Higher Education Policy

Debate between John Denham and John Hayes

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

I will not give way again, as time is short.

The previous Government defended both the extra independence variable fees gives institutions and the principle that universities should justify the fees they charge. That is why this debate on the future of higher education is, above all, about three things. First, it is about securing a settlement to fund higher education that is sustainable. The right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) is right: the deficit was not the context when Browne began, but it certainly was the context when Browne reported. The previous Government recognised that we had strategically to rethink university funding to give them sufficient funds to compete with the best. That was acknowledged by the right hon. Gentleman when was the Minister and it is acknowledged by Conservative Members.

I think it would serve the Labour party if that was acknowledged once again. It was hesitatingly and falteringly acknowledged by the shadow Secretary of State, but he has to answer this question: if the reduction in BIS spending on higher education had been of the order he suggested—around 8% to 10%—where would the cuts have fallen? Would basic skills have taken the hit; would it have been adult and community learning; would it have been apprenticeships; or would it have been further education? Let us face it, we cannot have it all ways—yet too often the shadow Secretary of State tries to do just that.

[Mr Denham]

The answer is, of course, that the BIS team, including the hon. Gentleman, conceded this huge cut in higher education and offered it up to the Treasury. It is not a matter of choosing one cut or another. A BIS team of any credibility or influence would simply have said that an 80% cut in higher education teaching is unsustainable, unnecessary and unfair. It is the failure of the ministerial team to deliver that is at the centre of this debate.

[Mr Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman’s predecessor, the noble Lord Mandelson, was first to the table when it came to volunteering to cut in his Departments. He took more hits when he was in BIS than any other Secretary of State. It is not credible for the right hon. Gentleman to claim that, had Labour been elected, it would not have faced exactly the same challenges or, indeed, not have employed exactly the same approach to deal with them.

The second big issue is whether this system is progressive. The right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) made the point very clearly: there are no up-front fees; no repayments until someone is earning £21,000; and debts are written off after 30 years. This is a more progressive, fairer system than the one we inherited. Frankly, no one can honestly deny that. Indeed, it has not been denied, even by Labour Members. A graduate on a starting salary of £25,000 will repay around £30 a month under the new system and we know that graduates typically earn about £100,000 more than non-graduates over an earning lifetime.

The third key point is access. No one is a greater champion of widening access to higher education than I am—with the possible exceptions of my right hon. Friends the Minister for Universities and Science and the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. Widening access, however, is not just about fees. It is about the patterns and rhythms of higher education study matching the patterns and rhythms of more kinds of lives. That is why the changes to part-time provision are so important and why the White Paper—for the record, it was published in June—explains how we will look to provide more higher education in further education colleges, look at more modular courses, more distance learning and more part-time provision. That is exactly the way to get more under-represented groups into higher education.

Today, we have heard from the Opposition a critique of a policy that is very close to what they might well have had to adopt in similar circumstances had they been in government. What we have not heard, however, is their alternative. I believe it ill befits an Opposition to table a motion when they have no real alternatives—

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Denham and John Hayes

Thursday 17th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

We can learn a lot from the example of other countries. Germany is often held up as a shining example of apprenticeships, and France has also made immense progress with apprenticeships over the last quarter of a century. I hear what the hon. Gentleman says about the link to local businesses and chambers of commerce and, as ever, he makes a thoughtful contribution to our affairs. I will certainly take another look at the issue to see what can be done to borrow that kind of good practice.

[Mr John Denham (Southampton, Itchen) (Lab)]

Yesterday, I met a number of apprentices at the excellent Fosters bakery in Barnsley, and we welcome any moves to build on Labour’s record, which rescued apprenticeships from 65,000 starts in 1997 to 279,000 last year. Will the Minister confirm four simple facts? Will he confirm that, at a time of rising youth unemployment, this Government have dropped Labour’s guarantee of an apprenticeship for every young person who wants one? Will he confirm that, at a time of rising adult unemployment, this Government plan to cut the total number of adults who get publicly funded training by 500,000 a year? Will he confirm that his Government have dropped Labour’s policy of saying that those who get public money for social housing must provide construction apprenticeships? And will he confirm that he now plans to make adult apprentices pay between £5,000 and £9,000 for the right to do an apprenticeship?

[Mr Hayes]

Trying to deal with four questions is a bit like being at the Woolworth’s pick ’n mix. I will deal with the first one only. The apprenticeship offer that we are enshrining in law means very plainly that everyone who secures an apprenticeship place will be funded—not the permissive, meaningless offer that prevailed under the last Government. The right hon. Gentleman should know better.

[Mr Denham]

I am very sorry, but what the Minister has said is not true. If he says that every apprenticeship place will be funded, will he confirm that for adult apprenticeships—those aged over 24—they, not the Government, will have to pay the cost of their training? Is that not the truth about this world? On the one hand, those who have little money are asked to pay for the cost of their own training, while, as the Daily Mail put it, at the “black and white” party the Tory party—fundraisers, millionaire Tory supporters—paid £3,000 to buy internships at top finance companies. The Minister has one world for himself and his friends and for those families who can pay, and a completely different world for others.

[Mr Hayes]

On the night of the “black and white” party, I was at my desk working, actually, and then I had a half of mild at a working men’s club.

The truth is that, in a very tough spending round, we guaranteed funding for young people, boosted funding for 16 to 18-year-olds and boosted funding for adult apprenticeships, and we are seeing real growth. The right hon. Gentleman is right: people over 24 will borrow to invest in their future, but my goodness, the repayments are income-contingent, there are no up-front payments and, as he knows, it is real value for money.