Higher Education (Fee Limits and Fee Limit Condition) (England) Regulations 2018 — House of Lords, 2018-07-24
Topic: Education
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for introducing the regulations so lucidly. He referred to the review that is taking place on student finance, which is of huge importance, of course, to students and their families and to universities. He said that the report would come in early 2019 but he said nothing more about it. I have three specific questions about the review. First, will it be publishing either an interim report or any interim statements or summaries of evidence taken? I think that could be quite useful in stimulating the public debate that needs to take place around the future of the higher education funding system The second point is about consultation. Which groups of students and young people are the Government consulting, because a big and controversial issue has been the failure to include young people in the review team? The one group that is not a part of the review team directly is the group of very young people and students who are directly affected by this. That is a big mistake. The right thing to do, particularly if we are to win support from the generation that is paying these fees in a reformed system, is to have some buy-in from them at the beginning. The failure to put those arrangements in place will cost the Government dear. It would be good to know what consultation is taking place with young people Thirdly, what polling among the public and young people is the review doing to ascertain the attitudes of the public at large to the sharing of the burdens of paying for higher education and the attitudes among young people? My view all along, having played a part in the introduction of the original scheme in 2004 but having been opposed to the trebling of tuition fees in 2010, has been that students recognise that in order to be responsible and constructive members of society, particularly in the current climate, where they are very focused on getting jobs and making their way in the world, they need to make some contribution to the higher education system, but they resent the fact that all the costs of the higher education system have been moved to the students and the graduates. Polling might bring that out and might help to establish a basis of agreement on public attitudes, which might make a burden-sharing approach possible which, to be blunt, might mean cutting the level of fees from £9,500 but not eliminating them entirely My party’s official position is now to eliminate fees entirely. The noble Viscount’s position is to have them at £9,500. There is quite a big space between zero and £9,500. Being, as ever, moderate and constructive, I am quite keen that we come in somewhere in the middle of that space. That might be sustainable among the public, rather than doing what I fear may happen, which is lurching from a very high level of fees by international standards to no fees at all Finally, when I read the debate in the House of Commons Delegated Legislation Committee on these regulations, the Minister for Higher Education said that he was conducting a listening tour around the country. I am strongly in favour of listening tours; I wish the Government would conduct them on many other issues, too, including Brexit, but that is for a later debate. However, he gives an extraordinary figure for the number of students he has met, which I am hugely impressed by. He said that on his listening tour so far he has met more than 1,500 students. I am not sure whether those 1,500 have been in the hall with him as he has been going around or whether he has personally conducted conversations with them I would be very grateful if the noble Viscount could tell us whether he has any findings from the Minister’s listening tour or whether the Minister might publish findings from his tour when he has finished it, because knowing that he has conducted a listening tour but not knowing what he has heard is not of great use to Parliament when we come to consider these significant student finance and funding issues after the review reports in the early part of next year.