HC Deb 04 December 2003 vol 415 cc643-4
13. Sir Sydney Chapman (Chipping Barnet) (Con)

What estimate he has made of the total level of debt of students following the introduction of top-up fees. [141769]

The Secretary of State for Education and Skills (Mr. Charles Clarke)

The level of student loan after the introduction of variable fees will depend on a number of factors: the level of fee charged by the student's higher education institution; how much loan they take out to cover the cost of that fee; how much maintenance loan they choose to take out; and the level of any bursary made available by the university. Those will all be decisions for higher education institutions and individual students.

Sir Sydney Chapman

Surely, the Secretary of State has made an estimate of what the increase in student debt will be. Is not it true to say that it will probably double, and that that is most likely to lead to a graduate brain drain, whereby people go abroad to avoid having to pay considerable debts? Has he made any assessment of that?

Mr. Clarke

I certainly do not accept the second part of the hon. Gentleman's question. On the first part, one can make a series of assessments based on different positions, as I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Paul Farrelly). Such assessments can be produced. As my right hon. Friend the Minister for Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education said earlier, our current estimate is just under £9,000 of debt, and it will go up under our proposals—of that there is no doubt—but not to the level indicated in some of the reports. As I said earlier, what is really important is to discuss the fundamentals of the scheme and to understand how it will impact.