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Lembit Öpik (Montgomeryshire) (LD): One question that we can answer but that must be asked anyway is: which political parties in Northern Ireland support this proposal? The answer is none. My understanding was that, in the absence of the Assembly operating effectively, we should reflect the wishes of the Northern Ireland politicians when it is easy to determine what those wishes are. In that context, the proposal could not be more contrary to the evident preferences of the Province's politicians.
Mr. Barnes: On the political parties' attitudes in Northern Ireland, it would be interesting if there were an organised Labour party as distinct from people in Northern Ireland being entitled to membership of the party, in order to see—
The Chairman: Order. That is as far as we go on that subject.
Lembit Öpik: If there were an organised Labour party in Northern Ireland, it could perhaps act as a kind of Trojan horse to provide a counterbalance to the overwhelmingly legitimate politicians, but I know were I to say that, I would probably be ruled out of order.
Looking at the parties in Northern Ireland, this is, as has been pointed out already, one of those rare occasions on which there is unity of purpose and of thought. It is therefore all the more extraordinary that the Government have chosen this occasion to impose their rule from Westminster, when it is patently obvious that the elected representatives of the Assembly and Northern Ireland's elected representatives in Westminster could not be more opposed to what the Government are trying to force through.
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The Liberal Democrat position has always been clear: to summarise, we totally oppose top-up fees, which we recognise as a tax on learning. The easiest and most effective way to achieve wider access to education is to make tuition free, not to charge for it. In 1998, Ministers assured us that if top-up fees were introduced, fees would not be increased, and that the introduction of the £1,000 Dearing fee was not a prelude to further top-up fees. The then Secretary of State for Education and Employment said:
''We introduced the new funding arrangements for students and for repayment precisely to avoid the universities levying additional charges . . . I have made my position clear . . . I am against the levying of top-up fees.''—[Official Report, 8 February 2001; Vol. 362, c. 1061.]
What a contrast to what we have heard today. To go further, on 26 July 2000, Baroness Blackstone told the Select Committee on Education and Employment:
''Top-up fees would, I think, introduce a free-for-all that would be very, very difficult to operate in this country. There is no tradition of this sort of totally free market approach to higher education. I think we would find huge disparities between different institutions in the kind of income that they were able to generate, also in what they were charging. We would have students very confused by the whole different range of possible charges that they might have to pay. The Government has made it absolutely clear . . . It is no part of our policy to promote or introduce top-up fees. I cannot make my position, and that of the Government, clearer.''
Indeed she could not, which makes it even stranger that we now find ourselves debating yet another proposal to introduce the one thing to which Lady Blackstone and the former Secretary of State for Education and Employment said they were opposed.
The Conservative spokesman, the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington), quoted, quite rightly, the Government's 2001 manifesto promise:
''We will not introduce top-up fees and have legislated to prevent them.''
Is it any wonder that people in Northern Ireland and the student representatives in the form of the National Union of Students and the Union of Students in Ireland are so angry about the Government's arrogance in introducing something that any reasonable person would have assumed had been ruled out of order—ruled not on the agenda—for the 2001 to 2005 Labour Administration.
Aside from the damage such things do to the credibility of promises that we all make as politicians, I am concerned that the problems already foretold—I need not repeat them—will come to pass. An obvious example is the marketisation of knowledge: variable fees introduce an element whereby learning and scholarship are made part of the financial marketplace rather than the marketplace of intellect and learning. Another market would be introduced, one that encourages students to choose subjects on the basis not of interest or ability but of costs and monetary reward after graduation. The Minister's opening comments made it absolutely clear that the Government know the price of education but do not value courses and degrees that do not necessarily lead to a higher level of intellectual return for the country or do not create greater monetary reward for the individual graduate.
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It is said—and I have every reason to believe that it is true—that a former Secretary of State for Education and Skills commented:
''I do not mind there being some medievalists around for ornamental purposes, but there is no reason for this state to pay for them.''
That summarises the attitude that we face: an obsession with price, not the value of education.
The proposals also present problems in attracting bright students into postgraduate research. We should heed the warning of Professor Robert Reich in his lecture to the Higher Education Policy Institute when he said:
''Be careful about going down the American road of the marketisation of knowledge. Don't give up the public vision of higher education. Don't allow it to become a private good''.
The principles of fees take us down precisely that route.
