,000 places last year, and we will provide another 10,000 next year. Instead of having to reduce places, we hope to maintain broadly that number, so that at least an equivalent proportion of the cohort of 18-year-olds has a chance of getting to university.
We inherited from the previous Government a simple statement, which I shall quote from the pre-Budget report of December 2009. In their list of cuts, there was
“£600 million from higher education and science and research budgets from a combination of changes to student support within existing arrangements; efficiency savings and prioritisation across universities”.
We never knew how that £600 million-worth of cuts was to have been delivered, but it was very hard to see how we could maintain the number of university places that we have done and continue to provide high-quality education given that we inherited that commitment to a cut of £600 million. That is why we took the tough but controversial decision, rather than simply face cuts and reduce student numbers, to base university financing on student fees and loans—absolutely following the model used by the previous Government, with no payment up front. I believe, given the fiscal pressures that we face, that that is in the best interests both of universities, which will find, if anything, that they have extra cash as a result of our reforms, and of students, as it has enabled us to maintain a high level of places, and to reduce the monthly repayments facing students. The shadow Secretary of State failed to explain at any point what Labour would do.
Mr Willetts
I shall not give way, as I am going to try to make progress, although I would welcome an intervention from the shadow Secretary of State, who could usefully clarify his position. We would like to know what Labour policy is. I have been to the House, as have my ministerial colleagues, to explain our policy, and we have heard a range of suggestions from the Labour leadership. We heard what Lord Mandelson, in his memoirs, thought that a Labour Government would have done if they had been re-elected:
“I assumed, as the Treasury did, that the outcome would have to include a significant increase in tuition fees. I felt that they would certainly have to double in order to offset the deficit-reduction measures that we too would have implemented had we won the election. The alternative would have been a disastrous contraction of higher education.”
Separately, the leader of the Labour party, the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), said:
“I would not go ahead with the increase they’re going with. I want to have a graduate tax. Why do I want to have a graduate tax? Because I think it’s a fairer way of paying for higher education, because it says the amount you pay is related to the ability to pay”.
We have three options: recognising that fees and loans were the way to help universities out of the fiscal pressures that they faced; having a graduate tax; or having a third policy of no policy whatsoever. Once again, we are having a debate in the House called by the Opposition with no indication whatever of how they would put our universities on a solid financial footing. Governments across Europe are battling to tackle their deficits, and it is important that we hear from Labour what it would do. Instead, what we have in the motion, alongside the promises on NEETs and apprenticeships, and quotes on student places, is a reference to the £2 billion tax on bankers’ bonuses, which will pay for those policies. Let me tell the shadow Secretary of State that that tax is already paying for reversing the consumer prices index-retail prices index switch for benefits and pensions; for jobs and growth spending, which adds up to £9.5 billion; to support the cancellation of the fuel duty escalator, worth £1.7 billion; to enable the Opposition to reverse the child benefit freeze, which costs £1.3 billion; to reverse the time-limited employment and support allowance, costing £1.1 million; to enable them to reverse the working tax credit freeze for £1 billion; and to reduce the age-related payment every year, costing another £600 million. In fact, we estimate that in total, the £2 billion that the Opposition will raise from a bankers’ bonus tax will pay for £27 billion-worth of public spending increases and other tax cuts.
The right hon. Gentleman has put his bid in and it is on the list. If wants to be taken seriously as a member of Government he has to tell us how he would make the figures add up. He does not rise to that challenge. We are rising to the challenge of sorting out the mess in the nation’s finances that we inherited from the Labour Government, and we are addressing that challenge while, at the same time, doing absolutely everything that we can to ensure high-quality education and training opportunities for young people—and we are proud of the commitment that we are displaying to them.
Higher Education Fees
Debate between Lord Willetts and Geraint Davies(13 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Willetts
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will explain how, under the English system, more Scottish students study at English universities than English students study at Scottish universities. We know how to invest in high quality universities for the future, in the best interests of English students and the nation.
We have increased the repayment threshold and the value of the maintenance grant and, of course, we have offered a far better deal for part-time students than is currently available to them. In future, part-time students will be eligible for fee loans, which they do not currently receive.