| Higher Education Bill
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Mr. Willis: I am particularly interested in the hon. Gentleman's final comments, which take him into a new area of Conservative policy. He confirmed to the Minister, as the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) did to my hon. Friend the Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) on the Floor of the House, that the Conservative party would not introduce top-up fees. Can the Committee take that to mean that it will introduce grants for all students? Mr. Collins: The hon. Gentleman will have to wait and see. I am thrilled—that is the only way I can describe it—at the deep interest in Conservative policy in many quarters of the Committee. If one studied recent opinion polls, one would assume that our policies were more likely to be implemented after the next election than those of any other party, so it is quite right that there should be a level of interest in them. None the less, I would urge some patience. The hon. Gentleman will see our proposals when we publish them, and I am sure that he will study them with interest. He may even feel a comment issuing from his lips, which may find its way to some journalists, and we wait with baited breath to see whether it will be positive. Kali Mountford: Will the hon. Gentleman clarify what part Dearing now plays in his party's thinking, given that it was the mechanism that all parties agreed to adopt in tackling the future of higher education? What part of Dearing does he now want to abandon? Does it play any part in his thinking? Column Number: 192 Mr. Collins: I have to say to the hon. Lady that, in 1997, the incoming Labour Government did not legislate to implement the entire Dearing report; indeed, it departed quite significantly from its recommendations. It is a bit rich of the hon. Lady to go back to 1997 given that, as she will recall, the present Prime Minister ruled out introducing tuition fees before the election only for the Government promptly to legislate to introduce them afterwards. If I may say so, there is a bit of a pattern emerging. The Labour party says one thing before elections and does the complete opposite after them. It will be interesting to see what it promises in its manifesto at the next election, because we will then know with absolute certainty that it will do the exact opposite. I now wish to conclude my remarks, however, by saying that this is a very important part of the Bill. We look forward to what the Minister has to say about variability, although I suspect that I shall have some sympathy with his comments. We also look forward to him telling us why the figure of £3,000 should not be included in the Bill and why we should rely on a mechanism other than primary legislation to promote access for veterinary, medical and education students, who might be deterred by the fear of paying fees for more than three years. Mr. Allen: I want to speak to the amendments in my name and to put in perspective why I tabled them and why they are important. First, no one should run away with the idea that university finance is the most important thing for working-class kids' life chances. Many of the most important factors for my constituents are a lot further down the educational food chain, and we must go back to further education, secondary schools and primary schools. Indeed, we must go right back to an issue that I was lucky enough to raise with the Prime Minister last week—the social behaviour that enables toddlers to make the best of their early years in education. We need to debate that important issue carefully. Let us not run away with the idea that somehow working-class kids are cheated out of their life chances at 18. The dice are loaded against them much earlier. The Committee must try to ensure that life chances are improved for all kids, for all the constituents whom we represent. I speak with great feeling on the issue. People are probably fed up of hearing this, but I will say it again: my constituency sends fewer young people to university than any other constituency in the United Kingdom. It is not Tower Hamlets, Glasgow or Manchester, Moss Side; it is Nottingham, North. To discover the reason for that, one need only visit the constituency and see the large tracts of former council housing, where educational attainment is under-valued and there is a strong culture that young people have to fight if they are to go on even to A-level or further education, let alone university. In seven out of the eight secondary schools in my constituency, education ends at 16. There is one sixth form college, in the middle of my constituency, and a handful of kids from the constituency attend it. The culture is that people leave school at 16. A young Column Number: 193 person is not unusual if they stay on; they are weird. I have had this conversation with my right hon. Friend the Minister. The feeling is that there is something peculiar about someone who decides to stay on at school and seeks to better themselves by going into FE or to university. The system fails those kids.I want to say more later about the children who go to university now. This generation will be looked back on as the group who got the worst possible deal from our education system. People like me, who were lucky enough to go to college and then university with a full grant, and the youngsters who will go to university with a full grant if the Bill is passed will look back on this brief interregnum as a dark age of higher education. Mrs. Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con): The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the early years of a child's education are the most formative and therefore the most important. Why, then, does he insist on such a high target—50 per cent.—for the number of 18-year-olds going to university, when the resources used for that 50 per cent. could be much better deployed in giving chances to children at the ages of four, five, six, seven and eight? That would really affect their life chances. Mr. Allen: I do not know whether it would be gentlemanly to strike the jutting-out chin of the hon. Lady—perhaps I will move on. Although I finally got back on the education ladder after one or two hiccups, there was nothing special about me. Indeed, many of my colleagues at school were far brighter than me, but never went on to any form of further or higher education. Kids in my constituency, where I was fortunate to be born and bred, are not stupid. They are no less capable of educational achievement than anyone else. However, we need to put in all the layers of possibilities so that we can open up educational opportunities for those youngsters. Unfortunately, the policies of those on the Conservative Front Bench—I am sure that the hon. Lady will wish to dissociate herself from those policies when she has heard my remarks—would restrict the opportunities of youngsters in my constituency to better themselves. Frankly, if the phrase ''equal opportunities'' means anything in Conservative philosophy, it must mean allowing capable working-class kids every opportunity to get to university. That is not only denied them currently, but, according to Universities UK, 410,000 fewer youngsters would go to university if the targets set by Conservative policy were reached. That is yet to be refuted. Will the hon. Lady say whether those youngsters would be from leafy suburban constituencies, or would they be the kids from working class constituencies who do not go to university and who will be denied further opportunity under the Conservative proposals? I look forward to her explanation. Chris Grayling: First, Universities UK is simply wrong about the figure of 410,000. Secondly, the hon. Gentleman described a profoundly serious situation in his constituency that no Member on either side of the Column Number: 194 House would ignore: that it is considered weird to stay in education beyond the age of 16. However, that reveals a profound social problem that lies far beyond the education system and that cannot be blamed simply on the system. However, he is making a jump from the situation that he describes when he talks about the university admissions system being part of the solution. The solution lies in society in earlier years. Surely he accepts that? His argument is totally at odds with reality.Mr. Allen: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for repeating my opening remarks about the need to look far beyond university admissions if we are to tackle this problem. Again, I urge my colleagues not to think of this as being merely a Labour issue. We need to sympathise with young working class kids in constituencies represented by other parties, including that of the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing). It may surprise her to know that 30 per cent. of her constituents will be able to qualify for the full grant under the Government's proposals. I have the figures in front of me. That means that more than 30 per cent. of families in her constituency of Epping Forest will qualify if the youngsters are good enough and can obtain the necessary qualifications. Almost 68 per cent. of families in her constituency would qualify for a partial grant. Real things will happen in her constituency, too. This proposal is not only about helping kids in Leeds, East, in Nottingham, North or in any other Labour constituency. Mrs. Laing: I am not at all surprised at the statistic that the hon. Gentleman kindly provided for my constituency. The idea that children in constituencies represented by Labour Members are different from children in constituencies represented by Conservative Members is absolute nonsense. I am not surprised by the figure of 30 per cent. I desperately want more 16-year-olds in parts of my constituency to go on to further or higher education. Far from refuting the point that I made to him earlier, the hon. Gentleman has enforced my argument. If a certain amount of money is to be spent on education, it is nonsense to say that most of it should be spent on very large numbers of young people. Why should the figure be 50 per cent. and not 45 per cent. or 55 per cent.? The figure is arbitrary. Why should the money be spent on 18 to 21-year-olds when we all know, as the hon. Gentleman said most eloquently, that it is the early years of a child's education that give him or her different chances in life? I want there to be more investment in early years education in my constituency and throughout the country.
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| ©Parliamentary copyright 2004 | Prepared 24 February 2004 |
