Guto Bebb
Main Page: Guto Bebb (Independent - Aberconwy)(13 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Dr Lewis
I am certainly not going down the road of turning this into a debate about the affairs of my birthplace, except in so far as it brings me on quite nicely to why I take such a strong stance.
If I have any reputation at all, it is as something of an expert, but in one, rather narrow field—defence and security. I claim no expertise at all in matters of education policy or financing. However, I do claim experience in the matter that we are talking about today. It may be worth people knowing that every hon. Member gets about 15 seconds of fame—if not 15 minutes—when, eventually, The House magazine comes to him or her and invites them to take part in the production of a profile of their past and their value system. I want to go back to that one occasion, in January 2001, when I was asked to supply my profile. I said:
“I grew up in Swansea and went to the same state grammar school as my father, Sam. The difference was that he had to leave at 14 to help his father as a tailor. He used to tell me,”
when I asked him, that I did not need to know about tailoring, because
“he would be the last of the tailors in my family,”
as now there was a system of students grants. I continued:
“He is an exceptionally intelligent man who would undoubtedly have succeeded at university if he had been able to complete his education in the late 1920s,”
in the same grammar school that I went to.
“The university grant system gave me my opportunity, and I never approved of the changeover to top-up loans—let alone for tuition fees.”
I have been listening to some of the arguments—we are beginning to go round and round the same track—but I was particularly struck by the elegant process of ratiocination by my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles). He was able to make a convincing case that the more we charge people to go to university, the more people will go and the more poorer people will go. In that case, I am tempted to vote against the Government on the grounds that they are not charging enough. Perhaps we should charge quadruple fees, quintuple fees or even sextuple fees, to ensure that the entire population of the country can go to university.
I am worried about the prospects for my party. I remember an earlier time when we thought we had a good policy. In fact, I worked with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and one of his most effective speech writers—a very good young man called Peter Campbell—on trying to sell the poll tax to the people. There were all sorts of elegant arguments to show that the poll tax was actually the best and the fairest policy. Well, even if we have a policy that we genuinely think is fair, unless we can convince people that it truly is a fair policy, it will fail and be rejected. I can hear people talk about percentages until they are blue in the face—or yellow in the face—but they will not convince me that young people from poor backgrounds will not be deterred. If they would not be deterred, why was it necessary to introduce the special measures for those who have free school meals? I would have been deterred, and I do not want others to be deterred.
Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)
I have listened to this debate with great attention, and I was struck by the comments of the hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), who said that there is an issue of principle at stake. I was confused by that comment. What did the hon. Lady mean? The concept of free higher education has been lost as a result of previous Labour Governments’ actions, so that issue of principle was lost under them. Another principle that we have heard much about from Opposition Members is the need for the general taxpayer to pay for the education of all higher education students, but the graduate tax proposed by some Opposition Members would mean that some people would pay and some would not.
Claire Perry
May I point out that with a graduate tax, the money would flow directly to the Treasury? We know that Labour Members like it when money flows into the Treasury to be doled out, but is not our principle much better for universities?
Guto Bebb
I am afraid that I cannot take any more interventions because of the time.
We are talking about creating a system that will allow greater access, be more affordable and, in my view, ensure that higher education is properly funded.
Let me address the issue of better access. I am proud to be a graduate of Aberystwyth university, and when I graduated 20 years ago, the university had 2,700 undergraduates, whereas the current figure is almost 10,000. That increase is most welcome; I think both sides of the House welcome the fact that more young people have opportunities in education. However, those opportunities come at a cost and the Labour party continually allowed a situation to develop in which more and more people were going to university but sufficient funding provision was not put in place.
Guto Bebb
No, I will not.
It is important to point out that access comes with a cost. The coalition Government are trying to introduce a system that will ensure that fair and reasonable access to further education continues. Access has been discussed at length. I particularly welcome the fact that we are doing so much to ensure that there is fair support for people who study part-time. I have mature-student and single-parent constituents who want to move into further education, and they will be supported as a result of these decisions.
Guto Bebb
I will respond to the heckling in a minute, but I am quite confident that better access will be delivered as a result of these measures.
Affordability was discussed at great length by my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), who made an impressive speech. The cost of tuition fees might seem very daunting to some, and I am sure that many students will be daunted by the prospect of having debts of £20,000 or £30,000, but we need to consider this issue in the round. The other day, I had an e-mail from a parent asking whether their child, who hoped to become a teacher, would end up having to pay those astronomical fees. My response was clear: on a teacher’s starting salary of £20,500, that person would not pay those fees, because we are raising the threshold.
Guto Bebb
I will come back to that point about Wales.
The average salary in a constituency such as mine is £25,000 a year. Someone on such a salary would make repayments of about £360 a year. Dare I say that many people from north Wales will spend £360 on a weekend in Cardiff for a rugby international? Let us consider the option of spending £360 on a rugby weekend or £360 a year for an education: I think the choice is fairly clear.
Opposition Members have been heckling me about Wales. Yes, I stand here as a Welsh MP and I am embarrassed by the public relations stunt of the Welsh Assembly Government. I am embarrassed by the fact that they are willing to raid the education budget to pay for a policy to take them through to the next Assembly election. I am embarrassed that, increasingly, the Welsh education system will not be able to deliver a quality education and that as a result more and more Welsh students will choose to study in England, leaving less money for the Welsh system. I support the measures because they will improve access, increase affordability and ensure proper funding for the higher education system in this country.