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New clause 17
Review Committee, Scotland
.--(1) A Review Committee on the operation and effect of the workings of the student loan scheme in Scotland shall be established by the Secretary of State for Scotland.
(2) The Committee shall be appointed by the Secretary of State for Scotland and be composed of not fewer than 15 and not more than 21 members--
(a) of whom not more than 10 and not fewer than 7 shall be appointed by the Secretary of State for Scotland to represent vice-chancellors of Scottish universities, college principals and directors of centrally funded institutions, Scottish local and regional authorities, directors of education in Scotland, Scottish students and employers ;
(b) other persons who shall provide a majority on the Committee of not more than one person.
(3) The Secretary of State for Scotland shall make available to the Committee such information as it deems necessary for the discharge of its duties.
(4) The Committee shall make annual reports on the progress of the student loans scheme in Scotland, including its effects on four-year undergraduate courses, and may make such other reports as it considers necessary.
(5) Any report under section (4) above shall be laid before both Houses of Parliament.'.
Amendment No. 13, in clause 1, page 2, line 18, at end insert :--
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.--( ) Before making regulations under Schedule 2 to this Act shall consult representatives of vice-chancellors, polytechnic directors students, local authority associations, college directors, teaching staff, and any other bodies or individuals he considers relevant.'. Amendment No. 1, in schedule 2, page 3, line 40, at end insert- - (2) No regulations shall be made under paragraph (1) above until the Student Loans Advisory Committee has considered a draft of such regulations, and has reported its opinions to the Secretary of State and to Parliament upon the general effect of the regulations, in particular on--(a) whether hardship has been caused by the loss of housing benefit income support : and
(b) the effect on disabled students.'.
Mr. Allan Stewart (Eastwood) : On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I refer to "Erskine May", page 458, with regard to the new clauses and amendments that we are about to discuss. I submit that the House may have a unique procedural difficulty. The Report stage of a Bill is conducted on the basis that what is said in Committee remains valid. My point of order concerns the position in which important pledges are given in Committee in perfectly good faith and are subsequently invalidated, but where the selection appears to give no opportunity for hon. Members to remain in order and correct these assurances at Report stage except, I submit, on a point of order. Although I recognise that the substance is not a matter for you, Mr. Speaker, I refer specifically to the assurances that were given by Opposition Front-Bench Members. To give just one example, the hon. Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Smith) said that my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, South (Mr. Bruce)--
Mr. Speaker : Order. What is the point of order for me? I cannot be held responsible for assurances given by Opposition Front-Bench Members. I have been very liberal in my selection of amendments this afternoon.
Mr. Stewart : I am not, of course, criticising your selection of amendments, Mr. Speaker. My point is that pledges were honourably given in Committee by Opposition Front-Bench Members and they have subsequently been invalidated. I do not see how those on the Opposition Front Bench can correct the position unless they either--
Mr. Speaker : Order. This is a Government Bill and any pledges given by the Opposition are not material. They are a matter for argument in the course of the discussions.
Mr. Harry Barnes (Derbyshire, North-East) : On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I seek your advice. I feel aggrieved about the publication of a leaflet, and I have raised the matter twice in the Chamber. What would be the proper procedure for me to follow to challenge the details in the leaflet?
Mr. Speaker : The hon. Gentleman knows that it has never been the practice of the Chair to give tactical procedural advice. I am sure that many of his hon. Friends who are sitting near him can do that far more ably than I could.
