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18 Jun 2003 : Column 321W—continued
Tuition Fees
Miss McIntosh: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what plans he has to review the system of tuition fees; and if he will make a statement. [118507]
Alan Johnson: The Department for Education and Skills has reviewed the system of tuition fees as part of a wider assessment of the higher education sector. The White Paper "The Future of Higher Education" (Cm 5735) which was published in January 2003 sets out our proposals to allow higher education institutions to charge variable fees, between £0 and £3000 per year per course from 2006/07. We will also abolish up front fees, so that students can defer paying their fees until after they graduate. We will continue to provide a means-tested grant to cover the standard tuition fee (£1,100 in 2002/03), as part of a wider package of measures to encourage students from families on low incomes to enter higher education. We have no further plans for review of the system of tuition fees.
University Admissions
Mr. Clappison: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills whether the letter referred to in paragraph 5 of Page 19 of Widening Participation in higher education from the Secretary of State to Office for Fair Access setting out guidance on applying the statutory framework for access agreements and covering an institution's milestones for assessing progress in widening participation will include admissions from (a) type of schools and (b) family social class as such milestones. [118065]
Alan Johnson: "Widening participation in higher education" made clear that it would be for "each university to decide on the milestones that are appropriate to its circumstances that it wishes to include in the access agreements".
Mr. Clappison: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, pursuant to the reply of 3 June from the Minister for Higher Education to the honourable Member for Hertsmere, ref 115686, how he expects that the Office for Fair Access will assess the milestones to be adopted by individual institutions. [118268]
Alan Johnson: "Widening participation in higher education" made clear that it would be for "each university to decide on the milestones that are appropriate to its circumstances that it wishes to include in the access agreements".
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Mr. Willis: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many students have been wrongly informed by UCAS that they have lost their place at the university of their choice for 2003/04. [117871]
Alan Johnson [holding answer 9 June 2003]: We have been advised by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) that no students were wrongly informed that they had lost their place at the university of their choice. 18,000 prospective students were informed by UCAS in May that it had not received from them the necessary confirmations of acceptance of offers from institutions, and that a further 10 days were available for that process to be completed. The latest data available to UCAS indicates that the number of unconfirmed offers is now lower than at the corresponding point last year.
University Students
Mr. Paterson: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what proportion of sixth formers in north Shropshire went to university in (a) 1997–98, (b) 1998–99, (c) 1999–2000, (d) 2000–01 and (e) 2001–02. [110073]
Alan Johnson: Figures for the number of students who enter higher education are not collated centrally by constituency. The latest available information, showing the proportion of 18-year-olds from Shropshire Local Education Authority (LEA) entering full-time undergraduate courses in the UK via the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS), is given in the table.
It should be noted that the proportions in the table are based only on the number of 18-year-olds entering full-time HE. This is a different definition to the Department's main measures of HE participation: the Age Participation Index (API), which measures the proportion of UK domiciled students who enter full-time HE by the age of 20, and the Initial Entry Rate (IER) which measures the proportion of 17–30-year-old English domiciled first time entrants to full or part-time HE. Neither the API nor the IER are calculated for each LEA, because of the lack of detailed data at local authority level.
| Year of entry | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Students from: | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 |
| Shropshire | 21.5 | 23.3 | 22.8 | 24.3 | 24.1 | 26.3 |
| Telford and the Wrekin(24) | (25)— | 16.3 | 18.3 | 18.0 | 18.6 | 19.4 |
| All English LEAs | 20.5 | 20.0 | 20.0 | 20.6 | 21.5 | 22.0 |
(24) As a result of Local Government Re-organisation Telford and Wrekin, which was previously part of Shropshire, became a separate LEA in 1998.
(25) Not applicable.
York Minster Catalogue
Hugh Bayley: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how much money the Higher Education Funding Council for England has provided to the University of York to computerise the catalogue of York Minster Library to improve access to it by
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higher education; and what obligations the Minster library has to higher education institutions in return for this funding. [118762]
Alan Johnson: The University of York received funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) of around £390,000 in two phases for this project which was completed in 2000. The project has enabled the catalogue of the Minster's collection of books to be available on line and made more widely accessible to researchers via international networks.
TRADE AND INDUSTRY
Arms Exports (Indonesia)
Jeremy Corbyn: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what level of ECGD cover has been provided in relation to the sale of military equipment to Indonesia in each year since 1999; what amounts are outstanding in relation to all ECGD-covered military sales to Indonesia; and if he will list the licences granted for the export of military equipment to Indonesia since 2001. [118208]
Ms Hewitt: ECGD has issued no guarantees relating to exports of military equipment to Indonesia since 1999.
£555 million is outstanding in respect of ECGD claims payments made in cases involving exports of defence equipment to Indonesia. These claims are being repaid, with interest, under three Paris Club agreements covering debt falling due between July 1998 and December 2003.
Between 1 January 2003 and 2 June 2003, two Open Individual Export Licences and 48 Standard Individual Export Licences were issued, for goods on the military list, where the end users were in Indonesia, with the following ratings:
- ML1, ML4, ML5, ML6, ML10, ML11, ML13, ML22 and PL5017
Assay Tests
Mr. Mark Field: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1) what information she has collated on the number of precious metal items failing assay tests in the latest year for which information is available; [116752]
- (2) whether she has undertaken a regulatory impact assessment of the implementation of Annex III of the draft directive on articles made of precious metal. [116751]
Mr. Sutcliffe: The UK assay offices rejected 66,000 items in 2002. This represents 0.19 per cent. of the 34,000,000 items tested.
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The Department has not yet undertaken a Regulatory Impact Assessment on the implementation of Annex III of the draft EU Directive on the marking of precious metals. An RIA will be produced when the Italians formally propose to revive the draft Directive. Officials have discussed the likely impact of Annex III with stakeholders including the Assay Offices, Trading Standards, manufacturers and retailers. The Government do not support the Directive.
Auditors
Dr. Cable: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will introduce legislation to cap the liability of auditors; and if she will make a statement. [119842]
Jacqui Smith: The Government are considering the recommendations of the independent Company Law Review.
Broadband
Dr. Cable: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what sums have been paid to (a) NTL and (b) BT to assist in the rollout of broadband services; when such payments were made; and if she will make a statement. [117716]
Mr. Timms: Certain Regional Development Agencies made payments from the (DTI's £30 million) broadband fund to BT in 2002 for Exchange Activate Trials to test a new approach to bring broadband ADSL technology to small exchanges across the UK, where previously it was not commercially viable.
Under the Cornwall ActNow project, assisted by EC Objective 1 funding, BT received £237,225 from DTI between December 2001 and August 2002, as a result of a tender process to upgrade exchange for broadband in a region where such investment would also not be commercially viable.
Dr. Cable: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what representations she has received on the compatibility of public sector broadband with EU state aid rules; and if she will issue guidance on the application of state aid rules for broadband projects. [117720]
Mr. Timms: The state aid branch of the DTI provides advice to public authorities to ensure that interventions are compatible with EU state aid rules. The DTI-led public sector broadband aggregation project is being informed by advice from this unit.
There are no specific state aid rules relating to broadband but further guidance on the application of the rules in general can be found at www.dti.gov.uk/europe/stateaid.
Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will make a statement on the reasons for poor quality of band connections in rural areas. [118830]
Mr. Timms: 7 per cent. of rural households have broadband access, compared with 72 per cent. of households across the country as a whole. Service providers have focussed initially on certain markets
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because—in the case of BT—more customers can be served within a given distance of an exchange in densely populated areas.
I have now established a dedicated rural broadband team, working closely with Defra, to help promote the availability and take up of broadband in rural areas.
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