argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Tuition Fees — House of Commons, 2017-07-19
Topic: Macroeconomics
Jo Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend has exposed the truth, which is that the Labour party is delivering what is perhaps the biggest act of political deception we have seen in decades. It is the old game of bait and switch, saying one thing before a general election and another thing immediately after. Of course, given that this would be a £100 billion hit to our public finances, which would hurt hard-working taxpayers across the country and deliver a significant addition to our national debt and the interest burdens of the next generation, I am glad that the Labour party has done this spectacular and embarrassing U-turn. I suspect that it will not be too long before it abandons the rest of its unaffordable, unfunded and fantastical policy platform. It is a programme that it has clearly taken wholesale from the statist playbooks of 1970s tax-and-spend regimes that all ended up needing the International Monetary Fund to step in The policy that Labour proposed before the general election would have increased our national debt by a whole five percentage points of GDP, adding no less than £3,500 to the debt carried by every household in the country.
Tuition Fees — House of Commons, 2017-07-19
Topic: Education
Jo Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): A better way of looking at it is that the Government are making the most resources available to the people who are most in need of them. We want people from disadvantaged backgrounds to go to university. We are delighted that they are doing so in record numbers, and that they are now 43% more likely to do so than they ever were before.
Tuition Fees — House of Commons, 2017-07-19
Topic: Education
Jo Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): That is exactly right. The Opposition’s policy platform is collapsing before our eyes. The inevitable next step is their abandonment of the albatross around their neck that is their policy of abolishing tuition fees in their entirety. They are currently saddled with it. They are trying to wriggle off the hook of their clear promise to abolish student debt, and they will soon be trying to get rid of that appalling albatross of getting rid of tuition fees in total. As I have said, abolishing student debt would mean a huge addition to our net debt. The proposal to abolish tuition fees and reinstate maintenance grants would add £12 billion to the national deficit, which is equivalent to 0.7% of GDP and to an additional 2.5p on the basic rate of income tax.
Tuition Fees — House of Commons, 2017-07-19
Topic: Education
Jo Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): As I said in my opening remarks, we have had lots of votes on student finance issues, and we won them all. [Hon. Members: "What about the statutory instrument?"] The statutory instrument in question has been in force for six months. It went through all the parliamentary processes. Labour Members had plenty of opportunity to push for votes at the correct time; they are now six months too late When we reformed student finance in 2011, we put in place a system designed to make higher education accessible to all. Students are now supported by a system of Government-subsidised loans, which are repayable only when borrowers are earning more than £21,000 a year. Controlling the cost of higher education to the general taxpayer who has to fund public spending in this way allowed us, critically, to remove the cap on student numbers and ensure that higher education was available to all with the potential to benefit from it.
Tuition Fees — House of Commons, 2017-07-19
Topic: Education
Jo Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman is correct in saying that there is a Government contribution towards the loan book. It is a conscious, deliberate Government subsidy towards the skills base of the country, and towards giving more people from disadvantaged backgrounds a chance to go to university with finance being absolutely no barrier. We want people to pursue worthwhile, socially valuable careers that may not lead to high earnings—careers in social work, for instance—and we also want people to be able to take on childbearing and family-rearing responsibilities. Those are all reasons why the state will continue to make a contribution towards the cost of the loan book
Tuition Fees — House of Commons, 2017-07-19
Topic: Education
Jo Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): I have already given way a number of times, and I am now going to make some progress The move to a predominantly loan-based system has enabled us to increase the level of financial support available to disadvantaged students. I am pleased to say that the application rate for 18-year olds from disadvantaged backgrounds is at an all-time high. We have also seen record numbers of black and minority-ethnic students going into higher education in recent years. There is more to be done, but we are making progress. The effectiveness of our system and our reforms has been recognised by the OECD. In September 2016, its head of education, Andreas Schleicher, said "the UK has been able to meet rising demand for tertiary education with more resources…by finding effective ways to share the costs and benefits" The Government remain committed to providing a fair deal for students and ensuring that England’s universities are sustainably and properly financed. That has enabled them to maintain their world-class standing, with funding per student per degree up 25% as a result of our changes.
Tuition Fees — House of Commons, 2017-07-19
Topic: Education
Jo Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): We have provided significant clarity in that respect. EU students will continue to be eligible for access to student support in 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19. We have provided the clarity that they need. They know that for the duration of their studies they will be able to come here, access home fee status and access student support The £9,000 fee cap that we set in 2012 is now worth £8,500 in real terms. If we leave it unchanged, it will be worth just £8,000 by the end of this Parliament. We simply cannot let that happen, as it would inevitably put the quality of teaching in our universities at risk and undermine the financial sustainability of the sector.
