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Baroness Sharp of Guildford: My Lords, when I studied economics there was a category of goods which were called regrettable necessities. I regard the regulations before us today as regrettable necessities. As the noble Lord made clear, we have debated at some length fairly recently the Act on which these regulations are based. I argued hard and passionately that there should be no basic or higher amount because from these Benches we wish to see no fees at all. I did not receive support from all sides of the House and certainly not from the Government Benches. We did not manage to change the Government's position. It is therefore a regrettable necessity that we now have these regulations before us. In so far as they are a true reflection of what we agreed within the Act, I have no quarrel with them whatever.

Like the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, I believe that the Act opens up a new era for British students. We shall see young graduates burdened with very considerable amounts of debt. It will be very interesting to see the reaction of graduates. That is one of the issues that we debated; namely, the unintended consequences. My noble friend Lord Russell has just reminded me that we already have great problems in recruiting for courses in our chemistry departments, which are normally four-year degree courses. Therefore, a larger amount of debt is entailed. It is quite likely that some of the science departments will find themselves in considerable trouble when recruiting students from now on. We shall see.

I accept the Minister's statement that the Government will abide by their promise not to raise the fees until 2010. When they are raised they will come before this House, as these regulations have, for authorisation. We shall have a chance to debate them. Sums in the region of £10,000 and £15,000 were mentioned as regards the rise we might see in 2010. The Minister may remember that it was no less a person than the Rector of Imperial College who raised the possibility of fees in the region of £15,000 per student.

For the moment the higher amount will be £3,000, which we accept. We have no quarrel with the regulations although we do regret them.

Lord Triesman: My Lords, I thank both noble Baronesses for their comments. Their speeches merit a short reply, not least the invitation to the electorate made by the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, to pass the final judgment on this matter. The manifesto commitment was made in response to a threat towards the end of the last Parliament that some universities
 
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wanted to charge up-front fees of up to £15,000 a year. Sir Richard Sykes may well have such an ambition, but he may feel that that has been somewhat limited by the legislation that has been before the House. I believed then and I believe now that such an unregulated system would be wholly wrong. That is why the commitments were made and unregulated fees are still prohibited by the legislation that has been passed. The £3,000 cap remains in place.

It is also worth reiterating an undertaking given in the debate on the Bill which I make in response to the comment of the noble Baroness about what was said and done in 1998. We believe that the increases that have been introduced in the recent spending reviews will cover a large proportion of the financial needs of the sector in the short term while, over the longer term, income from variable fees will provide additional funding worth around £1 billion per year. I want to make the further point that if, as we expect, the fees generate an extra £1 billion, that is what the universities will get, not a pound less. I could not put it more simply than that.

Earl Russell: My Lords, I would be grateful if the Minister could tell the House how the Government decide which of the financial wants of universities they choose to classify as needs. What evidence do they use to reach that decision?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, I think that the noble Earl, Lord Russell, knows the answer even before I say it. The funding councils in the various parts of the United Kingdom are explicit about what they believe are the needs of universities in their forward bids. The organisation Universities UK makes detailed observations, as do other bodies. They are charged with the good stewardship of the finances of universities and, generally speaking, they express the
 
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needs. Whether it is always possible to meet the full needs they describe is another matter, but in general we have tried to do so on their advice.

I turn to a comment made by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, in describing some of the consequences. Of course these are early days and it is true that we will be reviewing the consequences. The data currently available cover only the impact of the level of fees thus far. Inevitably that is true. But I do not think that there are grounds for deep pessimism. The UCAS figures published only a couple of days ago have quite rightly received a little press attention, although perhaps not as much as they should. They show that the total number of applications in the most recent UCAS figures is up by 2.9 per cent. I shall not go through the whole list, but the noble Baroness mentioned chemistry in particular. Applications for chemistry courses have risen by 6.5 per cent over the year. I am encouraged by that because I want to see the sciences prosper as well as other subjects. People coming through in the sciences must be an encouraging sign for us all, irrespective of our approach to the Bill.

I think that I have responded to the main points made by the two noble Baronesses. I commend the regulations to the House.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Traffic Management Bill

Bill returned from the Commons with certain Lords amendments disagreed to with reasons for such disagreement; with a further Lords amendment disagreed to but with amendments proposed to the words so restored to the Bill; and with the remaining Lords amendments agreed to; it was ordered that the Commons reasons and amendments be printed.

House adjourned at nine minutes past seven o'clock.

 
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15 Jul 2004 : Column GC307
 

Official Report of the Grand Committee on the
Pensions Bill

(Fourth Day)

Thursday, 15 July 2004.

The Committee met at eleven of the clock.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Gould of Potternewton) in the Chair.]

Clause 85 [Procedure for issue and publication of codes of practice]:

Lord Skelmersdale moved Amendment No. 167:

Page 61, line 5, leave out subsections (5) to (8) and insert—

"(5) If the Regulator determines to proceed with a draft, he must send it to the Secretary of State who—
(a) if he approves of it, must make the code of practice in the form of the draft, and
(b) if he does not approve of it, must publish details of his reasons for withholding approval.
(6) The power to make a code of practice under this section is exercisable by statutory instrument."

The noble Lord said: At the end of our proceedings on Tuesday, I put the Minister on warning that I would make a faintly retrospective speech about Clause 84 and its relationship to Clause 85. She said that she would not complain too much. It is in Hansard.

As the Committee will know, I have now spent just over one third of my life in this House sitting on the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments. For some reason, the committee is not subject to the three-year return, but I will not be asking the Minister why as I do not believe it is in her province.

This series of amendments point out that it is bad statutory instrument practice for a quango to make legally binding codes of practice. I accept that the Bill does not propose this, but the Secretary of State confirms the codes of practice. I recall that on Second Reading the noble Baroness and I had a little exchange about the degree of the legally binding effect (col. 386). In effect, she said that obeying or not obeying the regulator's codes of practice would be taken into account in any legal proceedings under Clause 84(5), but no more than that.

We can argue about the weakness of the Bill's provisions in this regard probably till the cows come home. But I would say that if the Secretary of State gets involved in the codes of practice that are laid before Parliament—albeit subject to negative resolution under the Bill, but affirmative under this proposal—they should be legally binding and not merely taken account of.

Be that as it may, the current drafting in subsections (5), (6), (7) and (8) of Clause 85 is extremely complicated. We have therefore sought to simplify it by using the
 
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formulation we already have in the Bill under Clause 301(1). It surely is not necessary to have subsection (7) in particular, which encapsulates part of the Statutory Instruments Act 1947. As subsection (8) again states, the obvious I would ask the Minister why it is necessary. It is, after all, practice that a statutory instrument is law until it is replaced by another one. I beg to move.

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