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cost"; the benefits of the availability of highly skilled, highly trained and well educated people for the labour market are vital if Scotland--indeed, the United Kingdom as a whole--is to compete in the international community.As has already been said, 77 per cent. of Scottish students take courses other than the basic three-year master of arts degree course, and many graduates with an ordinary MA return to university to try to achieve honours. In the 1960s and early 1970s, degree improvement courses were made available to many graduates, who could then return to the university of Strathclyde or Glasgow--or some other institution--to take an honours degree course over a two-year period of part-time study, while continuing in employment.
The four-year course is an important aspect of Scottish education. The Scottish Universities Rectors and Presidents Group has written to all Scottish Members, saying :
"The Government has in particular still not answered the specific problem of Scottish students taking four-year as opposed to three-year courses."
The Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals has said that the Committee stage of the Bill failed to deal with any of its concerns. It is incumbent on the Government to tell us what will happen to students who choose to take a four-year course.
I am fed up with listening to the Secretary of State for Scotland reiterate that "nature, quality and content" are more significant factors in the choice of a course than is its length. The length of a course is an intrinsic consideration. How can the Secretary of State square the circle? The four-year course deserves our continuing support, and I hope that the Secretary of State for Education and Science will give a clear undertaking in this regard.
The demographic trend in Scotland suggests that about 30 per cent. fewer people over 17 are going to apply for higher education. That makes it all the more important for those who do apply to have access to it. My main anxiety has always been that the loans system will reduce access for all kinds of students--mature students, women and ethnic minorities.
The Secretary of State will recall my speaking about my own socio-economic background. My father would not have encouraged me to take on a debt while studying at university : that was part of his philosophy, and it is still part of the philosophy of many other people in the poorer socio-economic sections of society. They will suffer most if the scheme is adopted.
It is clear that all Opposition Members support the new clauses and amendments, and I hope that Conservative Members will join us. The amendments will allow us to review the effect of the proposals annually, and, we hope, to remedy the problems.
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman : I have always been a strong supporter of the concept of student top-up loans, as I have told the president of the National Union of Students, her predecessor and all my students at successive court meetings in Lancaster, year after year. I said the same at my eve-of-poll meeting in Lancaster university at the time of the last election.
There is, however, a fly in the ointment--only a small fly, but it should be dealt with. The Bill provides for three access funds. I think that a fourth should be established for disabled students. That may prove technically difficult, but, difficult or not, it should be done. Disabled people do not have an easy life.
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Mrs. Rosie Barnes (Greenwich) : I support the new clauses and amendments that propose the establishment of an advisory committee on student loans which the Secretary of State must consult and to which he must report about the progress of the scheme before and after its implementation.
It is clear--not only from today's debate, but from the debate that has been raging in the press--that the matter has not been finally resolved. Surely it is in everyone's interests to establish a proper vehicle for dignified discussion and the refinement of the scheme to make it work as well as possible. Many of us fear that at present we have the worst of all possible worlds : the proposed system is complicated, messy and obscure, and we believe that it will prove cumbersome, unresponsive and very expensive.
We have been assured repeatedly that our fears are groundless. An advisory committee would be the right mechanism for monitoring developments : it could emerge with factual information, making it clear to Opposition Members--and some Conservatives--either that their fears are indeed groundless, or that severe problems exist. Many aspects of current student financial provision leave considerable room for improvement, and the Bill does not begin to deal with some of them. The question of parental contribution has long been acknowledged as a source of great aggravation-- not least because as many as 40 per cent. of students do not receive the full amount from their parents, but also because students aged 18 and over find themselves in a position of dependency that is not in keeping with their years and with the maturity expected of them. One of our main anxieties is that the scheme will not only fail to attract more students to higher education, but actually deter them. The Secretary of State would have nothing to fear from an advisory committee, which would establish the facts.
Mr. Martin M. Brandon-Bravo (Nottingham, South) : Will the hon. Lady make it clear whether her party is in favour of grants irrespective of parental income, or whether her preferred system would still contain an element of parental responsibility based on income?
Mrs. Barnes : My party has always been committed to the principle of a graduate tax, and that of a full grant for students with no parental contribution. Students who later, as graduates, earn more than the national average should repay part or all of that grant. I think that that would be a much fairer system.