How much money would be raised has been covered, but I shall add one point. Universities UK's current briefing states that the annual deficit in the teaching budget is about £2 billion—the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) commented on those figures. How much will top-up fees raise? At most, they will generate around £1 billion per annum across the United Kingdom. Therefore, in terms of the prime objective sought to be achieved by previous legislation—to bring new money into universities—only half the desired amount will be realised. It goes without saying that there is not one Liberal Democrat who thinks—
Mr. Stephen Pound (Ealing, North) (Lab): That is the problem.
Lembit Öpik: I implore the hon. Gentleman not to be naughty during this important debate—otherwise, I shall break his glasses, too, with my psychic powers. [Laughter.]
Mr. Pound: May I inform the hon. Gentleman that the only part of my body that works perfectly is my eyes, and the only glasses that I use tend to be containers. [Laughter.]
Lembit Öpik: How can I respond to that? That was an erudite illustration of what a man, even of the hon. Gentleman's means, can achieve through the benefit of a proper education—one for which he paid no fees. How disadvantaged he would have been under the proposed regime, one can only imagine.
Not one Liberal Democrat thinks that the fees will remain at the proposed level. The system of grants and loans being introduced is so complicated that it will cost more to administer than it will generate. The Higher Education Policy Institute puts administration costs at £1.4 billion and the amount raised at £1 billion; those are the economics of madness. University students would be better off if no fees were charged and the money were put directly into the universities' coffers.
Many examples have been cited of the likely return for students in relation to incomes; the hon. Member for Lagan Valley and others covered the subject of average incomes. My one additional point in that
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respect is that the Government have stressed that with the annual income threshold rising to £15,000 before repayments are due, students earning £18,000 per annum will pay only £5 a week; but when one works out the figures, one can see that graduates who, throughout their working lives, earn less than £30,000 a year in present-day terms will take 25 years to pay off their debts. Furthermore, graduates earning less than their peers will have to pay, in effect, a 42 per cent. marginal rate of tax, which is far higher than the 23 per cent. basic rate of income tax, 10 per cent. national insurance and 9 per cent. graduate loan repayments that we have seen so far.
The economics do not work at the levels currently proposed. Therefore, unless the Minister can give us an assurance now—he is welcome to intervene—and promise on behalf of the Government not to increase the rates, we can determine that the order represents the beginning of a sliding scale that will go only up and not down. That will necessarily be the case in Northern Ireland if it is to happen across the rest of the United Kingdom.
I have two further points, one of which I make on behalf of the NUS-USI. I apologise for repeating the statistics cited by the hon. Member for Lagan Valley, but I was so upset by the Minister's points that I was momentarily distracted. I hope that I shall not now repeat the points that the hon. Gentleman or others made.
There are two universities in Northern Ireland. The NUS-USI makes the point that it is strange to introduce market principles when there are only two providers. Furthermore, it is not at all plausible for the Government to say that there is no alternative. They obviously thought that there was an alternative when they went into the general election in 2001, because they promised not to introduce the very method of top-up fees. We have heard the figures from around the world, and I do not hear the Minister countering the examples of woe from countries that have created many problems, especially for low-income families who wish to send their children to university.
Crucially—frankly, we can repeat this as many times as is necessary to get an answer—it must be understood that legislation is being introduced to bring in variable deferred fees for which only 15 out of 41 responses at the consultation phase offered any degree of qualified support. How can the Minister think that this is democratic when the democratic institutions that we represent in the absence of an operational Assembly,clearly do not think that this is correct?
One of my greatest disappointments about the whole process is that Scotland and, evidently, Wales have expressed their great desire to move away from a discredited system. It is difficult to see why the Government feel obliged to sort the matter out while being fully committed to restarting the Assembly. Is it too much to ask the Northern Ireland Office to have the patience to allow such an important decision to be owned and made by Northern Ireland politicians in
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the Assembly, which we hope will be operating again sooner or later? Why the urgency? Could it be that the Government are embarrassed by the potential disparity, whereby the fortunes of low-income earners in Northern Ireland are shown to be more effectively served by a system that does not include these fees? Is it that the Government do not feel comfortable about the successful experiment in Scotland and fear that further devolutionary initiatives in Wales and Northern Ireland will simply serve to discredit what the Government will have foisted on England?
The motives are not clear, but one thing is sure: the proposal is not supported by the student movement in Northern Ireland, by representatives elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly, by elected representatives from Northern Ireland to this place, or by any of the Opposition parties. Finally, it is not a proposal that was supported by the Government before 2001. I hope that, in his winding-up speech, the Minister will be able to answer some of the many reasonable questions asked in the debate. If the Government think that these Grand Committee discussions are worth anything, they will certainly read the transcript and think again.
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