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Mr. Collins: Perhaps he would. Several hon. Members rose—
The Chairman: Order. Even by my generous standards, that was a little wide of the mark. Mr. Collins: Amendment No. 3 would write into the Bill provisions that at the moment rest only in regulations. I record my appreciation, which I suspect is shared by all members of the Committee, of the fact that the Minister has published the regulations in advance. The Government are about to rest a large part of their case—to Labour Back Benchers and to people outside the House—on the fact that they can be trusted, that they will not go above £3,000, and that we Column Number: 187 should not worry about what Richard Sykes has or has not said. However, we believe that the provisions should be included in the Bill.For the reasons that I mentioned earlier, we are not in favour of top-up fees, so the amendment is not intended to solidify into law the idea of top-up fees. It merely addresses the fact that the Bill creates that possibility. Given the number of times that the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State and the Minister of State have said that the figure is £3,000, that it will not be above £3,000, that it will be years before it is above £3,000, and that primary legislation will be required before that promise can be broken, we seek to have the figure included in the Bill. It should be included in the Bill, rather than in regulations that must be looked up separately and that require the famous affirmative resolution of the House. We want the legislation to require a future Government to introduce a new higher education Bill, with all the proceedings that that involves—Second Reading, Committee stage, and consideration by both Houses of Parliament—before the figure of £3,000 can be altered.
10.30 amI believe that the Minister is sincere in his wish to reassure people that there is a £3,000 limit and that that will be fixed for a number of years because, although we have disagreements, I do not believe that he gets up every morning wondering how he can dissemble or pretend to be other than he is. I therefore do not see how he could object in principle to the idea of including that figure in the Bill, although I am prepared to listen to any arguments that he or others may advance as to why the amendment may be technically defective in terms of where it is placed. However, given that so much of the debate, both inside and outside the House, has turned on the question of whether the £3,000 figure will remain in place, I cannot see how there can be any objection in principle to including it in the Bill. Mr. Mudie: I was slightly disappointed with my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge, who said that she thought that the increase to £3,000 was a measured increase. I well understand the reasons behind the point made by the hon. Gentleman, but does he not feel that there is a case for asking hard questions in Committee about why an increase of up to £3,000 from £1,125 is necessary or reasonable? Mr. Collins: The hon. Gentleman has rightly used the Committee to put that question which, although it was directed through me, should really be answered by the Minister. As we have already established, the £3,000 figure is not what many vice-chancellors are considering in the future. It does not plug the gap but, as the hon. Gentleman says, it is nearly triple the figure that is currently in place. There is therefore a danger that it will fail to satisfy anyone. The question that the hon. Gentleman asked is reasonable, and I am sure that the Minister will wish to address it in due course.
Column Number: 188 I shall now discuss amendment No. 110, which is important, because it would address a difficulty in which the Prime Minister found himself. We are a public-spirited Opposition, and, if we can, always like to enable the Prime Minister to escape from difficulties with our assistance and goodwill.Many members of the Committee will recollect that, when the Prime Minister appeared on ''Newsnight'' recently, he found himself put under some pressure by an articulate and persuasive young medical student, who pointed out that the figures that the Prime Minister was quoting at great length on the level of debt, rested on the assumption that all students would be pursuing three-year courses. In fact, some of the courses in higher education that we, as a society, regard as most important, stretch over a longer period. That certainly applies to the courses taken by medical students and veterinary students. The amendment also addresses the case of students pursuing education courses; some of those courses last for three years, but some are longer. The amendment reflects the fact that, as a society, we are not awash with a surplus of doctors or vets or teachers—we need more people in all those categories, and we need to improve their quality as well as their quantity. The amendment would enable it to be made clear in the Bill that top-up fees will not be imposed for those who study for more than three years in any of those socially useful and important professions.
Mr. Clappison: I am particularly grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning veterinary students. They are of specific interest to me because of the many Royal Veterinary college students in my constituency. Given that those students must pay the fees after graduation, does my hon. Friend agree that the much-vaunted cap of £3,000 has already been broken as far as they are concerned because their debts will be equivalent to far more than £3,000 a year, as they study for five years? [
Mr. Collins: My hon. Friend is quite right. Unless we persuade the Committee to adopt our amendment, those students will pay £3,000 a year, but for more than three years, so the total debt will be greater.