The narrow catchment area of higher education from various income categories would be a vital issue for the advisory committee, as it concerns not only the young people themselves but the country's economic future. Unless we succeed in raising education standards--keeping on more pupils between the ages of 16 and 19, and encouraging and motivating as many as possible to proceed to higher education--we shall all suffer. That must be the benchmark test for any student finance scheme.
There must be certain benchmarks against which the system can be assessed. We should know, for example, whether it is fair, whether it is simple and straightforward to administer, whether it is affordable, whether it is sustainable, whether it maximises the number of students going into higher education, whether it ensures that there is a good cross-section of students, which is better than
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now, whether it will attract more students from lower income groups, whether it attracts more women and whether it gives students the necessary independence and security during their study years. Those questions should be put to a body such as an advisory committee. I regret that the Government have not further considered the option of a graduate tax, which would have many advantages and would remove many difficulties inherent in the proposed scheme. Students would have independence, and it would eliminate the problem of parental contribution. It would also result in a contribution being made back into the nation's education coffers. The SDP's proposal went partly towards a means-tested maintenance grant for 16 to 19-year-olds, to encourage those from low- income families to stay on in the education system and to be eligible for higher education.As the Government seem committed to persevere with their proposal, in spite of consistent and pressurised hostility from all quarters, an advisory committee would at least be in a position to monitor the current and future situation to see whether promises for and predictions about the scheme have been fulfilled or have become a mockery.
Dr. Keith Hampson (Leeds, North-West) : I am grateful for this opportunity to contribute to the debate, not having had the pleasure of serving on the Standing Committee that considered the Bill. I wish to make it clear at the outset that, in a sense, I support the idea of Opposition Members for an advisory committee, but I fear that I cannot support them, in view of the way in which the body is proposed in the new clause. Even so, the Secretary of State should consider establishing a monitoring system, and I shall explain why. I shall support the principle of the Bill on Third Reading because, as I have argued on many occasions, the British higher education system cannot expand properly if we continue with a full maintenance grant system. That system has been geared to a narrow part of the population and particular types of courses. We need greater access to funds to assist all types of students on as wide a range of courses as possible, thereby encouraging youngsters to come into higher education.
Mr. Simon Hughes : The hon. Gentleman expressed reservations in previous debates on the Bill. The House will be surprised to hear that he is likely to vote for the measure on Third Reading because the academics, the opinions of whom he values and whose advice he takes, are still not persuaded of the merits of the scheme. The Government have not made any concessions to the concerns of the academics during the passage of the Bill. How does the hon. Gentleman explain his previous stance and his present declaration that he thinks that the Bill is now sufficiently well drafted for it to have his support? Nothing has changed.
Dr. Hampson : I am a born optimist who lives in hope. As I wrote in The Daily Telegraph a few days ago, I hope that the Secretary of State will, even at this stage, agree that there is a need, for practical if not for philosophical reasons, to give the matter a major rethink.
Mr. Hughes : So why vote for it?
Dr. Hampson : I have no objection to an enabling Bill saying that British higher education should have some form of loan scheme, because I believe that it should. That
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is why I am being logical in supporting the Bill, even though I join Opposition Members in the request that they are making. I received a letter dated Tuesday 13 February from a student officer, saying :"As a member of the Labour Party I thank you for your contribution to the debate, sir"--
referring to my article in The Daily Telegraph student supplement--
"which is much appreciated : hopefully this can be a cross-party issue."
I argued in that article that the Labour party has a long history of examining the issue, for understandable and honest reasons. The main one is that there are many low-paid families and pensioners contributing through tax to the increasing benefits of children from already well-off families with considerable incomes, who gain grant aid, and therefore improved life opportunities, whereas many families paying for that through tax do not benefit--and neither do their children--from higher education.
The Labour party has, reasonably, looked at the issue from that standpoint, and Lord Peston, who speaks for the Labour party in the other place, will no doubt feel obliged to point that out when the Bill is in that House. He is one of the most eloquent spokesmen dealing with that aspect of the argument.
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A visible process of monitoring would be an asset to the scheme. After all, Departments can get locked into ideas. I had the privilege of looking at some of the documentation in the Department in 1981-82. It is extraordinary to note the way in which both the argument and proposals today compare with what existed at that time.
