Nurses: Tuition Fees

Lord Tugendhat Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I obviously have not been clear enough; I thought that I had. The answer to that is that we are not considering that at the moment.

[Lord Tugendhat (Con)]

My noble friend is explaining the policy very eloquently, but surely he ought to take into account the point raised by my noble friend Lord Forsyth. The problem is that the way the scheme works disincentivises people from entering occupations that are extremely socially desirable and much needed by the country precisely because they are going to be loaded with debt. Although they do not in the end pay it off, it bears very heavily on them during their working lives.

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

The system that we have means that the people who benefit most from higher education are those who pay for their higher education and, in doing so, they subsidise those who go into the professions that my noble friend has mentioned, which are extremely worth while but might not be that well paid.