Tuition Fees — House of Commons, 2017-07-19
Topic: Education
Jo Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): I am puzzled by that intervention. Our per-university, per-student funding has risen by 25% as a result of our reforms. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to read the report published last week by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, he will see that, on a per-student basis, our universities, per degree, are better funded than they have been at any point during the past 30 years.
Tuition Fees — House of Commons, 2017-07-19
Topic: Education
James Roger Cartlidge (Conservative, Centre-right): May I pursue the logic of that point? Is it not the case that if these fee increases do not take place, we will effectively be cutting spending on universities? Should we not be fighting cuts and opposing Labour’s plan to cut spending on higher education?
Tuition Fees — House of Commons, 2017-07-19
Topic: Education
Jo Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): Indeed. Our system of student finance is enabling our universities to be funded sustainably. As I have said, per-student, per-degree funding is up by 25%, but we will put all that at risk if we move anywhere near Labour’s policy platform.
Tuition Fees — House of Commons, 2017-07-19
Topic: Education
Miriam Jane Alice Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): Is it not true that Labour Members are now feigning confusion over parliamentary process on this, having previously deliberately created their own confusion? The reality on the doorsteps across Eastleigh was that Labour’s promise to deal with tuition fees included the possibility of covering bank overdrafts. Does the Minister agree that this is an empty promise from a mathematically illiterate party? People felt bank overdrafts, as well as student loans, were being dealt with.
Tuition Fees — House of Commons, 2017-07-19
Topic: Education
Jo Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): That goes to show the extent to which the Labour party misled the country in the run-up to the general election, and I think my hon. Friend’s constituents are owed an apology Let us not forget that it was a Labour Government under Prime Minister Tony Blair who sensibly put in place these legal powers, which we used some six months ago, to uprate fees in line with inflation through a negative procedure. However, under the regulations we are debating today, rather than increasing fees for everyone, we are only allowing providers to maintain their fees in line with inflation if they can demonstrate that they are using these resources well in terms of providing high-quality teaching and good outcomes for their students. Universities UK and GuildHE, the two main representative bodies that collectively represent over 170 higher education providers, have made it clear that allowing the value of fees to be maintained in real terms is essential if our providers are to continue to deliver high-quality teaching. Gordon McKenzie, the chief executive of GuildHE, made it clear that "fees had to rise by inflation at some point and it was fairer for students if those rises were linked to an assessment of quality", as the Government are doing.
Tuition Fees — House of Commons, 2017-07-19
Topic: Education
Julian Carlton Knight (Conservative, Centre-right): University education is also a route to higher earnings, worth up to a quarter of a million pounds over a lifetime. If we go forward with Labour’s policy to abolish tuition fees, it would have a damaging effect on those from disadvantaged backgrounds, as we have seen in Scotland, where there is a fall in the number of people from disadvantaged communities applying to university.
Tuition Fees — House of Commons, 2017-07-19
Topic: Education
Jo Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Labour’s policies would do the opposite of what it says they would do; they would represent a huge step backwards for social mobility in this country, they would be bad for taxpayers, who would be left shouldering the entire cost of the higher education system, and they would leave the finances of our university system in tatters As Professor Steve Smith, vice-chancellor of Exeter University, has said: "The Teaching Excellence Framework presents us with an opportunity to invest in our students’ futures and the long-term economic success of our country, and to be recognised for outstanding teaching at the same time…The Government rightly wants ‘something for something’, for the economy and for students."
Tuition Fees — House of Commons, 2017-07-19
Topic: Education
Jo Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): As I have already made clear on a number of occasions, these regulations have been in force for the last six months; they are already law—they are already applying across the sector Widening participation is an important policy objective for this Government. Alongside incentivising improvements in teaching, the Government’s policies on student fees have also allowed us to lift the student number cap. This is allowing more people than ever before to benefit from a university education. As I said, disadvantaged 18-year-olds are now 43% more likely to go to university than in 2009, and 52% more likely to go to a high-tariff institution. For the last application cycle, the entry rate for 18-year-olds from disadvantaged backgrounds is at a record high: 19.5% in 2016, compared with 13.6% in 2009. The application rate and actual number of English 18-year-old applicants is at record level in this entry cycle This Government have made it clear that finance should not be a barrier to going to university, which is why we have made more funding available to students. By replacing maintenance grants with loans, we have been able to increase the funding for living costs that some of the most disadvantaged students receive. It is an increase of over 10% in the current academic year, with a further 2.8% increase for 2017-18. We have worked with the Office for Fair Access to encourage universities to do more to help disadvantaged students. In 2017-18, institutions are expected to spend over £800 million on measures to improve the access and success of disadvantaged students. This is more than double the amount spent in 2009-10.