Equally, Ministers determine new priorities as they come and go. There is no reason to assume that the imaginative approach needed to maintain a flexible system will be available in the Department. I should rather that it came from outside with outside experts and specialists always looking at the scheme, commissioning research elsewhere and so on, reviewing what is happening in the world and feeding that information into the system for the benefit of Ministers.
I believe that there will come a time when Ministers in the Department of Education and Science will need support as they argue with the Treasury, and it would be useful to have an external, independent body putting publicly the case why certain changes should be made or extra resources provided. That is why the Treasury--and hence the Government--is against any such body, for the nature of such bodies is that they tend always to call for change and increased resources.
Despite all that, I believe that, in the terms of the Bill and the way in which the scheme has been presented, we are seeking a flexible scheme. I give credit to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and his predecessors for framing a measure that will not lock us into a rigid approach from which it will be hard to move out, to expand and to develop. Even so, it would help to have an instrument to look at certain aspects.
A letter from the National Union of Students says :
"We are fearful that students may be particularly deterred from attending vocational courses which lead to relatively poorly paid professions."
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That is an important point. It is also a reason why we need a body with the ability to look at what is happening and to find out whether what is required is reflected in the results.One of the most important routes to vocational qualifications is the part- time route, and many of us have campaigned for years for further incentives in higher education to enable students to go part time. Such people are, as it were, victims of the narrowing discretionary grants scheme, and that is an argument that I have always put against the mandatory grants scheme because the scheme is limited to full-time rather than part-time students.
Schedule 1(4) says that people will be eligible for loans if they are on higher national certificates. In my experience, the definition of the HNC is that it is part time. Are we, in the drafting of that schedule, allowing, and positively putting an incentive on, students taking HNCs because that way they can get a loan for part-time study, and not university part-time courses?
The balance of the grant and the loan needs to be examined by a monitoring body-- [Interruption.] I know that certain Opposition Members are anxious to take part in the debate. Because 10 or 12 of them rose to speak when the hon. Member for Greenwich (Mrs. Barnes) sat down, I thought it ridiculous that there should be such an imbalance in the debate, and I rose to speak. Conservative Members have a contribution to make to the debate.
Hon. Members on both sides of the House are concerned about what the ultimate balance should be between the grant and the loan. In the light of the arguments about disincentives, we need to examine whether there is a disincentive because we are moving from a totally generous system to a less generous system. That is a perfectly valid argument because nowhere in the world has there been a change from a universal grant system to a part-time, half-and-half system. We need to examine that closely because we may then decide to follow the American pattern. I have always advocated a basic higher education opportunity grant so that families with an income of half the national average would be entitled to a 100 per cent. grant. Surely we should encourage more young people from relatively badly off families to enter higher education, although we may have to make commensurate adjustments at the top of the scale. That is a major argument for having an independent monitoring body to consider that. We may need to have a body to advise the Government that additional loan schemes are necessary and available. We should not be locked into thinking that the half-and-half top -up system is the only type of loan. Alongside that we could run other loan schemes. We could develop the career development loan scheme which is currently operated by the Department of Employment, so that we could tap the banks' money. The Department of Employment runs a scheme in which students can borrow between £300 and £5,000 for a course lasting from a month to a year. That is ideal for mature students and the concept of continuing education. The Department of Education and Science should be part of the process, in which the Government could help by subsidising the interest rate, but the commercial banks would take the decisions, looking at people who were probably already in work and who had great prospects. Barclays bank, Clydesdale bank and the Co-operative bank are already part of the present scheme. They make commercial judgments to take on
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students. The Government give assistance on interest rates, but the repayment becomes the responsibility of the student when he or she returns to work.It would be helpful to have a body to advise the Government on suitable alternative schemes. Why must we always assume that wisdom resides only in the hands and minds of officials in Departments of State? That is a particularly valid reason why we should consider that proposal.
Finally, if the scheme is to be publicly acceptable, the repayments must be fair, so the process of deferrals must be as flexible as possible. The ultimate way of achieving the necessary flexibility would be for the Inland Revenue's computer system to code the scheme, so that repayments could genuinely be geared to income and means and circumstances. Failing that, it will be fundamental to ensure that the deferral and repayment scheme is appropriate to the circumstances of the student. That is a conclusive reason why there has to be an independent monitoring body, even if it is not as stipulated in the new clause. I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends seriously to find an alternative that fits the requirements.
