Dan Byles
Main Page: Dan Byles (Conservative - North Warwickshire)(13 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham) on an excellent speech, in contrast to what we have just heard from the hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Mr Evennett).
May I bring the House back to the reasons why we changed the funding system for higher education in 1997-98? As my right hon. Friend said, there had been a 36% drop in funding per student over the previous eight years. There had also been an eight-year cap on the expansion of higher education, denying literally millions of young people the opportunity of higher education over that decade. We introduced a new system that almost immediately raised £1 billion—that was not instead of the resources that were already going in, but in addition to those—so that tens of thousands and then hundreds of thousands of young people with the qualifications to be able to enter higher education were able to do so. We introduced a contingent repayment system for the flat-rate loan for maintenance. We introduced a system of bursaries for maintenance called “opportunity bursaries” and a system in relation to the new fees that were being charged. It resulted not in 18,000 young people being exempt from the fee for one year or a maximum of two years, but in more than 40% of all young undergraduates being exempt from the fee and a further 30% having the fee in partial remittance. In other words, this was contingent on the income of the family, it took into account the ability to pay and it introduced a much fairer repayment system. All of it was designed to expand opportunity, to develop courses within the universities and, as my right hon. Friend said, to provide the opportunity to make our country the second destination in the world for students across the globe.
I wish briefly to deal with social mobility. I know more about social mobility than most, because my whole life has been an example of it, from when I was on day release and attending evening classes to when I took the opportunity to get to university as a mature student. I am telling this House and, in particular, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg)— if he were here—that he knows nothing about social mobility. The Government are removing the education maintenance allowance from constituencies such as mine, which ranks third lowest in Britain on past access to higher education; removing the child trust fund, which would have given young people a nest egg at the age of 18 and provided them with the incentive to go on and the funds to be able to repay loans; removing the Aimhigher scheme; and rolling in the so-called pupil premium by cutting 2.25% from the schools budget and then giving it back in something that is a sop to the Liberal Democrats, but which will actually be perverse in its impact across the country. Introducing a £9,000 a year fee on top of cuts in youth and careers services across the country is a deliberate, consistent and unfair attack on young people in our country and their future. That is why it should be rejected. It is not fair to young people and their families, it is not fair to universities, and it is not fair to our country and the future of Britain in a knowledge economy.
But this proposal is not necessary either because, as my right hon. Friend mentioned and as is clearly spelt out by the Office for Budget Responsibility, the borrowing that will be required to fund the loans in the first place will actually outstrip any gain that might have been made. Borrowing of £4.1 billion this year will increase to £10.7 billion in 2015-16, so far from helping us to tackle the deficit this adds to it. In other words, we are making the deficit worse in the period when we are supposed to be reducing it. If the Government are right and the economy recovers—God willing, it will—we will be able to sustain the £3 billion that is being removed from teaching, rather than remove it.
Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)
First, I wish to point out that many Government Members understand social mobility. I am the first member of my family to stay at school beyond 16 and to go to university. What would the right hon. Gentleman say to the low-income non-graduate workers in my constituency who ask me why the lion’s share of the payment for degrees comes from their taxes to enable others to earn more money than they could ever hope to earn? Does he not accept that this is not as clear-cut and black and white as he is saying, and that it involves a very difficult balance between taxpayers and students?
Mr Blunkett
I recall arguing in 1997 that we should ensure that there is a fair balance; I used to use the analogy of those getting up at six in the morning to do a cleaning job. I know slightly more about that than the hon. Gentleman because many of my constituents do exactly that for a living. As my right hon. Friend pointed out, the perverseness of what is being introduced now will discourage people from going into work, from seeking promotion in work and from wanting their children to go to university in the first place.
Mr Blunkett
No, I will not. I pray in aid the Institute for Fiscal Studies, because when it discussed this scheme it said that the system generates perverse incentives. For example, the national scholarship fund provides a financial incentive for universities to reject students when they charge more than £6,000. In other words, the higher-level universities will end up rejecting students from poorer backgrounds—the exact opposite of what has been argued this afternoon. The position is very clear: the scheme is designed to change the architecture of higher education in this country. It is ideologically based, not logically based—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I apologise for interrupting the right hon. Gentleman. Stop the clock. Point of order, Mr Dan Byles.
Dan Byles
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Is it in order for the right hon. Gentleman to make such a personal remark, suggesting that I might not understand how difficult it is to get up early to go to work? When I was a soldier, I used to get up considerably before 6 am to serve my country.
Mr Speaker
The hon. Gentleman must resume his seat. The short answer to his question is, yes, it is a matter of debate and, however irritated he might feel, that was not a point of order. We must conduct the debate in an orderly way.
Mr Willetts
My hon. Friend is right. We have improved on the policies that we inherited from the previous Government. They had a threshold of £15,000 and we are increasing that to £21,000, which is why the poorest quarter of graduates will be better off under our proposals than on the scheme we inherited.
Mr Willetts
Absolutely right. Lord Browne produced an excellent report. There is a group, “Blairites for Browne”, but of course they fell for that trick once before, so they are a bit wary this time.
The House should recognise that our proposals improve on the inheritance from the Labour Government. We have not only raised the threshold but increased the maintenance support available to students. Indeed, 500,000 students will receive more grant than they currently do.