4.40 pm
Mr. Jack Straw (Blackburn) : I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart) on placing more weight on Opposition
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undertakings than on Government undertakings. He is entirely right to do so. New clause 2 would establish a student loans scheme advisory committee to give overall advice on the nature and administration of the student loans scheme. New clause 17 would establish a student loans scheme review committee for Scotland. The other amendments are subsidiary to those main purposes.The need for continuing advice about the loans scheme to the Secretary of State and for its continual review has never been clearer. The scheme was bad when it left the Floor of the House on 5 December, but after two months in Committee it has emerged much worse. The scheme has far fewer friends even than on 5 December. Since then, the banks have abandoned their involvement--which was central to the scheme's administration--as the now benighted Mr. John Quinton made clear in his note to his colleagues. He circulated it on the day when the Secretary of State told him that the Prime Minister was "fizzing with fury" about the banks' abandonment of the scheme. The scheme is even more expensive than we expected. The Government have ebbed and flowed in their claims. They have said both that the burden on the taxpayer should be reduced by the introduction of a loan scheme and that they are being exceptionally generous to the students with taxpayers' money. After our interrogation of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science, the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr. Jackson), it emerged that the scheme will waste at least £2 billion between now and 2010. The money will disappear into a vast black hole of administrative expenses, defaults and deferrals. It is money that could and should have been targeted on students who are most in need and on the expansion of higher education.
I learnt today, in a letter from the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, that his estimate of at least £2 billion does not take account of the significant, but as yet unquantifiable, cost of the interest rate subsidy which is also involved in the scheme. I said to the Parliamentary Under- Secretary in Committee that the interest subsidy should be costed and he replied that it would be "hypothetical" to do so. I understand that future predictions are hypotheses, but we need to have written into the arrangements for the scheme accounting conventions that require the cost of the money on which the Student Loans Company will be lending to be brought into the account books of the student loans company. Were it a nationalised industry, that would be the case. A nationalised industry would not borrow money from the Government at nil cost ; it would have to pay interest on it, just as British Rail will pay a full rate of interest on the extra £220 million which the Government will generously give it, as the Minister for Public Transport announced last night.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Robert Jackson) : I know that the Opposition's policy ito take away the student loan and not to replace it, thereby reducing the resources available to students. Is the hon. Gentleman compounding that meanness by suggesting that it is too expensive to offer an interest rate subsidy?
Mr. Straw : As the Parliamentary Under-Secretary knows well, I suggest that we should follow proper
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accounting conventions so that we know the full cost of the scheme which, as the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Nelson), supported by many of his hon. Friends, so eloquently declared on 20 October in this House, involves a transfer of resources from students who most need the resources to those who need them least. The Government have a history, as we find from "Social Trends", published this morning, and from other figures which they refuse to publish, of making poor families and people poorer and of transferring money from those groups and from middle-income families to the best-off in our society. There never was £2 billion for the poorest families, but the Government have been able to find £2 billion for the richest families, and for the moneylenders and administrators of the scheme. 4.45 pmMr. Martin Flannery (Sheffield, Hillsborough) : I was considering what the Parliamentary Under-Secretary said. We made the point to him many times in Committee that he is giving the impression that the Government are like a charitable institution because they are giving a lot of money to the students. In fact, the Government's aim is to give only half as much to the students ultimately and to leave them in dire debt at the end. That is what the scheme really involves.
Mr. Straw : My hon. Friend is right, except that he is being characteristically over-generous to the Government. What is clear from the weasel words of Ministers is that they do not intend to stop at 50-50. They intend--they have never denied this or committed themselves to stop at 50- 50--the full replacement of the grant system by loans. Does the Secretary of State want to deny that?
Mr. James Pawsey (Rugby and Kenilworth) rose--
Mr. Straw : The hon. Gentleman may feel that he should be promoted, but he is not yet the Secretary of State. If the Secretary of State wants to deny what the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State has made clear in Committee, I shall be happy to give way now or at any stage during my speech. Everyone should be clear that the Government's intention is to replace the whole of the student grant system by loans.
Mr. Allan Stewart rose
Mr. Pawsey rose
Mr. Straw : I shall give way in a moment.
The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. John MacGregor) : I do not want to intervene too often as I shall have anopportunity to speak later. However, I must nail that comment. The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that what he said is not true. We have made it clear on many occasions that the student grant scheme for maintenance support will continue.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean) : Order. I realise that the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) is still on his preamble, but I am sure that he will now rapidly come to the new clauses and the amendments.
