Higher Education Funding Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Alex Burghart
Main Page: Alex Burghart (Conservative - Brentwood and Ongar)Department Debates - View all Alex Burghart's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Higher Education Funding
Alex Burghart Excerpts(6 years, 6 months ago)
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Joseph Johnson
I say to the hon. Lady what I should also have said to my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne): this should best be seen as a graduate contribution, rather than a debt pile. Graduates do not have to repay until they are earning over £25,000, which is a world away from the world of commercial debts, and their debts are written off after 30 years. No commercial loan offers such terms. This is a time-limited and income-linked graduate contribution. We should start to move away from this conception of it as a debt and loan.
Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for reminding the House that we now have record numbers of disadvantaged pupils going to university.
Alex Burghart
Is it not unacceptable that the shadow Education Secretary went on Question Time the other night and claimed the opposite?
Joseph Johnson
I agree with my hon. Friend, and I find it alarming that the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Gordon Marsden) is chuntering away saying, “It’s not true.” It is true. The proportion of people from disadvantage backgrounds now going to university has increased. It is undeniably true. It is in the statistics from the Higher Education Statistics Agency and the Office for Fair Access. The number is 43% higher than it was in 2009-10. A young person is 52% more likely to go to a highly selective university than they were in 2009-10. It is extraordinary that the hon. Gentleman wants to deny it.