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Baroness Sharp of Guildford: My Lords, at this hour I certainly shall not press the amendment. I should like to leave two thoughts with the Minister. First, should not Section 21 of the Education Act 2002 be amended to take account of the existence of children's services authorities? Secondly, I would like her to ponder the changing role of schools within the community as envisaged by the Government. Many schools are being created as more independent and autonomous entities. It is very important that, as regards the Children Act and the setting up of children's services authorities, schools play a part.
When we argued the case, the Minister always argued, "Yes, but the local education authorities are there as the strategic partners. They are the corporate parents in relation to looked-after children and so on". In many cases, the local education authority is going to play a very small part, and sometimes no part whatever, in the government of the school. In such cases schools themselves will have to be brought in as partners. There is no mechanism within the Act for doing that. So I should like the Minister to ponder that as the Bill goes on to the other place and to think about whether it might not be appropriate.
We are suggesting a very minor change—one that the Government should, arguably, be making anyway. They have set up a new institution, the children's services authority, which should be accommodated within the framework of the Education Act 2002. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland moved Amendment No. 49:
On Question, amendment agreed to.
An amendment (privilege) made.
On Question, Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.
Student Fees (Amounts) (England) Regulations 2004
Lord Triesman rose to move, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 2 July be approved [24th Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Lord said: My Lords, Section 24 of the Act makes provision for the Secretary of State to make regulations prescribing the basic and higher amounts which will apply from 2006–07. These regulations were
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made available in draft form during the passage of the Bill, so I believe that noble Lords will already be familiar with their content.
The regulations perform two functions. First, they set a basic and higher amount for the fees which may be charged to full-time undergraduate students. Secondly, they describe the courses to which lower limits apply in an academic year.
The process for agreeing the regulations is set out in Section 26 of the Act. In the case of a first set of regulations, the Act requires that the regulations are laid before and approved by each House. That is the purpose of today's debate.
Future increases in both the basic and higher amounts are restricted to inflation unless, in the case of the basic amount, approved by affirmative resolution, or, in the case of the higher amount, by an amendable resolution. Indeed, noble Lords will recall that that was one of the concessions we made during the passage of the Bill in order to strengthen the role of Parliament in this process and to reinforce our commitment that any debate on above-inflation rises in the higher amount should take place on the Floor of both Houses.
In any case, no such increases can take place before 2010 at the earliest. That, too, is written on the face of the Bill.
We have already spent a good deal of time discussing the principle of variability, and I am sure that noble Lords will not think it appropriate to go over that ground again this evening. The regulations simply set the fee levels that we discussed throughout the passage of the Bill and will apply to full-time, undergraduate courses from 2006–07. Only institutions with an agreed access plan will be able to charge up to the higher fee. Those without such a plan will be restricted to the basic fee. The framework for the sanctions regime, which will apply if an institution charges more than it should do, is set out in the Act. It was subject to considerable debate in your Lordships' House. That is in the condition of grant, which we intend to lay on the Higher Education Funding Council for England. We published a draft of the condition of grant when we debated the fees section of the Act in Committee. I hope that it goes without saying that we do not expect institutions to act in a way that would necessitate the use of those provisions, but as noble Lords will know, they offer important safeguards for students.
Ordinarily, the fee levels set out in Regulation 4 will apply: a basic amount of £1,200 and a higher amount of £3,000. There will be specific courses where a different basic and lower amount will apply, and those are set out in Regulation 5. Under that regulation, the basic and higher amounts are set at £600 and £1,500 respectively, half of the levels that would normally apply. Noble Lords will recognise that the courses listed in this section are essentially those for which students already pay half-rate fees under the current system. They include students on sandwich placements; students undertaking a year abroad; students on part-time ITT courses; and students whose final year lasts for 15 weeks or less.
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For those students, we are continuing the half-rate principle, but whereas the present institutions automatically charge the half-rate fee for those courses because that is the rule that has been set by the Government, in future they will have the discretion on what level to charge, up to those fee caps. They can charge very much less if they wish, and they will need to justify to their students charging at the level they propose for the year abroad and so on.
It is those regulations, backed by the Act's provisions, which give effect to our promise that fees will be no more than £3,000 in real terms. The regulations complete the set of undertakings about fees that we made when we took the Bill through both Houses of Parliament. As your Lordships will no doubt recall, there was some talk at the time that we would not stick to £3,000 as a cap. Fanciful figures of £10,000 and £15,000 were mentioned. Our intentions have always been clear, and these regulations deliver to the letter on the promises. Once made, the £3,000 cap cannot be lifted by more than inflation until 2010 at the earliest. That is due to Section 26 of the Act. By then, Parliament will have had the benefit of the report by the independent commission, which will report directly to Parliament in 2009 on the first three years of fee variability.
The content of these regulations and the principles that underlie them are already familiar to the House and have been subject to extremely painstaking and detailed debate. I remember it all with great affection. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 2 July be approved [24th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Lord Triesman.)
Baroness Seccombe: My Lords, I thank the Minister for outlining the regulations. One listens to the pledges in the regulations and considers the hollow pledge that was made in the manifesto of 2001:
It is disappointing that the Government broke those manifesto commitments. We can only hope that the pledges that they have given this time will not be broken as soon.
In the 1998 Act, the Treasury, having introduced fees when it said it would not, kept the cash that it received. Since that time, government funding per student has fallen by 10 per cent. Now students are to be saddled with debts of around £30,000. But as the Minister said, we have debated these issues at great length in recent days. Now is not the time to revisit the matter as I do not wish to waste your Lordships' time by repeating myself.
I shall make a few points. I am glad that eventually the Government did climb down over gap year fees. It will certainly help 28,000 students and their families. I particularly wish to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton of Upholland, for all her efforts in achieving that.
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We are grateful for other changes as the Bill progressed, but obviously disappointed that there were not more. The removal of additionality from the Bill in another place was distressing, particularly as the Government failed to back up their arguments. But perhaps the most important problem that remains with the Bill is that it will not fill the funding gap. Who knows whether future students will be deterred by the huge increase in fees. The regulations cause me sadness and now we have to await the decision of the electorate.
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