Mr. Richard Livsey (Brecon and Radnor) : I am particularly grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate because before coming to the House I was a senior lecturer at the Welsh Agricultural college and was in daily contact with students who had many problems and came from many different backgrounds. The amendments seek to highlight the lack of consultation with interested bodies over the introduction of the Bill and to ensure that the scheme is reviewed by review committees in the future. That is a perfectly reasonable objective. Many institutions of higher education in Wales are particularly concerned that the Government are asking them to administer a scheme with which they do not agree. The Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals has made it clear that it favours an entirely different scheme. I certainly commend the principles of the alternative scheme. It proposes adequate, certain, simple and socially just measures to achieve fairness for students. The alternative scheme would ensure that all eligible students were entitled to an adequately funded maintenance grant, that grants would not be assessed against parental income nor means-tested and that they should take account of regional differences. Those are worthy objectives that the Government should take into account.
The Government should be obliged to enter into joint agreements with institutions over arrangements for administering the scheme. For example, Lord Justice Taylor's recommendations on the football ID card scheme belatedly changed the Government's mind quite radically. If such consultation and investigation went into this Bill, perhaps we would not be discussing such measures this evening.
Many people in Wales doubt whether the loans scheme will increase the number of people attending higher education institutions. It is much more likely to diminish the numbers, so I am surprised that the Minister will not accept the need for annual reports to evaluate the success--or more likely the failure--of the scheme. Perhaps the Minister could clarify that as I did not have the privilege of being a member of the Committee. What is the Minister afraid of? Access to higher education in Wales will undoubtedly be reduced. People in Wales have the lowest disposable
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incomes in mainland Britain. The University College of Wales was started with the pennies of people who were not wealthy enough to invest in their education system except on a very wide franchise. We are proud of what has been achieved in Wales which has provided access to higher education to students from very modest backgrounds. In 1979 students from classes 3M, 4 and 5 represented 23 per cent. of students, but by 1988 the figure had dropped to 19.9 per cent. The fear is that that percentage will fall still further on the introduction of a loan scheme.I am also concerned that before student loans are introduced we should have the opportunity fully to discuss the scheme. The Bill is extremely thin. I expect the regulations eventually to be much thicker. The Government have shied away from fully discussing the details and it would be particularly helpful if an advisory body could consider the regulations before they were brought to the House for approval. That is proposed in the amendments.
The Government take the attitude that they have a monopoly of all wisdom, but that is impossible. Amendment No. 13 provides for consultation before and after the regulations are made. I expect the impact of the loan scheme on Welsh institutions to be significant. This week's publication of the Public Accounts Committee report on financial problems at universities mentions the crisis at Cardiff university--the administrative problems there were frankly unacceptable--but none the less highlights the great pressures on higher education. The introduction of loans lingers like another dark cloud over the future of higher education in Wales. There must be advisory bodies for Wales, Scotland and England.
Welsh people, Welsh institutions and students in Wales will not welcome this Bill. It will not increase the numbers of students entering our institutions. In fact, it will be a deterrent, not an incentive. As I said, I am a former lecturer. I participated in a committee that dealt with hardship cases among students in the college in which I lectured. The hardship occurred because of the present Government's erosion of grants. Some students were in great financial difficulty.
The Government could put matters right by restoring grants to the levels that prevailed before they came into office. They should be prepared to consult people at the coal-face--lecturers and teachers. They are the people who know what is happening. The students themselves--who suffer from week to week, month to month, and year to year--should also be consulted. It ill behoves Ministers, who themselves benefited considerably from grants, to force future students to start their careers in debt as a result of this top-up loans scheme.
