| Higher Education Bill
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Mr. Allen: I have great respect and admiration for my hon. Friend. I have worked closely with him over many years and I hope to continue to do so. I respect the position he takes and where he is coming from. I am not being derogatory when I talk about wrecking. It is not in my power either to drop the Bill, to accept parts of it or to make compromises. It has been made clear that should key parts of the Bill fall, it may fall as a whole. I do not suggest that the amendment is designed to wreck the Bill, but I make a plea to him on behalf of my constituents. I am not in the Government. I am about as likely as he is to be in the Government in the next few years. It is not a case of putting the line. Almost two thirds of families in my constituency will qualify for a full grant if the Bill goes through. No Labour Member could have dared to hope that we would be anywhere near that prize until now. My hon. Friend asked how thresholds are calculated. That is an important question, but the current threshold is easy to calculate: there is no grant, so nobody gets anything, regardless of where they are. In future, when the thresholds are in the Bill—I should like to see them there—it will be easy for people to calculate the income levels. Mr. Clappison: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
11.15 amMr. Allen: I will give way in a moment. If the hon. Gentleman can contain himself, he will have his chance. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge, we must examine the thresholds and tackle the important issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East. I shall move an amendment later to enable more money to be sucked in to the front end to do something about thresholds. If something could be done about the important question raised by Column Number: 199 my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge about regional differences in house prices, that too would be important for a number of colleagues. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will take those comments as I mean them, which is sincerely: there are still ways in which we can improve the Bill. I assume that the hon. Member for Hertsmere wants to find out about statistics for his constituency.Mr. Clappison: The hon. Gentleman is making an extremely important point about the costs of living and thresholds. On thresholds and combined grants, which were announced by the Secretary of State as enabling students to meet the higher costs of variable fees, he referred to the figure of £15,970. Between £15,970 and £21,000, students currently pay no fees at all. Under the proposals, for the first time, they will have to pay an element towards the cost of their education. Even though they receive a grant, it will taper out and not cover the full cost. At the moment, it is free under £21,000; under the Secretary of State's announcements, they will pay something. Mr. Allen: Indeed, they will pay something, and it calculates at around £4 a week for a graduate who has undergone a three-year course. I do not blame the hon. Gentleman for being embarrassed about his party's policy, but what he does not mention is that almost a third of his constituency of Hertsmere—the very word makes one think of leafy suburbs— Mr. Willis: The hon. Gentleman did not mention Harrogate. Mr. Allen: Harrogate is on the way. Just under one third of families in the constituency of the hon. Member for Hertsmere will be eligible for the full grant. One can imagine the abundant joy in the streets of Hertsmere when the lower-income areas rejoice at the assistance that they will get. If he joins us in our Lobby, I am sure that he will be the first to put out a leaflet supporting a £3,000 grant for youngsters on the estates—I mean the council estates, not the shooting estates. Alan Johnson: My hon. Friend is making a good argument, but I should like to return to the question of youngsters with a household income between £15,970 and £21,000. Does he recall the arguments made by Opposition Members, and by some on the Government Benches, that as we have moved the onus for payment from the up-front fees for students as they go to university fees to the graduate, that it does not make sense that fee repayment should depend on family income before applying to university? It is for that reason that the fee remission, mentioned by the hon. Member for Hertsmere, is paid up front as a grant, rather than being taken off the fee. Does my hon. Friend not agree that that is a much fairer system, which addresses precisely the hon. Gentleman's point? Mr. Allen: I do not think that the hon. Member for Hertsmere wanted his point addressed; none the less, the Minister has done so more eloquently than I could. Column Number: 200 However, rich students with rich parents, and poor students with poor parents, will not repay fees. Qualified graduates earning £15,000 will pay the princely sum of £4 a week.Mr. Clappison: Will the hon. Gentleman give way? Mr. Allen: I am being glowered at by colleagues on the Treasury Bench, so I had better make progress. As part of that perspective, I suggest that youngsters in constituencies like mine need an incentive to go to university. We have front-loaded assistance by ensuring that a grant is available, and we have abolished the up-front fee. I do not swallow the argument that an income-contingent fee paid only by those earning more than £15,000 a year is a disincentive. The danger is that—sometimes for party political purposes but sometimes because of genuine anxiety—we play up the question of debt aversion rather than explain people's income-contingent liabilities and repayments. After Second Reading, the first thing I did was to write to head teachers in my constituency to ensure that, whichever newspaper they read, they could tell the kids who aspire to go to university that they should not be frightened about fees because they would not have to repay them until they were earning as graduates. The other goods news for people in Nottingham, North—and everywhere else—is that the children will receive an up-front grant if their family income entitles them to one. Jonathan Shaw: On the subject of debt, is it not the case that of all socio-economic groups, working-class people have the worst debt? They suffer from store-card debt and from the activities of loan sharks. It is important that university loans are explained, because people in such circumstances often associate debt with the huge annual percentage rate of store-card and loan sharks debts. Mr. Allen: If kids are bright enough to battle their way through an education-averse culture, to crawl their way up the educational ladder despite pressure from their peer group and to get the necessary qualifications for A-level and university, they are almost by definition streetwise and bright enough to know a damned good interest-free loan when they see one. That is especially so when compared to what mum is borrowing to keep body and soul together and to keep the furniture. Such kids will realise that it is an extremely good deal. I shall move on to the second perspective and the helpful exchange that we had about markets. I give credit to the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale for clarifying some of the issues, but he did not go quite far enough. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East asked whether higher education is a market now. We must understand that markets are sophisticated and can go from one extreme to the other. At one end there is the Stalinist centralised planning system, and even then, that did not squeeze out the market because it involved a cost. At the other Column Number: 201 extreme is the Chilean Pinochet ''let it all rip and do not intervene'' system.Thankfully, our debate is at the centre of that spectrum. Unfortunately, the current market in higher education denies qualified youngsters the university of their choice. It forces the lower middle incomes to which my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East referred to pay a joining-up fee before they can go to university. It is a market that gives no grant for any student to live on, and it kills the aspirations of a generation of kids who want to better themselves. It is a market that lets universities off, which perpetuates the scandal. It is a rigged market, and it is in need of reform not protection.
Column Number: 202 One of my key arguments is that we need to make the existing market in university fees more transparent; it should be properly regulated. That is the Labour tradition. In the words of John Smith, ''A market is a good servant, but it can be a bad master.'' Whatever the differences may be, we need to create a properly ordered, transparent and regulated market. I hope that those social goals will be evident in our debates today.
Adjourned till this day at half-past Two o'clock. Column Number: 203
Gale, Mr. Roger (Chairman) Allen, Mr. Boswell, Mr. Campbell, Mrs. Chaytor, Mr. Clappison, Mr. Collins, Mr. Foster, Mr. Francis, Dr. Francois, Mr. Grayling, Chris Hall, Mr. Column Number: 204 Johnson, Alan Laing, Mrs. Laxton, Mr. Lewis, Mr. Mountford, Kali Mudie, Mr. Plaskitt, Mr. Purnell, James Rendel, Mr. Shaw, Jonathan Thomas, Mr. Twigg, Derek Willis, Mr. The following also attended, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(2): Mackinlay, Andrew (Thurrock) (Lab)
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| Prepared 24 February 2004 | |