Mr. Straw : I am dealing with the central case for the need for advice to be given to the Secretary of State. If, as we suspect--the Secretary of State did not deny it, although he made an intervention just now--the Government's intention is to continue to replace grants by
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loans until there are no grants and all loans, that should be considered by--[ Hon. Members :--"No."] The Secretary of State must talk to the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State. In Committee--we can easily turn up the record--we asked the Parliamentary Under-Secretary whether he would commit himself categorically to ensuring that once the 50-50 position was reached, that would be the end and the Government would not thereafter reduce the grant and increase the loan. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary was clear about that and said that he would not give such an undertaking. The Opposition understand that there is no identity of policy between the Parliamentary Under-Secretary and the Secretary of State. This is not the first time that it has happened. I shall give way to whichever one of them wants to offer me any truth on the matter.Mr. MacGregor : I am intervening for the simple reason that the hon. Gentleman keeps getting it wrong. The position is quite clear. We are uprating the grant for next year, as already announced. The grant will then remain frozen and the loan will take over from that part of the grant. There is no intention to remove the grant, and we have made it clear on many occasions that the grant will continue. It is not being abolished and I do not know how many times I have to say that to the hon. Gentleman. He is trying to make a point about the position in the year 2000 and something, when probably neither my hon. Friend nor I will be here. Our position is utterly clear-- [Interruption.] I was making a point to demonstrate what a ridiculous charge the hon. Gentleman was making. I will not be here then ; it is a long way away. We have made our position absolutely clear : the grant for student support continues. I do not know how many times I have to say it.
Mr. Straw : I understand exactly what the Secretary of State is saying. It is an important issue. There will come a point where the cash value of the grant equals the cash value of the loan. Our point to the Under-Secretary of State, which he dodged, is that although that may not happen for a long time, we want to know the Government's intentions. When that point is reached at, say, £2,500, would a Conservative Administration, if still in power, replace the grant by a loan? That was the matter on which the Minister refused to give any undertaking.
The fact that the Secretary of State has admitted that half the real value of the grant will be replaced by a loan illustrates the complete deception of the leaflet to which my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, North- East (Mr. Barnes) referred. The leaflet, a piece of Conservative party propaganda paid for by the taxpayer, makes it clear that these are top-up loans, not replacement loans. The Secretary of State is an intelligent man. He must know that that is a piece of deceit because at least half the grant will be replaced by a loan.
I have already said that there are far fewer friends for the scheme now than when we debated it on the Floor of the House on 5 December. The scheme is more expensive. It will penalise significant groups of students, prospective students and graduates. It will penalise those on longer courses, particularly in Scotland. It will penalise medical students and prospective teachers. It will unquestionably harm the access of students or potential students from low-income homes.
Mr. John Maples (Lewisham, West) : I understand that a future Labour Government would double the number of
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students, reduce the parental contribution and restore the grant to its real 1979 level. Can the hon. Gentleman say whether his party is committed to spending the necessary public money to achieve that?Mr. Straw : The hon. Gentleman should do his homework on our policy rather than making it up as he speaks. I will send him the holy text to study, and in it he will find the answer. Because we will not be wasting money on a loans scheme, there will be cash to pay for the expansion that we believe is necessary in higher education. There is not the cash to pay for the Government's proposed expansion. That is why in Committee the Under -Secretary of State abandoned the solemn pledge of the previous Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Mole Valley (Mr. Baker), to double the proportions over 25 years. That, too, was torn up by the Minister.
Because the loans scheme has been shown to be so deficient, the Government are becoming less and less popular, as they are in respect of their education policies generally. The poll in The Guardian this morning shows that not only is there a good lead for the Labour party overall but there is a magnificent lead for Labour's education policy, and education is becoming more and more a salient issue.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman again, but I must ask the Front Bench speakers to help the Chair to keep the debate on the rails. The hon. Gentleman has had a good run on his preamble. I am sure that he will now direct his remarks to the new clauses and amendments.