Kali Mountford: Has the hon. Gentleman had any indication that the Department of Health or the Department of Trade and Industry, which often pay fees—certainly in years 5 and 6 for doctors, and throughout study for nurses—intend to cease paying those fees? If not, is not his argument redundant?
Mr. Collins: The hon. Lady makes an interesting point. Of course, I do not expect Government Departments to race to support amendments tabled by Her Majesty's loyal Opposition. However, in the cases that she cited, the hon. Lady ignored several points, the first of which is that veterinary surgeons are not covered by any of those provisions, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere pointed out.
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Mr. Clappison: Is my hon. Friend aware that the British Veterinary Association has put it on the veterinary record that these proposals
The hon. Member for Colne Valley (Kali Mountford) also referred to the steps that have been taken by the Department for Education and Skills and the Department of Health to provide support for some students who are studying for careers in education or medicine. Welcome as those provisions are, they do not cover all students for all courses after the initial three years, and they are not written into primary legislation: they are discretionary grants given by the relevant Secretaries of State. It is desirable that they should be granted but it is not a requirement. Our amendment would make the situation more satisfactory, because it would remove from the minds of 18-year-olds who are contemplating studying those socially important courses and qualifications any doubt as to whether those provisions will be there in the future. They would not need to worry whether their fees beyond three years will be paid, as they would not have to pay any fees after three years.
Mr. Thomas: I found the intervention of the hon. Member for Colne Valley interesting as it referred to what would happen to the funding from the Department for Education and Skills and the Department of Health if, under variable fees, the cost of the provision increased year on year. What does the hon. Gentleman believe will be the Treasury's attitude
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Mr. Collins: The hon. Gentleman is right. The Treasury, in any Government of any party, will not bind its hands indefinitely on any public spending line. In the circumstances that he described, the Treasury may use the changes as a further way of clawing back some higher education money. That is one reason why we are sceptical about whether top-up fees will raise any significant additional sums for universities.
The hon. Gentleman is also right to say that in the absence of primary legislation to exempt the students on such courses of more than three years, there can be no guarantee that they will be in as advantageous a financial position in the future as they are now. Apart from in the case of vets, amendment No. 110 would not hugely broaden the extent of support and provision for those who are undertaking longer courses of study, which there is cross-party support for and a clear public interest in. None the less, as it would include the provision in the Bill, we hope that it will be supported by Members from all parties.
The amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Nottingham, North address other issues. We have covered variability, longer courses in socially useful and priority occupations and the provision of a cap in the Bill. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will speak to his amendments, but they are designed to clarify a redistribution mechanism by introducing in the Bill a requirement that at least 10 per cent. of the money raised from fees is paid into a central pot, redistribution of which is at the discretion of the Secretary of State.
As the hon. Gentleman might expect, the official Opposition have some concerns about that. I note that several Labour Members support the amendments, so it will be interesting to hear what the Minister has to say. Our view is that it is desirable for higher education institutions that are successful in attracting students to have the money following the student rather than being redistributed. However, all that depends on what people think of top-up fees. The Conservatives do not want top-up fees, and if we did not have them, we would not have to worry about how to distribute the income that is generated.
The amendments of the hon. Member for Nottingham, North would set the precedent of moving away in legislation from the idea that higher education institutions should make provision to attract students of high ability but from a low-income background through their own doors. As the hon. Member for Cambridge has rightly pointed out, Cambridge university, like other Russell group universities and other institutions, has an excellent record in this area. However, the amendments would move us to a system in which higher education institutions were responsible not just for recruiting low-income students through their own doors, but for providing support for recruiting low-income students through the doors of other institutions.
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The Conservative party's position is that we should do without top-up fees, but we can have an interesting debate—I look forward to hon. Members' comments—about whether the redistribution mechanism should be in the Bill and whether it should be the implied or, indeed, explicit responsibility of universities rather than the Department. I do not disagree with the hon. Gentleman that there is a general public interest in ensuring that people from low-income families have access to higher education, but I wonder whether his proposals are the right way to bring that about.
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| ©Parliamentary copyright 2004 | Prepared 24 February 2004 |