6.30 pm
Mr. MacGregor : The student loans scheme will provide additional resources for students, and good value for money for the taxpayer. Over time, it will reduce the burden, on both taxpayers and parents, of making provision for students' living costs. There will be no burdensome bureaucracy. The Student Loans Company will be firmly cost-effective. The repayment regime will mirror the best commercial practice. Students will benefit ; parents will benefit ; taxpayers will benefit. Those benefits, if Parliament approves the Bill, will start in the autumn of this year. The new source of funding about which we are talking today will make it possible, in the medium term, to
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relieve the burden on taxpayers of students' living costs ; to reduce the parental contribution, in real terms, in 1991- 92 ; and to provide substantial additional resources to students this autumn. It is as well to remind ourselves that that is what this Bill is about. The hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), in introducing the new clause, produced a series of very thin arguments. It was a retread of tired, worn-out old tubes. That was a feature of debates in Committee too.Mr. Straw : How does the Secretary of State know?
Mr. MacGregor : Because I have read pretty well every word. I have read nearly all the debates, so I know.
The Opposition have made no impact and have lost the intellectual argument throughout. That is a great credit to my hon. Friends who have spoken in the debate--in particular, to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State who, I thought, came through the debate with intellectual distinction and great good humour.
The hon. Member for Blackburn referred to recent
developments--developments that have taken place since the Bill was last debated in this Chamber. Contrary to what the hon. Gentleman said, rapid progress is being made on preparatory work for the student loans scheme. Subject to Parliament's approval of the Bill, we are well on course to providing the extra resources for students this autumn. The Student Loans Company, based in Glasgow, is making good preparatory progress. As I made clear to the House just before Christmas the position with the banks was that we were asking them to be our agents for the administration of part of the scheme and, in the course of doing so, to assist by looking after the Student Loans Company. I challenge anyone to say how the Bill has been altered to any substantial degree as a result of its progress through the Committee or because of the change in relation to the banks. The Student Loans Company is proceeding exactly as was originally intended. It is making progress. It is doing so without the banks but by getting banking expertise.
Mr. Harry Barnes : Does not the failure to amend the Bill following the change in the nature of the student loans scheme show that there was something fundamentally wrong with it? It was subject to any range of possibilities arising from the introduction of any type of scheme. We do not yet know what type of scheme will be introduced. There should have been no attempt to put an enabling measure on the statute book.
Mr. MacGregor : The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that in Committee well over 100 amendments were tabled. It was not really a thin Bill.
Mr. Simon Hughes : How many amendments got through?
Mr. MacGregor : What happened in Committee is a common feature of Committee stage debates on other Bills--my hon. Friends won the argument.
The point has been made today--it has been made time and time again--that we should watch how the scheme is progressing and be prepared to make changes if monitoring and review suggest that changes are necessary. The advantage of the way in which we are proceeding is that we can make the changes year by year, as in the case of student grants, without the need to introduce primary legislation. I have not got anywhere nearly into my
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argument, but I have to say that those who ask for monitoring and review must accept that a Bill of this type is what they desire. The fact that they ask for monitoring suggests that they will want changes in the scheme from time to time. It would be impossible to make changes from time to time if every change had to be the subject of primary legislation.Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman : Does my right hon. Friend agree that, because the Bill is so flexible, he would be able to bring in a fourth access fund for disabled students if this could be worked out?
Mr. MacGregor : If at some future time something like that were thought desirable, it would be possible.
Mr. Simon Hughes : The Secretary of State has made the most convincing argument that anybody can yet have heard for acceptance of the amendments. This, he says, is a Bill--so flexible and adaptable--about which he is waiting to receive advice. Presumably, therefore, he could, for the first time, say quickly to the House, "I accept the amendments and will show flexibility." Then we could conclude this debate.
Mr. MacGregor : I am glad that the hon. Gentleman agrees that I have made a convincing argument for the Bill. I hope that he will accept that that is what I have been saying. I will come in due course to the amendments themselves. I was demonstrating what progress had been made--a matter to which the hon. Gentleman referred. I want to show what good progress we have been making.
The managing director of the Student Loans Company is at his desk. So, too, is the finance and administration director. The loans administration director has been appointed, and further recruitment is going ahead quickly. Premises have been acquired, and fitting-out arrangements are in hand. Work is proceeding smoothly on the complex computer systems required by the company. There have been developments since the Bill was given its Second Reading, and the progress is just as we envisaged.