Tuition Fees — House of Commons, 2017-07-19
Topic: Education
Geoffrey Robert Clifton-Brown (Conservative, Centre-right): I am sure my hon. Friend is aware that our education exports last year exceeded those of our insurance industry, mainly fuelled by the excellence of our universities. If we do not fund them properly, we will not maintain world-class education at our universities.
Tuition Fees — House of Commons, 2017-07-19
Topic: Education
Jo Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is entirely right. Sustainable funding of our system is essential for our universities to continue to attract international students from around the world. Moving to the system Labour is advocating would leave their finances in tatters and be hugely damaging to the quality of teaching they can offer Although we are making good progress on widening participation, more can be done, and we are doing more. For example, in the latest guidance given to the Director of Fair Access we acknowledged that selective institutions, including Oxbridge and parts of the Russell Group, already do much to widen access, but we have asked the Director of Fair Access to push much harder to see that more progress is made. In the Higher Education and Research Act 2017, we are strengthening our approach to widening participation by placing an overarching duty on the Office for Students to consider the promotion of equality of opportunity in relation to access and participation in all that it does. The new Director for Fair Access will have a clear role looking across the full student lifecycle The hon. Member for Blackpool South (Gordon Marsden) has been chuntering about drop-out rates for several minutes. I would like to inform him that drop-out rates are lower now for all students—young, mature, disadvantaged and those from black and minority ethnic backgrounds—than when we came into office in 2010, and we are taking all the steps I have just mentioned to ensure they stay among the very lowest in the OECD. The Act also requires individual higher education providers to publish their respective student application, offer, acceptances, drop-out and attainment rates, broken down by gender, ethnicity and socioeconomic background, through the transparency duty on the Office for Students. Greater transparency will push universities into further action in this area, to build on what has already been achieved.
Tuition Fees — House of Commons, 2017-07-19
Topic: Education
Jo Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, and I acknowledge the fall, but he needs to understand that there are complex reasons for it, including the rapid increase in the proportion of people entering higher education at the young age of 18. This means that there is a smaller stock of students seeking to participate in part-time and mature study later in life. We also have one of the most buoyant labour markets of any economy anywhere in the world, which increases the opportunity cost of study for people later on in life, at a time when they would otherwise be earning significant sums of money. But we recognise that there is a fall, and we are taking significant steps to address some of the financial barriers that mature students face. That is why from the next academic year we are introducing a part-time maintenance grant on the same basis as the current full-time equivalent grant.
Tuition Fees — House of Commons, 2017-07-19
Topic: Education
Andrew Theakstone Percy (Conservative, Centre-right): On the point about disadvantage, before young people get to university they have to go through the FE system. Will the Minister therefore congratulate North Lincolnshire’s Conservative council, which has confirmed this week that its post-16 student bus passes will again be set at £30 for the coming year, down from £200 a year under Labour? Does this not demonstrate once again that, when it comes to students, Labour says one thing when in opposition and does something very different when in power?
Tuition Fees — House of Commons, 2017-07-19
Topic: Social Welfare
Alexander John Gervase Chalk (Conservative, Centre-right): Has the hon. Lady read the report by the Sutton Trust, the social mobility charity, which was absolutely damning about social mobility in Scotland as a specific result of the SNP’s policy of capping places? Does she not deprecate the fact that social mobility in Scotland is going into reverse?
Tuition Fees — House of Commons, 2017-07-19
Topic: Education
Geoffrey Robert Clifton-Brown (Conservative, Centre-right): Have not further education budgets in Scotland been cut continually, which has led to a reduction of 152,000 young students in Scotland? Is it not high time to do what the Conservative party manifesto pledged to do, which is to reverse those cuts so that we give our young people a fair chance in life?
Tuition Fees — House of Commons, 2017-07-19
Topic: Education
Geoffrey Robert Clifton-Brown (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady is generous in giving way. She has talked about the most vulnerable students in Scotland and about being able to work and learn. Can she explain why the Scottish Government receive the apprenticeship levy yet sponsor only a very modest 30,000 apprenticeships, compared with the 3 million awarded in the UK during the last Parliament?