Mr. Straw : Indeed, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was merely going to extend our gratitude to the Under-Secretary of State because every time he opens his mouth he adds another 0.5 per cent. to Labour's lead on education policies.
The Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary of State have made some very grand claims for the merits of the loans scheme--the Under-Secretary of State with more conviction than the Secretary of State. I learnt only recently that, on coming into office, the Secretary of State, who is an intelligent man, examined the scheme in great detail and decided that it should not go ahead because it was a bucket of rubbish. He tried to secure the agreement of the Prime Minister to abandoning the scheme but failed. The fact that the Secretary of State has distanced himself from the scheme throughout and refused to take part in the Standing Committee shows the truth of that.
Mr. MacGregor : May I tell the hon. Gentleman for the second time that he has got it completely wrong? There is no truth whatever in what he said about my view when I took office. I examined the scheme to make sure that the details were, as I thought, right. I have examined them subsequently to make sure that all the details are right. But I never made any suggestion of the sort that the hon. Gentleman alleged. I hope, therefore, that he will withdraw that remark.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. I am looking forward fervently to the time when we reach the new clauses.
Mr. Straw : Indeed, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Who is right will emerge when the Cabinet papers and other documents are published in 30 years' time. I suspect that the Secretary
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of State's examination of the details of the scheme was more thorough than he suggests. I know that to have been the case. As to the virtue of the new clause, it is about establishing an advisory committee to advise the Secretary of State on the merits of the scheme. Had the advisory committee been in place when the Secretary of State was examining the details, he would have been left in no doubt that the scheme should be abandoned.Mr. Pawsey rose --
Mr. Straw : I will not give way because I want to bring my remarks to a close.
We need a continuing examination of the financial implications of the scheme, of its effects on access and of the effect of the withdrawal of social security, which I understand the Secretary of State for Social Services will announce on Monday--after, rather than before, the Bill has been considered in the House. If that is the case, it is reprehensible of the Secretary of State for Education to be party to a decision which cuts student income immediately, in some cases by £300 or £400. It is also reprehensible that that social security decision should be announced after the House has completed discussion of the Bill.
The entire scheme will be operated by regulation. The Secretary of State sought to make a virtue of that. When other schemes are run principally by regulation, as in social security, an advisory committee is established to advise the Government, because it is rightly thought that proposals of such significance in secondary legislation should be scrutinised by a relatively independent committee. That is the principal purpose of the new clause and the similar new clause in respect of Scotland.
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman (Lancester) rose --
Mr. Straw : I am just drawing my remarks to a close.
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman : The hon. Gentleman has said absolutely nothing so far.
Mr. Straw : I am sorry that the hon. Lady does not like my speech. I have never made a speech here which she has applauded.
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman : The point is that the hon. Gentleman is talking hot air.
Mr. Straw : I do not want to be interrupted any more by the hon. Lady, or I shall never finish my remarks.
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman rose --
Mr. Straw : Very well ; I give way to the hon. Lady.
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman : In all the years that I have known the hon. Gentleman he has never drawn attention to the fact that what is proposed is exactly the way in which student grants were introduced in 1962. He has never beefed about it until now.
Mr. Straw : I am not sure what the hon. Lady means.
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman : That is what was proposed in 1962.
Mr. Straw : Ah, that point. The hon. Lady is completely wrong. She is trying to say that there is a parallel between
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this scheme and the Education Act 1962. There is no parallel. I refer the hon. Lady to my speeches on 20 October and 5 December on precisely that point.For good or ill, social security schemes are also run by regulations. There is an advisory committee to deal with the important regulations put forward. There should be an advisory committee on regulations in respect of the student loans scheme, which is equally important.
