Higher Education Fees

Pat Glass Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

I know that many hon. Members wish to speak, so I shall be brief and focus on what is, in a sense, a niche issue: the impact on students who want to pursue longer, more prestigious and therefore often more expensive courses. A rise in tuition fees will have an adverse effect on all students of all disciplines, but those who wish to pursue longer courses, including architecture, veterinary science, medicine and dentistry, will be particularly affected.

[Jake Berry]

I wonder whether the hon. Lady would agree with my constituent Anna, who is protesting here today. She told me that her greatest fear was that universities were not prepared to offer shorter courses. She was given only six hours of lectures a week, and had asked to increase that to 12 to complete a degree in two years. Does the hon. Lady think that it would be possible for those taking longer courses to attend more lectures, thus compressing the time?

[Pat Glass]

I am sure that in an ideal world that would be fabulous, but we do not live in an ideal world. An architectural course can take between seven and eight years to complete, depending on the placement element of the course. A student taking such a course at one of the Russell group universities could end up with a debt of £100,000. That is the size of some mortgages, especially in a constituency such as mine. It is terrifying for most people, but it is absolutely terrifying for an 18-year-old student from a constituency, or a background, where no one else has ever gone to university.

The location of medical schools and universities delivering longer courses means that for many living at home is not an option. The intensity of their courses often rules out part-time work, which exacerbates the potential debt problem for those students. For those who want to enter one of the more prestigious professions, there is often no route of entry other than to study at university. Young people whose families cannot afford to pay their fees for them, or who live in communities where going to university is not commonplace, are being put off going to university.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

Yesterday I met Liam Cunningham and Joe Short at an event in Maghull in my constituency, and they made a similar point to me. They said that what they and their friends are most concerned about is the prospect of starting their working lives saddled with tens of thousands of pounds of debt. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is one of the fundamental problems with what the Secretary of State has announced?

[Pat Glass]

Yes, I agree. It goes further than that, however. Professions such as medicine, dentistry, law and architecture should be representative of the society they serve, but despite all the efforts to achieve that, they remain largely populated by people from higher-income families. The Secretary of State comes to the Chamber and lectures us, saying it is unacceptable that only 46 young people on free school meals went to Oxbridge last year. I agree that that is unacceptable, but I do not think even the Secretary of State, operating out of his ivory tower on the top floor of Sanctuary Buildings, can possibly believe these proposals will improve that. Evidence from the Secretary of State’s own Department clearly shows that students from lower socio-economic backgrounds are more debt-averse than others. These proposals are highly damaging, and will result in fewer, not more, young people on free school meals and on low incomes getting to university, let alone Oxbridge.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

I thank my very good hon. Friend for giving way. Social mobility is an important issue, because it is not just about tuition fees. The coalition Government have cut child trust funds, child benefit for some, school sport partnerships funds, Building Schools for the Future, education maintenance allowance awards and the future jobs fund. They are also scrapping Aimhigher and are now trebling tuition fees. What have they got against children and young people?

--- Later in debate ---

[Pat Glass]

Several Government Members have asked why non-graduates should pay for graduates. If we take that to its logical conclusion, we would also ask why couples who have no children should pay for the education of those who have children, or why the healthy should pay for the NHS to care for the sick. That is where that argument would take us.

The Government are creating a society in which access to university will return to being for those who can afford it, rather than those who deserve it. Talent will be ignored and un-nurtured, and ultimately we will all pay the price as our economy fails to keep pace with those of our competitors. This is not simply a moral argument, therefore; there are also strong economic arguments against the proposals.

I have said a number of times in the House that more people in this country are aged over 65 than under 16. That skewed profile will increase, so we will need a better educated and more highly skilled work force in the future. These proposals would give us the opposite, however; they would simply waste our seed corn for the future.

Finally, I want to talk briefly about the young people themselves. I regularly meet a group of young people who come from the schools councils of all the secondary schools in my constituency. When I met them two weeks ago I expected anger, but I was surprised at the depth of their anger. It was not just about tuition fees; it was about EMAs too. Not a single one of them was in receipt of an EMA, but they were angry about what it was going to do to their peers and their sixth forms. They asked me to give a message to the coalition Government. They feel particularly let down by the Liberal Democrats—they feel they have been callously and cynically misled by them—but their feelings about the Tories were more straightforward. They told me to pass on the message that this was the same old Tories and the same old cuts, and that they were not to be trusted with our public services or our futures.