Tuition Fees — House of Commons, 2017-07-19
Topic: Education
Robert Henry Halfon (Conservative, Centre-right): This is an important debate. I have huge respect for the Minister and all the work he has done to make our university sector better by ensuring that students from all backgrounds have the chance to climb the ladder of opportunity In considering student fees, we have a duty of fairness to both the taxpayer and the student, and it is right that taxpayers should not bear the burden alone. A number of principles need to be clear when it comes to tuition fees. The first is that we help students from disadvantaged backgrounds not just get on that ladder of opportunity, but get to the top. The second is that the interest rates charged should be fair for students. The third is value for money. When we talk about disadvantaged backgrounds, we need to be sure that we mean those at the very bottom struggling the most, as well as those who are just about managing Earlier this year, we heard that the numbers of working-class students entering the top universities had fallen over the last decade. Although more of our poorest young people are entering university, most are winning places at the lower and middle-ranked institutions rather than those offering the best opportunities for high-earning graduate careers. Disadvantaged graduates will suffer even more acutely than their more affluent peers on graduation, but they will also suffer a class pay gap that means that professional employees from poorer backgrounds are paid almost £7,000 a year less than their peers from more privileged families My hon. Friend the Minister spoke powerfully about what he wanted to do to improve the prospects of part-time students, and he recognised that the figures had declined. I welcome that and urge him to do everything possible to support part-time students, particularly single parents on low incomes who may fear going to university because of the size of the loan What does value for money mean when it comes to a university education? Why can universities charge the same high fees when there is such variation in the jobs that students find? The Minister has done a lot of work on that and on the new measurements he has introduced, but surely the time has come to look at the level of fees as compared with the destination data. People go to university to climb the ladder of prosperity, and to improve the skills and productivity of our nation. If they pay £9,000-plus and come out with a good job—job done. If they do not come out with a good job, we need to ask why.
Tuition Fees — House of Commons, 2017-07-19
Topic: Education
Robert Henry Halfon (Conservative, Centre-right): I have a lot of sympathy with my hon. Friend’s point We need to look carefully at the salaries of the senior management of universities. Something is going wrong if there are significant increases in the salaries of top management but poor destinations for graduates. To be honest, I do not mind what management figures earn if every single person who leaves that university gets a good job at the end. If they do not, I cannot understand why some vice-chancellors receive huge increases in their pay but fail to provide good outcomes. I am not going to name those universities today, but we need to take a hard look at this.
Tuition Fees — House of Commons, 2017-07-19
Topic: Education
Julian Carlton Knight (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend is making a powerful and considered speech. Does he agree that we should also look at the length of university courses? Three years seems a little long for some courses, considering the smaller number of teaching hours.
Tuition Fees — House of Commons, 2017-07-19
Topic: Education
Robert Henry Halfon (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes. My hon. Friend makes a point that I will come to, which relates to business rates. This is about not just the length of courses, but the way in which terms are structured. I said at the beginning of my remarks that the burden on the taxpayer needs to be fair, but we also need to ensure that the burden on the student is fair A constituent of mine entered university during the first year of £9,000 tuition fees, and her debt is now around £45,000 including the maintenance loan. I am not against student loans. It is not fair for working people in my constituency to bear the full burden of paying for all students to go to university. However, value for money also involves interest rates. Interest rate levels are much lower in the United States and, as I understand it, there are quite a few months in the year when students have more opportunities to work so they can pay back their loans. That relates to what my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Julian Knight) just said. The interest rate here, which the Minister knows is quite high, puts people off. I urge him to look into what can be done to have a system similar to that in the United States Of course, not all courses or institutions offer the same opportunities for employment after graduating. A history degree from a Russell Group university could, after five years, see someone earning double what they would have earned had they received the same degree from a less prestigious institution. University graduates have traditionally out-earned their non-graduate peers, but the gap appears to be narrowing. The value of a degree has begun to decline as the supply of graduates has outstripped demand. The Institute for Fiscal Studies recently warned that further increases in the number of graduates could lessen the financial gains of a degree The Minister knows that I am passionate about and strongly believe in apprenticeships, and he is a huge supporter of degree apprenticeships. It is important that all students know that there is a choice. There is a chance that we can offer every young person an apprenticeship, all the way from level 2 right up to degree level. We need as much investment as possible in degree apprenticeships, for which there is no loan. Apprentices earn while they learn, are virtually guaranteed to get a job afterwards, and get the skills and training they need. That would be a huge boon to people from disadvantaged to backgrounds. The levy must be used to fund degree apprenticeships as much as possible, as this will transform the nature of the debate, particularly for those from disadvantaged backgrounds.