HC Deb 23 March 2000 vol 346 cc1105-6
10. Mr. Peter Brooke (Cities of London and Westminster)

If he will make a statement on top-up fees in higher education. [114607]

The Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mr. David Blunkett)

I, and the House, have specifically ruled out top-up fees. Over the three years of the spending review, an additional £1 billion plus has been allocated to higher education. We have reversed the efficiency gains that were running at 4 per cent. under the previous Government, and we have also put a real-terms increase of 11 per cent. into universities. Therefore, we feel justified in ensuring that we do not fragment the system.

Mr. Brooke

As the relevant Minister at Education questions a month ago deftly—even brazenly—avoided answering my question on whether the Government would accelerate their promised review of tuition fees, would the Secretary of State answer that question? If top-up fees have been ruled out, and if, as the Government indicated on Tuesday, schools remain their principal educational priority, how are we to sustain and maintain our world-class universities?

Mr. Blunkett

First, I have already announced a 5.4 per cent. increase for 2001–02. Secondly, a £1.4 billion investment in research is taking place with the Wellcome Trust, with 75 per cent. of research funding going to the top 30 university departments.

To pick up on the speech that I made at Greenwich, we want to ensure that universities in this country link together through the use of information technology—but also join, as many are doing, with those in Europe and north America to share teaching and research resources. We want to ensure that their excellence is available in this country and is enhanced by the available expertise in world-class universities elsewhere.

Mr. Bill Rammell (Harlow)

My right hon. Friend will be aware of the experience in Australia, where top-up fees were introduced in 1996 and led to a reduction in overall applications and a narrowing of the social base of students going to Australian universities. Would not the replication of such a system in Britain run completely counter to our aspiration to get 50 per cent. of the under-30s into universities by 2010? Is not that a powerful reason why Ministers are right to resist Conservative party pressure on top-up fees?

Mr. Blunkett

Anything that discourages open access to all universities and their departments in this country is, in my view, wrong. Those who argue for substantial differentiation in fees have to answer where the resources would come from to pay for those on low incomes to enter university departments, given that the top-up fee that they were levying would have to pay for that and for any improvement in quality. They would also have to answer how it would be possible for any Minister to argue with the Treasury for additional resources if those resources were going to be obtained by the universities levying fees on students rather than sharing the costs, as we are at present, with the taxpayer.

Dr. Evan Harris (Oxford, West and Abingdon)

Does the Secretary of State's reassurance that he has ruled out implementing top-up fees carry the same, more, or less authority than the Government's statement at the election that they had no plans to introduce tuition fees?

Mr. Blunkett

As we did not say that, the question is grossly misleading. We indicated the changes that we would introduce in maintenance payments and the repayment system. We spelled that out in our documents and our manifesto. We indicated that we were perfectly willing to consider the recommendations on fees in the Dearing inquiry report. In fact, we ruled out the Dearing proposal, espoused by the Conservative party, that all students should pay a contribution towards fees. Instead, we exempted those on low incomes, so that in England more than one third of students pay no fees at all.