Higher Education Fees

Owen Smith Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Thomas]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that question, because I was about to say that the first myth that Government Members have peddled is that the Government have no choice in this matter because of the economic situation. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham) pointed out in his speech, even within the terms of their reckless approach to reducing the deficit, the Government could have proposed a fee increase of hundreds of pounds, not thousands of pounds.

[Owen Smith]

rose—

[Dr Creasy]

rose—