5 pm
Mr. Allan Stewart : One of the new clauses grouped with new clause 2 refers specifically to Scotland. I note in passing that remarkably few representatives of taxpayers will be members of the review committees proposed by the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw). The House should consider the background to the review committees that would be set up by an incoming Labour Government. The hon. Member for Blackburn did not say much about the merits of the specific committees, but he referred in passing to the essential point about his party's policy on student grants. I refer the House to the pledge given by the hon. Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Smith) in response to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, South (Mr. Bruce). The hon. Member for Oxford, East said on 16 January, and it was repeated many other times :
"The hon. Gentleman is correct in his understanding of our pledge to reinstate grants, to increase them in line with inflation".-- [Official Report, Standing Committee B, 16 January 1990 ; c. 309.] The hon. Gentleman went on to say that grants would be increased over and above inflation, as resources allowed. The key point in that quotation is that that pledge--which has been repeated by the Member for Blackburn--would not necessarily be implemented by an incoming Labour Government. We have that on the record in the House. The pledges to which the hon. Member for Blackburn referred were unequivocally withdrawn by the hon. Member for Derby, South (Mr. Beckett). In the debate on the public expenditure White Paper earlier this week she told the House :
"What we are promising is an increase for pensioners and an increase in child benefit. Everything else that is regarded as a desirable aim is also listed, quite clearly and specifically, as something that we hope to do as resources allow."--[ Official Report, 13 February 1990 ; Vol. 167, c. 179.]
My right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury referred to those remarks later in the debate.
The hon. Member for Oxford, East must either withdraw the specific pledge that he made in Committee--not the pledge about increasing grants, but the pledge to reinstate grants and increase them in line with inflation--or he must repudiate what the hon. Member for Derby, South said. There is no third position that the Opposition can take on what their policy would be if the proposed review committees were set up by an incoming Labour Government.
During this important debate, I hope that the Opposition will tell us whether they withdraw the pledge given in Committee or whether they repudiate what the hon. Member for Derby, South said.
Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow) : The hon. Gentleman was a distinguished and helpful Scottish education Minister and is thoughtful on these matters. What does he say to Sir Ken Fraser, the vice-chancellor of the university of Glasgow, who asks what will happen to the Scottish
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four-year course? As the hon. Gentleman knows so much about this, perhaps he will tell us whether he is happy with the present position.Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. I allowed the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) an extended preamble to his speech. I am doing the same for the hon. Member for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart). I am sure that in response to that he will address his remarks to the new clauses.
Mr. Stewart : I do not want to strain your patience, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I dealt with the points raised by the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) in Committee. A later group of amendments refers specifically to Scotland, and I hope to catch your eye during that debate, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
The Opposition have a clear choice. They must either withdraw the pledges made honourably and honestly to the Committee or repudiate what the hon. Member for Derby, South said in the public expenditure debate in the House earlier this week.
Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark and Bermondsey) : I welcome the opportunity to debate the review provisions of the scheme. Those of us who served on the Committee know that it was an unusual Committee. First, we debated an idea whose time has not yet come. If it has come, the Government have not yet revealed what it is. Secondly, we debated a scheme which changed every time that we thought that we understood how the Government proposed to work it.
When the Committee first sat, we were told that we were about to have a scheme that could be run by the banks. You will remember, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that in the week before Christmas there was a bit of an explosion and the banks disappeared in a puff of smoke. We began the new year with the fall-back position that the universities would administer the scheme. After much encouragement, the Secretary of State wrote to the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals. An extraordinary dialogue took place between the Department of Education and Science and the CVCP, partly by letter and partly in the press, about what scheme was on the table. The Secretary of State argued against a scheme that involved national insurance contributions. I have seen the correspondence about that. The CVCP explained that it had not sought to persuade the Secretary of State to adopt that scheme in the first place.
The student loans scheme has had a pregnancy almost as long as that of the Labour party's policy on local government finance. The scheme has had a pregnancy of years.
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman : Two and a half years.
Mr. Hughes : As the hon. Lady says, it has been two and a half years. We still have no idea who will implement the scheme. In that sense, it is unique.
