Tuition Fees — House of Commons, 2017-07-19
Topic: Education
Kevin Paul Hollinrake (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), although I did not concur with all his points. I will address one or two of them in my speech. First, however, let me join others in congratulating the hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist). She made a very touching and well-delivered speech, and it was wonderful to hear about her work in the Samaritans, which—in addition to her work as a Member of Parliament—shows that she is a true public servant. Whatever the public or the media may say, I believe that the vast majority of people who decide to enter the world of parliamentary politics do so because they want to make the world a better place, and it is clear that that is why the hon. Lady is sitting on the green Benches today. I welcome her to the House I think that all of us, when we remember our time at school, describe someone as our favourite teacher. Mine was a gentleman called Ken Hudson, my physics teacher. Ken was a pipe-smoking, bespectacled gentleman with a haircut like Ray Reardon’s—hon. Members may remember that he was a snooker player. Ken was definitely my inspiration, although I did not do tremendously well in physics at A-level or at college I remember the day we did our physics mock O-level. None of the class did particularly well. Ken walked into our classroom, stood by the blackboard, wiped it down, and just looked at us until we all went very quiet. Then he wrote across the blackboard in chalk, "The world does not owe you a living". That has stuck with me for 37 years, and it has stuck with my children, too, because I tell them about it an awful lot—the principle that the world does not owe anyone a living. I also tell them that their parents do not owe them a living My son, who had just left his sixth form, had to choose whether to go to university or enter the world of work. Was he going to invest in his education? Was he going to university? If a person can provide for themselves at 18, the world does not owe them a living. At that point, it is their decision whether to invest their money—tuition fees and student accommodation away from home—and time. All that would add to my son’s debt in the future. Did he want to spend up to £30,000, £40,000 or £50,000 on his education, which might pay in the future? As we have heard, it could pay up to a quarter of million pounds over a lifetime, so that might have been a sensible choice to make. He decided not to do that, but instead to move into the world of work. Do I think it is right that he, having made that decision, should fund others who choose to go down a different route and enter higher education and university? I do not think it is right that he should have to bear that burden; surely the burden should be carried by those who benefit most from that education Of course other people benefit from the fact that our society is better educated, but there is a clear correlation between someone’s education and their investment in it, and the long-term return that they will see from it. A balance needs to be struck; somebody has to pay. We do not have a bottomless pit of money; that is an absolute fact. So who will pay is the key question I tried to intervene on the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), because I wanted to ask him a question. He has a very sensible economic perspective. At a time when we are spending £60 billion more every year than we are collecting in taxes, does he honestly feel that the £11.2 billion a year allocated to this policy in the Labour manifesto is the best way to spend that public money at this time, with all the other demands we have, including on our healthcare and our pre-18 education? Does he honestly feel that is the best use of that public money? I do not We have to make ends meet in this country, and therefore must choose where to allocate our resources for the best effect. [Interruption.] I am happy to take an intervention, but the point is that the Labour manifesto clearly has £250 billion of extra spending, plus £25 billion a year in infrastructure spending, which is another £125 billion. It would also nationalise the water companies and the railways. That amounts to £500 billion of extra debt. That same manifesto also says that if Labour had been in government they would have reduced the national debt over the course of this Parliament. How is that possible? How does any of this stack up? It is uncosted spending after uncosted spending The issue of past student debt was not in the manifesto, of course, but what the Leader of the Opposition said about that is clear, and not every party commitment needs to be in the manifesto for people to have a reasonable degree of expectation that it will be delivered. He said: "I will deal with those already burdened with student debt." That was a clear commitment. So on top of that £500 billion, there is another £111 billion—uncosted debt after uncosted debt. That is the reality, and we cannot carry on like that. We must not go back to the 1970s, which is when I grew up; my household had uncollected rubbish and the TV used to go off at 10 o’clock. I am old enough to remember that, and we will return to it if we do not maintain a sensible economic policy It is wrong to think that we on this side of the House are not worried about student debt. Of course I am worried about student debt—both that of the many students across the country, and potentially that of my children, as I have three more children, some of whom might choose to go to university. We should be talking about constructive ways of allowing students to go through university and benefit from higher education without incurring so much debt. One way of doing so would be to have shorter courses. My daughter is looking at a psychology course.