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Mr. Baker: Further to that point of order, Madam Speaker. Question No. 18, which I tabled, was specifically about the millennium dome, and we had a reasonable expectation that we might reach it.
Madam Speaker: Order. As the Secretary of State said, we did not reach it. It would be nice sometimes if we could get to Question No. 18. I constantly press ministerial Departments to reach questions that are further down the Order Paper. If we had reached No. 18, the Minister without Portfolio would have answered it.
Dr. Liam Fox (Woodspring): On a point of order, Madam Speaker. You may or may not be aware of many credible sources that now claim that The Scotsman newspaper will publish on Wednesday morning details of the Government's White Paper on devolution for Scotland, a full day ahead of its publication and availability to Members of Parliament. Given what you said in answer to a previous point of order, would not such a deliberate leak in advance by the Government be quite contemptuous of the House and, given this advance warning, does it not fall on the Government to use all their facilities to ensure that such a publication does not happen before the House receives properly the Government's White Paper?
Madam Speaker: I take seriously the point of order that the hon. Gentleman is making, although it is hypothetical. I have no information that any newspaper will publish such information. If it intends to do so, there is nothing that I, as Speaker, can do to stop it. The hon. Gentleman is quite right. It is for the Government, who may well wish to take out an injunction. If the hon.
Gentleman has evidence--and one needs evidence--may I suggest that he presents it to the President of the Council?
Mr. Ian Bruce (South Dorset): On a point of order, Madam Speaker. First, I declare a financial interest, as I have three daughters currently at university who would, of course, be affected by the leaked proposals to raise additional moneys by loans for tuition fees.
We are about to discuss the Education (Student Loans) Bill, yet we have had leaks over the weekend about proposals on student loans of which the House does not have official knowledge. How can we have a proper debate in the House on that important issue when the Government have leaked information to the press and told everyone else but the House? Surely it would be out of order to speculate what will be in the Dearing report on Wednesday as it has not been published. This debate ought to be postponed until we have seen that report.
Madam Speaker:
I have done my best to deal with that matter, which was raised earlier. We must get on with the debate.
Mr. Stephen Dorrell (Charnwood):
On a point of order, Madam Speaker. In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning), you made it clear that you deprecated what had happened over the weekend in connection with the Dearing report. In the past few moments, the Secretary of State for Education and Employment has come into the Chamber. Given what you said in your ruling, I wonder if he will take the opportunity to launch an inquiry in his Department as to whether it is true--as reported by the BBC's education correspondent--that Ministers had accepted Dearing's argument and decided on a certain course of action and whether it is true that Ministers gave the BBC that briefing over the weekend. In the light of your ruling, if it is true, the Secretary of State should come to the House to apologise for that fact.
Madam Speaker:
I am not prepared to allow debate on that matter. The House has heard how strongly I deprecate those very heavy briefings, given either by Ministers, civil servants or Ministers' aides. I think that that stands in Hansard and I am sure that it will be read by people in the Department concerned and other Departments, who know how much I totally disapprove of what has taken place in the past few days.
Orders of the Day
Education (Student Loans) Bill
Order for Second Reading read.
4.31 pm
The Minister for School Standards (Mr. Stephen Byers): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
It may be helpful if I make hon. Members aware that this measure has nothing whatsoever to do with the Dearing report or the Government's response to it. The measures contained in this Bill relate to loans that have been made to students or might be made in the coming academic year under the existing procedures, which will be totally unaffected by any policy changes that might come as a result of the Government's response to the Dearing report.
Mr. Don Foster (Bath):
Can the Minister confirm that nothing will be proposed arising out of this Bill that will in any way change the repayment mechanism for students who already have loans of one sort or another?
Mr. Byers:
Yes, I can confirm that.
Later this year, we will need to produce proposals for regulations concerning repayment as well as many other matters because we will need to put those on a fixed footing, which will mean that we will no longer be able to debate them annually in the House. We will need to freeze, for example, the regulations that affect repayment procedures. Once that is done, there will be no further changes. Recommendations that come out of Dearing, therefore, will not have any consequences as far as those repayments are concerned.
Mr. Ian Bruce (South Dorset):
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for trying to put the House straight about the leaks at the weekend. From my reading of the Bill, it would seem that the Government will subsidise any company that decides to buy in the debt portfolio. Is he saying that this legislation will not be affected by any doubling--I suspect that it will be a doubling--of the amount of money being loaned to students, which I assume would be sold on to a financial institution, should the Government decide to double the amount of money going into loans?
Mr. Byers:
Those are two separate and distinct issues. The measure before the House relates to the student loan book and the debt that we intend to sell on to the private sector. The recommendations that result from the inquiry and the Government's response to it will be quite separate, and will be dealt with differently from the measure that we are considering.
The Bill is before the House for substantial reasons. The previous Government put into this year's and next year's spending programme receipts from the sale of the student loan book amounting to £1.6 billion in this financial year and £1.5 billion in the year 1998-99.
We made it clear that we intended to stick within the budgets laid down by the previous Administration, so it follows that the receipts that we expect from the student
loan debt are necessary to meet the previously published spending plans. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer made it clear in his Budget statement on 2 July that, to meet our spending plans for this financial year, we would expect £1.6 billion from the sale of part of the student loans debt.
The Government have two overriding objectives. First, we are committed to the development of a wide range of public-private partnerships, because they bring private resources and expertise into the public sector and involve a transfer of risk to the private sector. Selling student loans will transfer to private sector financial institutions the credit risk currently borne by the Government. Those institutions have the experience of managing loans and are better placed to deal with such risks.
Secondly, the sale will also enable the financial markets to establish a clearer understanding of publicly funded student loans, which could in future encourage financial institutions to play a more direct role in the provision of student support. We are all aware that the previous Government sought to interest the private sector in student loans, which led to the Education (Student Loans) Act 1996. One reason why the twin-track approach proposed by the then Government in that Act failed to capture the banks' and financial institutions' imagination was that most of them did not understand the nature of student loans.
I understand that that Government's discussions with those bodies that had expressed an interest revealed clearly that they had no understanding of the concept of publicly financed student loans. We hope that the Bill will foster a greater understanding of the nature of the student loans system and that there may be beneficial developments in public-private partnerships as a result.
Mr. Andrew Welsh (Angus):
The Minister is explaining how the legislation will help the Government in their finances; how will it help the students in theirs, given the massive amount of student debt and the surprising and disgraceful number of student dropouts that occur as a result of such measures?
Mr. Byers:
A little later, I shall talk about the safeguards that we intend to put in place, to ensure that no student who presently receives a student loan will be adversely affected as a result of the legislation.
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