Mr. MacGregor : I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for enabling me to make the position clear. I hope that my letter to The Times did so. I had received letters from several vice-chancellors, which said that our scheme should reconsider the repayment of loans through national insurance contributions. One academic has advocated such an arrangement. On one occasion I gave nine good reasons to several vice-chancellors why I thought that such a scheme would not make sense. They suggested that it
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would be useful if that analysis could be circulated to all vice-chancellors. The hon. Gentleman was good enough to say that he had seen my letter, so he will know that it contains nine good reasons. That was sent out last Friday. If he reads it, he will see from the opening lines that it was on a completely different matter from what the chairman of the CVCP decided to announce last Friday. In a sense, his public announcement--not a letter to me--crossed in the post with my letter to him. It is obvious from the opening paragraph of my letter that it had nothing to do with what he recommended.Mr. Hughes : I entirely accept that. The Secretary of State will know from my comments in Committee that I, too, do not approve of a national insurance scheme. He argued against it on Second Reading, and the argument has been put forward elsewhere.
As we begin the Report stage, the working of the scheme is not clear. The DES and CVCP disagree. The vice-chancellors have replied to the debate that began before the turn of the year. That debate has been tidied up and everyone is agreed that repayments through national insurance are not on the agenda. The vice-chancellors are still not persuaded that the Government's scheme is right. They argue for a scheme which, collectively, they have decided is better. The first idea of this hardly substantial Bill --a loan scheme--has been rejected by the banks. The second idea--a loans scheme operated by the universities--has not yet been adopted by the universities. The universities and colleges tell the Secretary of State that they have another scheme that they hope to persuade him to accept. It is not altogether surprising that at this stage there should be an attempt to ask for information and for a mechanism for reviewing a scheme that is still a shell and without content because we are taking at least one if not several substantial steps in the dark.
The group of amendments and new clauses contains those tabled by the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) and his hon. Friends to which he addressed himself, after the preamble. However, I wish specifically to address new clause 14, which has been tabled by my hon. Friends and myself. I understand that the proposals have been grouped together because they all relate to consultation. Consultation is not something that has been carried out rigorously by the Government so far, and even if it has been carried out, the Government have certainly not listened when people with an interest have replied.
Mr. Ian Bruce (Dorset, South) : I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will agree that any scheme such as this, which will take many years to come to fruition, needs to be viewed on a long-term basis and in the light of the possibility that in the next decade or so we may have a Labour Government or even a Social and Liberal Democrat Government. Many of the amendments seek to ensure that there is no hardship to students. In the months that we have been in Committee, we have heard that the Labour party is committed to removing the 25 per cent. uplift that the loans give to students. However, we have now discovered that the hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) has taken away the pledge to increase the base grants- -that is, the amount that is below the 25 per cent.--by the rate of inflation. There is, therefore, no pledge from the Labour party to increase the basic grant in line with inflation, and nor is there a pledge to give back
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social security benefits. Before the hon. Gentleman comes to new clause 14, will he address himself to the way in which the Social and Liberal Democrats view Labour's reduction in what the Government are proposing as an uplift in student benefits?Mr. Hughes rose --
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will resist the temptation to say things that would be outside the scope of the new clauses and amendments that we are discussing.
Mr. Hughes : I thought that you might say that, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I shall certainly answer those parts of the hon. Gentleman's question that properly come within the debate. Indeed, he asked some perfectly proper questions and, having served on the Committee, he will remember our debates.
One crucial issue is the cost of the scheme. It is perfectly proper to ask how much public money any Government will put into funding students after 16 or 18. The Government have tried for many years to address that perfectly proper question, which all parties must answer. I am clearly not going to defend the answers given by the Labour party, which by its own admission--the hon. Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Smith) has said this regularly--have always been qualified by that famous phrase, "As and when resources allow"--
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman : Under Labour, they never do.
Mr. Hughes : The hon. Lady says, "Under Labour, they never do", and, indeed, under Labour, they often have not. If income tax is to be kept low, which I understand is a new idea, I am sceptical about whether resources will allow very much very soon.
Mr. Allan Stewart rose --
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