| Higher Education Bill
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Mr. Collins: We now come to the heart of the Bill. I suspect, as the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mrs. Campbell) has said, that this will be the part of our proceedings on which we have the fullest debate. These are the issues in which hon. Members and those following our proceedings have the greatest interest. I salute the hon. Lady for her independence of thinking. She has clearly brought a great deal of personal experience and commitment to the issue. I put that on the record, because I am not able to agree with all her points, but I applaud her courage in addressing these issues from her own point of view and that of her constituents, rather than because of party political pressure. Several of the points that the hon. Lady made are difficult to answer. She mentioned the potential incentive effect—which is frequently quoted by the Secretary of State and others—of a zero rate of variable fee in certain cases such as physics and mathematics. Opposition Members would make the case that if it were an incentive to people to set fees at zero, it follows that it would be a disincentive to set fees at above zero. That is one reason why Opposition Members are against having top-up fees at all. She is right to say that she has identified an issue that must be addressed by the Government Front Bench team: I hope that it will be. The aspect of the hon. Lady's argument that I did not fully share, and which the hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) set out clearly, was why variability should be deeply sinful in higher education but—it is implied—is somehow acceptable in further education, part-time courses and other areas where it is already a well understood part of the system. A number of Labour Members asked her about that, and I was more convinced by them than by what she said in response. We cannot please all the people all the time. The hon. Lady and other members of the Committee have used language that suggests that the Government are moving towards a market in higher education. That prompts the question: what do we think we have now? Is there already a market? One could argue that the Government's measures make it more of a market, but the current system could hardly be described as having no market-like properties. I was a little worried when the hon. Lady said that she felt that it was wrong to give students an extra element of choice, because it is desirable for students to have choice. The point that she was making was that students should focus on choices that have to do with the courses that they can pursue and in which they are interested, as opposed to choices based on price mechanisms. The hon. Lady is likely to be one of those who would welcome the idea of treating 18-year-olds as independent adults—I shall stand corrected if I am wrong, but I see that she nods. There is an emerging cross-party consensus that it would be desirable, if the practicalities could be overcome, to treat 18-year-olds as adults who are capable of making decisions about such matters. That would be an argument for maximising the number of choices that they are Column Number: 181 entitled to make at the age of 18, rather than minimising them. I do not therefore agree with her on her central argument—the case against variability.Mrs. Campbell: One of the problems is that students from lower-income backgrounds are more averse to building up debt. Although graduates would repay a fairly small amount, I am considering the length of time that graduates would have to repay it. That will be a significant issue for 18-year-olds choosing a university course and trying to distinguish between expensive and cheaper courses. Mr. Collins: I am grateful to the hon. Lady, as these are important matters. I would argue that her case is actually a case against top-up fees. It is not as strong as the case for having no variable fees. If variability is so wicked, why it is acceptable in so many other educational contexts—such as for part-time students in higher education—but somehow leaps a new border to unacceptability when applied to full-time students? Mr. George Mudie (Leeds, East) (Lab): The hon. Gentleman says that we currently have a market and then moves his argument on without halt from market to choice. Can he define the current market in higher education? Mr. Collins: The reason why I think that it is right to refer to the current situation as a market rather than a state-controlled system rests on the principle that universities are independent institutions. The Conservative party, in contrast with the Government, will advance propositions later in the Committee to try to make universities more rather than less independent. However, they are still independent; as the Minister said earlier, they are not owned or controlled by the Secretary of State. One reason for debating clause 23 is that the Secretary of State wishes to introduce mechanisms through which he can put in place certain penalties or incentives. He does not have the power to instruct universities because they are not public sector bodies or a nationalised industry. The debate that we sometimes have about whether universities should be privatised ignores the fact that they are not nationalised in the first place. The other element to my argument that the current situation is a market mechanism is that students overwhelmingly have the decision-making power as to which course they study. Therefore, the individual has the choice rather than a state body directing students as to which university they attend and which course they study. As well as that, universities are not nationalised institutions. In those two important respects, we have something that is much closer to a market than to anything else. We can debate whether it is an imperfect market or whether we should change that market nature in some way, but it is difficult to argue that it is not a market and that what would be created as a result of the Government's or the Opposition's proposals would be entirely different and would become a market. Column Number: 182 Mr. Mudie: I really am tickled by the hon. Gentleman's definition of a market—it is a new political philosophy. Does he agree that, apart from a small amount of money from industry, these independent institutions receive most of their income from the public purse? I wonder what the relevance of this so-called independence is and how it constitutes a market. I am puzzled as to why the fact that students can choose to attend the university that they want necessarily produces a market. Why would variability of fees be seen as an improvement? Mr. Collins: Rather unusually, I have the sense, from the mutterings coming from the Labour Benches, that I am convincing more of the hon. Gentleman's Labour colleagues than he is. The Minister, from a sedentary position, accurately pointed out that is not true to say that many institutions overwhelmingly or solely depend on the public purse for income—there are many other sources of income. The hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) made the point earlier that the current situation largely constitutes a market, but perhaps he would like to make his own point in his own way. Mr. Allen: I want to assist my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Mudie) for whom I have great respect. We are not talking about a wholly free market, as compared with a system of direct state allocation. What we have is somewhere in the middle: it is a highly imperfect market with awful consequences for his and my constituents. We must clarify the situation so that we can act appropriately. One should always ask a Conservative about a market because they probably understand the workings better even than some Labour Members. The hon. Gentleman knows that if there is insufficient income, the outputs must change. Universities UK has criticised him and the policy that he seeks to defend, saying that it would lead to 410,000 fewer students attending university because there would be less income in the system. Many of those students would be from my or my hon. Friend's constituencies. Does he concede that that would be the case in the market that he wants to create or does he think that Universities UK have got it wrong?
10.15 amMr. Collins: I am grateful for the first part of the hon. Gentleman's intervention, and I shall also address the second part. His first point was absolutely the same as what I was saying. It is what hon. Members from both sides of the Committee would recognise. At present we have, to use his phrase, a highly imperfect market. Although we could debate how further to perfect it, it is still a market rather than something else. In answer to the hon. Gentleman's question, it is always interesting when eminent organisations such as Universities UK criticise a policy that is not yet in the public domain. Like him and other hon. Members, Universities UK no doubt eagerly anticipates the moment when my hon. and right hon. Friends announce Conservative policy. In advance of that, however, it is a little difficult to say whether that policy Column Number: 183 will have one effect or another. However, we are confident that our policy, which we shall publish earlier in this Parliament than the Government published their famous manifesto before the last general election—we shall come to the manifesto pledge later—will give a better deal for universities and raise more money than the policies that the Committee is now debating. The attitude of some universities to that will be interesting.Mr. Allen: I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is ahead of me or whether I can bring him some news from his Front-Bench colleagues, but my understanding is that his party's leader is committed to abandoning the 50 per cent. target. If that target is abandoned and students from constituencies such as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East or mine are not recruited, those youngsters will not go to university even though they are qualified. That is where the figure of 410,000 comes from. However, I should be interested if the hon. Gentleman wants to correct me and tell me where the figure really came from.
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| ©Parliamentary copyright 2004 | Prepared 24 February 2004 |
