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Peter Bradley indicated dissent.
Mr. Clappison: The hon. Gentleman thinks that the answer is that the fees will be repaid by students only on graduation. He can try to sell that as a deal to families in his constituency on an average income of, say, £20,000 or £25,000. At the moment, families on a combined income of £25,000 do not have to pay the variable fee. Therefore he is creating a debt for those students that they will have to pay. Under present arrangements, apart from the standard fee, they do not have to pay that.
Peter Bradley:
Does not the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that, for school leavers with ability from
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low-income backgrounds, one of the most difficult barriers to accessing university is the up-front costs that they face—the student living costs? Does he acknowledge the contribution that the reinstatement of the maintenance grant will make to removing that barrier from that very large body of school leavers?
Mr. Clappison: I suggest that the hon. Gentleman take the case of the family on a combined income of £25,000 and look in a little more detail at the matter. I do not think that he served on the Committee, so he will not have gone through the Bill in detail, and I can understand that. Such families are simply not eligible under the new maintenance grant arrangements. He may look puzzled, but if he looks at the Government's figures, and the Minister will confirm this, the new maintenance grant tapers out at about £22,000.
Mr. Clappison: I am afraid that it does. On the Government's own figures, the new maintenance grant tapers out at above £22,000. Students will continue to get some remission of fees, as they do at present, but they will not be eligible above that level. A debt is being created. For the first time, they will have to pay the variable element of fees.
I find it amazing that students from households that the hon. Gentleman mentioned will be given that tremendous disincentive. He mentions what those students look at. One of the biggest disincentives for students from families on low incomes is how much it will cost and how much indebtedness they will incur. Through these proposals, for a family on an income of £25,000, he is quadrupling the amount—albeit paid back on graduation—that will have to be paid back for the cost of education.
Mr. Allen: I am sure that an accurate figure will be put on the record by the Minister but, from memory, the taper does not run out until about £32,000. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman, like all of us, wants the people who will be eligible for a grant to understand their full eligibility, and that he is not intending to scare some of the very families whom we are trying to persuade that their youngsters should take up higher education. I am sure that he will be grateful to get a definitive correction from the Minister when he replies to the debate.
Mr. Clappison: I was talking about the new maintenance grant that the Government are putting in place. It is right that students will continue to receive some help with remission up to £33,000—I think that that is the figure. They get that at present, but above £22,000 they will not be entitled to any of the new maintenance grant.
Alan Johnson indicated dissent.
Mr. Clappison:
The Minister can shake his head but it is there in the Government's own figures. The new maintenance grant will taper out at about £22,000. Above that, students will still get the help that they get at the moment for fee remission; that help is there at the moment.
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We were told that the new maintenance grant was the unique selling point of the Government's proposals. That tapers out at about £22,000. Above that level, the only help that the families will get will be the help that they get at present, based on fee remission of £1,200. Therefore the amount that a student from a family on an income of £25,000 will have to pay will be quadrupled. It is fair to say that that will be upon graduation.
I remember all those years when the Labour party campaigned against tuition fees in general and variable fees in particular. It campaigned against the previous Government on that basis, even when they were not proposing to bring in variable fees or tuition fees. The Labour party campaigned consistently against that. I do not remember a distinction being made at the time between up-front fees and fees payable on graduation. That was never mentioned. The Labour party was concerned about the effect on students.
Peter Bradley: I am keen to correct another misapprehension under which the hon. Gentleman is labouring. The fee is not repayable on graduation. It is repayable on an income-contingent basis. That is a crucial issue. It is repayable when the graduate begins to reap the income dividend of the degree that he or she has achieved.
Mr. Clappison: If the previous Government had introduced such fees upon an income-contingent basis, I do not think that the Labour party, which was then in opposition, would have said that that was the solution. It was the principle of paying for education that it was concerned about, whether the payment was up front or through extra indebtedness.
It is amazing that the Government should put in place a bureaucratic edifice after creating strong economic pressure entirely in the opposite direction. There can be nothing more likely to put off students from families on low incomes who do not traditionally send their youngsters to university than the prospect of vast debt. I do not think that the Government edifice that the amendments put in place will succeed in counteracting that pressure. We will see some serious distortions in university admissions, from which a very large number of families will be the loser. They will have the opportunity to pass their judgment shortly.
Alan Johnson: I thank the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins) for his gracious comments. He put me in the Cabinet and then on to the Opposition Back Benches all in about one minute. It was a bit of a career change but, at the risk of turning the Chamber into a mutual admiration society, I congratulate him on his well-deserved promotion and I am sure that he will rise further through the ranks of the shadow Cabinet over the years to come.
The hon. Gentleman rightly said that the Bill has come back in better shape from the other place. May I place it on record that that was due to a number of factors, the most significant of which was the role played by my noble Friend Baroness Ashton, who led the debate in the other place superbly and with great distinction?
I have a short time left to me. The hon. Gentleman, almost in passing, talked about Lords amendment No. 5 and said that I gave a bureaucratic reply. He asked
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whether there were any points within the civil service code that I would question. The whole point of the Lords amendment, I presume, was the one significant part of that code that I do object to, the part that removes the role of the Secretary of State in appointing the regulator. While it was a bureaucratic point—I accept that—it is significant that the civil service commissioners themselves believe that it is the wrong process to use in relation to the regulator that we are setting up, which is a non-departmental Government body.
The hon. Gentleman raised concerns about Lords amendments Nos. 15, 16 and 17. We have tried hard. He mentioned the acceptance of Lords amendment No. 13, which puts the fact that the regulator will not be involved in admissions in the Bill, but the amendments that he referred to would completely destroy the office of the regulator. That is why he supports those amendments. They would mean that the regulator had no sanctions, even if the university said that it was going to charge £2,000 and decided to charge £3,000—even, I presume, although I am not absolutely sure, if it charged more than the £3,000 cap. There would be no method for the regulator to apply any sanctions if we accepted Lords amendment No. 15. It is also technically deficient. It goes to the heart of everything we have attempted to do in relation to the regulator.
I appreciate the gracious comments of the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel), too. I also appreciate his support for Lords amendment No. 5. He presented two arguments, one of which was presented by Liberal Democrats in Committee, which was about the Higher Education Funding Council for England taking over the role of the regulator, so that we did not need to set up the Office for Fair Access. I said at the time, in Committee, that that was not a completely outrageous suggestion, and it was one that we considered. However, we thought that it would mix up a funding body with a regulator, and on balance we felt that that was the wrong route to take. The hon. Gentleman's second argument, however, on the access regulator and the issues that he perceived to be involved, was—
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