§ 5. Matthew Green (Ludlow)If he will make a statement on student support for 2003–04. [75269]
§ The Minister for Lifelong Learning and Higher Education (Margaret Hodge)We have no plans to make widespread changes to the financial support arrangements for students entering or continuing in higher education in 2003.
§ Matthew GreenGiven that students entering university now and perhaps going on to a public sector job would face at least 15 years of repaying their loans at 9 per cent. of their earnings above £10,000, will the Minister take this opportunity to state that the Government will never introduce commercial rates on loans, which would add another five or more years to the repayment of those loans for the average public sector worker?
§ Margaret HodgeI am not in the business of pre-empting the higher education strategy document that we will be publishing at the end of the month. However, our income-contingent loan scheme is far superior to the old mortgage-style loan scheme that the previous Government introduced, as it ensures that people repay their loan according to what they earn.
§ Mr. David Lepper (Brighton, Pavilion)As a member of the National Union of Teachers, may I associate myself with the comments that have been made from these Benches about our former Front-Bench colleague, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Estelle Morris)? Notwithstanding my hon. Friend's understandable comment about not pre-empting announcements which I am glad to hear are to be made later this month, will she take this opportunity to reaffirm what I understand has always been the Government's policy: their opposition to top-up tuition fees in universities?
§ Margaret HodgeMy time is slightly ahead of me. We shall announce our higher education strategy document at the end of next month. I am not in a position today to make any statement about what will be incorporated in it. What I am happy to say is that we will ensure that debt and the fear of debt do not inhibit students from participating in higher education, and that we want to create not a social elite but an intellectual elite in which everyone, according to ability, is allowed to develop his or her full potential.
§ Adam Price (East Carmarthen and Dinefwr)The Minister will be aware of the Assembly learning grant which was introduced in Wales at the beginning of the current academic session. Can she tell me why grant awards to low-income students are being classed as income and therefore being clawed back by the Government from part-time students—a practice that I understand is not followed in the case of the English and Welsh universities access fund?
§ Margaret HodgeI understand that negotiations are proceeding as we speak between my colleagues in the Welsh Assembly and those in the Department for Work and Pensions over whether the new grants should be classed as income for benefit purposes. I look forward to learning the outcome.
§ Ms Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley)May I too associate myself with the tribute to the former Secretary 393 of State for Education and Skills, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Estelle Morris), and with the welcome to my right hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke)?
Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the important aims of student support should be to ensure that children from worse-off backgrounds can go to university, as they currently cannot, and not to continue to give unwarranted support to children from better-off backgrounds?
§ Margaret HodgeI have often said in the House that I think that in future we will be judged, in relation to increasing participation in higher education, on whether we have managed to change the socio-economic profile of those who enter it. I have also said, and will reiterate, that we have set ourselves a complex challenge. We need to raise standards in our secondary schools to ensure that more young people from lower income groups stay at school, and we need to raise their aspirations so that they aim higher and see university as an option.