In terms of monitoring, which has featured a lot in this debate, we shall keep Parliament fully informed of the preparatory work, including revised estimates of administrative costs, as it develops. As we said, current indications confirm that annual running costs will be within the range of £10 million to £20 million, which is far less than some critics have supposed. I will come in a moment to the question of monitoring the future.
This week we published an information leaflet on loans. This is a matter to which the hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes) referred. Let me explain why we published the leaflet this week. First, the leaflet, in two places, states very clearly : "Introduction of the scheme depends on Parliament's approval of the Education and Student Loans Bill The provisions of the Bill are open to amendment in Parliament."
Why did we produce that leaflet? There are two reasons. The first is that in Committee there were many requests for a leaflet. The people who made such requests included Opposition Members. We responded to that request. The second reason is that university students, young people hoping to go to university in the autumn and their careers advisers and teachers have been asking for information about what the scheme will contain if the Bill is approved by Parliament. It must be to the advantage of students and
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potential students to know what to expect. I make no apology for the leaflet ; it is what many people have demanded, and I think that we were right to provide it.Mr. Harry Barnes : If, after the debate, the collective wisdom of Parliament is that these amendments should be passed, what will happen to this leaflet? Will a correction slip have to be inserted?
Mr. MacGregor : I repeat that the leaflet, at a very early stage, says that the provisions of the Bill are subject to amendment in Parliament. It goes on :
"Some features of the scheme described below may consequently change."
In that event, we would amend the leaflet. There would be nothing unusual about that.
Costings have been mentioned frequently in the debate. The hon. Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing) referred to it as the pounds and the pence. There are one or two things that are worth repeating on the whole question of costings. First, we are discussing the introduction of a loan plus grant facility, which next year will be worth 25 per cent. more than the grant this year. That is why I claim that it will benefit students.
In the next academic year, we expect to provide £178 million in loans on top of the updated grant. It will be more if take-up of the loan exceeds 80 per cent., and in addition there is £15 million for access funds. Those are extra resources.
Mrs. Margaret Ewing : How much will the Government save by excluding students from access to housing benefit and other benefits?
Mr. MacGregor : We estimate that students who qualify for loans would have been able to claim some £68 million in benefit, but £125 million next year is a substantial net increase in public support for the living costs of students.
Mr. Win Griffiths : Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr. MacGregor : There is much desire to make progress. Several Conservative Members who wanted to speak in support of the Bill have agreed not to so that we can make progress.
The most vulnerable groups--disabled and single-parent students--will retain benefits and will also have access to loans.
Mr. Ian Bruce : Does my right hon. Friend agree that the vast sum being provided by the Government will remove the need for parents to give additional money to students? That is good news for parents.
Mr. MacGregor : My hon. Friend is right. Disabled and single-parent students will retain benefits and have access to loans. Many students whose parents have not been fully topping up maintenance grants will gain benefit, and our proposals offer an advantage to students who have taken out commercial loans.
For the 35 per cent. of students who claim no benefits, the loan will be a net increase. On average, it will provide a substantial net increase for those who claim benefit. Those whose benefit losses are greater than the loan facility are strong candidates for further support from their institution's access funds. There will clearly be a positive benefit for students next year.
Providing additional resources through loans will cost more in the immediate future. More resources for students are necessary because we are keen to continue the
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expansion in the numbers in higher education that has been achieved under this Government. Providing the same addition as grant, rather than grant plus loan--this questions the position of the Opposition or any of our critics--would be more expensive because take-up would be 100 per cent. That would be a dead-weight cost, as it would go not to those wanting to make use of the loan facility but to all. Instead of costing £178 million, if take-up was 80 per cent., in 1990-91 grants would cost £222 million. Grants would clearly be more expensive from the outset. In later years, when the loan scheme will generate savings, that extra cost would continue. An additional amount would be forgone in later years--Mr. Worthington : The Secretary of State does not believe this.
Mr. MacGregor : I do, and it is impossible for the hon. Gentleman to refute it. It is clear that that would be the case if the resources were provided in grant.
Mr. Worthington rose --
Mr. MacGregor : I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman when I have finished my point.
In later years, the position will be more beneficial to the taxpayer, because the loans will have been repaid. We calculate that if grant were being paid the amount that would be forgone would be almost £100 million in 1994 and well over that figure by 1995. The combination of our proposals rather than a grant scheme--
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