Higher Education Funding

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Willetts]

It is very important that our internationally competitive universities are able to compete with the best in the world. That is why we understand their arguments about the need to recruit and retain staff of the highest quality. My hon. Friend is absolutely right about information, advice and guidance and I know that the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning is working very hard in the Departments for Business, Innovation and Skills and for Education to ensure that we have a significant improvement in those areas. The destruction of the professional careers advice function under the previous Government has been a disaster for social mobility.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

A couple of months ago, the Minister published a book about the unfair advantages that the baby boomers had. Will he explain why he has now come to the House with a proposal that will burden the next generation instead of following the example of my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas) in placing the burden, through our taxes, on those of us who had such an excellent free education?

[Mr Willetts]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for the plug for my book—that was very good of her. It is available in all good bookshops. I do not accept the way that she characterises our policies, which will offer a better deal for students because universities will have to focus on the quality of the teaching experience they offer. Graduates, not students, will have to pay the costs only when they are earning £21,000 or more, which is close to median earnings.